Graphic detail warning: male members of my family might want to give this one a swerve
Very few words are taboo now, when it comes to medical problems. When I worked in mental health, people would often refer to the stigma surrounding cancer just a few decades ago, because it sounds so ridiculous to my generation that anyone would be ashamed of saying the word 'cancer' or admitting they had it. Hopefully, the same will be true of mental health problems for the next generation - it would be wonderful if my boys grow up in a world where schizophrenia, depression and the like are discussed in the same open way as physical health problems.
I remember being quite taken aback, not long after I had Logie, just over four years ago, when I took someone from my NCT group out for tea, along with her baby and her mother. This woman was having a challenging time, as her baby had appalling reflux and apparently cried non-stop. Her mother and I were queuing for the tea, out of earshot of her exhausted daughter, surrounded only by strangers, and I was making sympathetic noises about how rough it must be for all involved. The mother leaned towards me, did a furtive look round, and said it had even been suggested that her daughter might have...then mouthed the word 'depression' in such an exaggerated but silent way I would've found it funny, were it not for the fact that it really, really wasn't.
Did you ever watch Miranda on BBC1? Well this mother wasn't unlike Miranda's mother, Penny, played by Patricia Hodge. She would definitely have joined Penny's campaign to ban people wearing tracksuits from Waitrose. But I didn't think that people really mouthed words like that in real life, unless for comedic effect.
However, I've had to use the word 'coil' quite a lot recently, and it turns out I can't say it normally. I put on a funny accent, which I do in an exaggerated whisper, just for that one word. It makes me feel like such a dick. I go into the beginning of the sentence bravely, determined to say it in an ordinary voice, but then chicken out. Even with my female friends - not that I've described the situation to any of my male friends, come to think of it - there's something about me, or something about the word coil, that means I can't say it without dropping my voice. I think I might even raise my eyebrows when I say it too.
Anyway, my coil went AWOL recently. It had only recently been introduced to my...ahem, life...a couple of months beforehand. The whole idea of a coil always seemed terribly middle-aged and unfashionable to me. But then again, those are two characteristics I take great pride in these days, and are evidenced by the following:
1) My being unable to look at clothes in a smart shop without checking the washing instructions on anything I like the look of. Dry clean or handwash only and it's out. Yup, I am that woman in Cos, methodically checking all the labels, but never purchasing anything because she's forgotten yet again that you can't carry off 'boxy' styles if you're fat.
2) I am on the 5:2 diet.
3) My eyebrows are balding.
4) I asked for - and received - a cardigan debobbler for Christmas when I was under the age of 35. From my husband. I've never actually used it, but still.
So my coil was a bit uncomfortable after it was fitted, but I understood that this was to be expected. About a month later I got what felt like cystitis. The only male GP at our practice did a urine test (on me, not himself), confirmed the presence of some sort of infection, and gave me some antibiotics. They made it a bit better, but not really.
I went back to the doctor, saw the headmistress GP, who said that my urine now looked okay-ish, but that could be just because the antibiotics had temporarily taken the edge off it. I asked whether this could have anything to do with my coil, since the low pain in my abdomen was getting fairly significant. On top of this I just felt rubbish, but it turns out that's not a medical term. She asked me some questions about bleeding, discharge and pain, all of which I answered in the affirmative, but didn't ask if I could feel the threads.
The threads are, well, thread-like threads attached to the coil, which is a T-shaped device about 5cm long. Mine was made of copper. You're supposed to be able to feel them yourself, without tumbling too far down the rabbit hole. But I had never been able to find them.
As my 6-week post-insertion check was due the following week, she suggested doing an internal swab then and in the meantime holding off on further treatment to see if my symptoms settled down. Which went down like a lead balloon with me, but when your headmistress tells you to grin and bear a certain amount of pain, fatigue and burning sensation in your nether regions it's not something you feel able to have a debate about.
The following week I went back for the check. But my period had started (just a quick shout out now to any male members of the family who have hung in there throughout coil, discharge and period - high fives all around) so this third GP - who had put the thing in in the first place - said she couldn't do the check or any kind of test. I begged for something, as a gallon of cranberry juice a day wasn't touching it, and doing nothing for another week whilst peeing acid and being gently punched on my c-section scar just wasn't an option. She gave me a different course of antibiotics.
The week after that I went back. Some symptoms had eased, some had got worse. She did the check. She couldn't find the threads. She said I might have 'expelled' it. I was pretty sure I'd have noticed that. I asked where else it might have gone, and whether it was causing this infection thing, and she said she didn't know. She asked me if that was okay, whilst making it clear she wasn't going to speculate or be able to answer any more questions. She filled in a form for me to have an urgent transvaginal ultrasound. She wrote URGENT in capital letters.
I phoned the hospital to book the appointment, but they said they wouldn't process the fax for several hours so I should ring back tomorrow. FAX?! See my previous blogs about the use of faxes in this day and age.
I rang back the next morning. Amazingly, they had a slot that lunchtime. Then they rang back, computer error, they didn't. It would be a few days. There was a bank holiday coming up. I fumed, did some work, then booked a private appointment using Bupa for 8:30am the next day. They just needed me to fax the referral form. I gratefully agreed, forgetting my feelings about faxes, let alone the fact that we don't have a fax machine. Cue a phonecall to Jon, where he then calls out to the rest of his office "Does anyone know if we have a fax machine? Really, is that one over there? Does anyone know how to work the fax machine?" After some stressful scanning, I e-mailed everything over to him, in order for him to fax it over. We're still not 100% sure it went through properly, and I suppose there's a chance he scanned it in and e-mailed it to his CEO by mistake. If it comes to it, I'm thinking we could pass the Transvaginal Express off as some sort of train.
I went out that night for a long-planned drink with some school mums, and discussed it with them in my funny voice. They all winced visibly - in fact let's pretend that's the reason we got through quite so many bottles - and had a fascinating group discussion about where it might have gone. One of my favourites drew a diagram in the air with her fingers. The only thing that emerged for sure was that it had been a good twenty years since any of us had had a biology lesson. The truth is I was quite enjoying the drama, because I didn't think anything very serious had gone wrong.
Next morning, not hungover at all, I went for the scan. It involved what I can only describe as a very thick, ergonomic broom handle. A bit like metal detecting, it must have given off a beep, because the sonographer immediately said "It's definitely still in there". I looked at the ceiling and pretended to be concentrating on something else pressing, like what I might have left off my Ocado order.
And here comes the final awkward word of this instalment, then my poor brother can breathe out. Not only do I say this stupidly - think of the noise an owl makes, twit twoo - but I'm unable to do it without pursing my lips into a sort of trumpet. The coil had perforated the lining of my twit twomb.
