If your nether regions offend you, cut them out.

After not being at the university all summer, my doctor returned yesterday to her practice at health services and I was able to see her this afternoon. We started off with the usual pleasantries: How was your summer? Did you go anywhere? We moved to the reason for my visit--my annual oil and filter change, which elicited a laugh--before I hit her with my real raison d’être for being there.

She listened sympathetically and then examined me. First she weighed me, then looked in my ears, listened to my heart and my lungs, took my blood pressure (110/62) and examined my abdomen for whatever it is doctors look for there. Swollen lymph nodes? Anyway, everything was fine.

She didn’t take a pap smear (thank goodness!) this time, but did have me lie on the table with my feet in the stirrups (you know the position, ladies) and proceeded to poke me with a Q-tip, and I yelped whenever she touched a sensitive spot. There were several, some worse than others. This is what she told me:

To the unaided eye, everything appears normal down there. However, if we were to examine my vagina with a microscope, we would see that the nerve endings are inflamed. This is why I am so sensitive down there. What should be pleasant ends up being unbearable. There are two treatments for this form of vestibulitis: a) surgery, where the afflicted parts of the vaginal wall are cut away, and b) the application of a topical anaesthetic prior to penetration.

The first is totally unacceptable to me. I don’t see any reason why I should be a burden on the public healthcare purse just so I can have sex. The doctor wrote out a prescription for XyI0caine, a topical anaesthetic gel, which I filled on the way home, but I am still not happy with the situation. It will take me a while before I am ready to try it again.

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