11.11.11

As mothers, we have experienced the humility of completely losing our modesty. Whether its having to spread eagle for a pap, or having a stranger insert their fingers to see how far the cervix has dialated; it can be quite awful.

Have you ever heard of brachytherapy? When you have cervical cancer, after five weeks of radiating your pelvic area, they often do brachytherapy. In laymans terms, they fill your vagina with about a dozen ball bearings. Each ball bearing is attached to a long tube projecting from your vagina. They insert these while you are under anesthesia, when you wake up they roll you to the radiation tomb and hook each long tube to another long tube that will inject radiation directly into your cervix. It's loads of fun. (I actually found an image online, but decided against sharing it with you. You're welcome.) They do not put you under to pull these ball bearings out of your vagina...just sayin'.

Okay, so all that is pretty harsh. You get used to people seeing your bare ass and strangers hands in your stuff. Whatever, you have cancer you don't care after the initial shock of it all.

Now, all that being said, today was a whole new level of awkwardness and ugh. Today , it went like this: drop my pants, kneel in the prayer position, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr as the prayer chair turns me on my head, then have someone shove a flashlight up my bum.
Besides the obvious, let me tell you what I found hilarious about the entire situation. The doctor leaves the room, the nurse has me drop my pants. She then covers my wide white arse with a paper sheet. She then taps on the door, the doctor reenters, and he then tears a rip in the middle of the sheet to get to my behind. It makes me laugh just typing this...I read that in France, you don't even get a little modesty paper vest when you have a mammogram...I get a butt sheet with a rip in the middle. Take that France.