And you know what I’m talking about.
I had my cootchie PT today, and I know that at least a few of you have been waiting on the edges of your seats for a full detail report.
You should probably know that the devirginator just so happened to be calling me literally as I was walking out the door. The boy simply could not wait another second without hearing exactly what had gone down. And I know that some of you have been feeling the same way.
But first – a totally random coincidence:
Last night at Pilate’s boot camp, we received a packet with a few handouts. One of those handouts happened to be a Pelvic Floor Self Assessment. Imagine my surprise to see something like that in with my Pilates paperwork just a day before my dreaded appointment.
Apparently Pilates has a lot to do with the pelvic floor muscles, and kegel's especially. So not only am I right where I need to be, but I also would have gotten a gentle push towards PT last night even if I hadn’t already taken the plunge and set up the appointment.
Because it turns out that on a list of 10 qualifiers meant to help new members assess whether or not they may need PT for their cootchie – I was able to check “yes” next to 7 of them.
I almost had to start laughing right then and there. Instead I was simply left shaking my head and thinking “OK, I get it. My vagina is broken. I’m going to get that looked at. I swear.”
So today, at the start of my appointment, I pulled out that sheet and handed it to Dr. PT. She laughed too, but seemed genuinely impressed that the Pilates studio was handing out this information. She even asked me if she could make a copy of it.
After that though – things started to get a little awkward.
First, she asked me about sex. Yes, sex.
For the record – I like sex. I have always liked sex. In the last few years I’ve struggled with what my faith tells me about premarital sex, and what my body tells me about it, but the truth is that I still genuinely question whether or not I will ever get married at all. Given that, and the fact that this kind of feels like a bridge that was crossed a long time ago for me... I'm really not sure there is much going back on the fact that I'm a fairly sexual person.
Within reason of course. It’s not like I’m out humping strangers on the street or anything!
Despite the times when I may wish that I could.
But yes, I enjoy sex.
Unless… Unless a guy is too big. Or, if we’re being really honest, even if they're average.
There is no easy way to say this, but I find sex far more enjoyable when my partner is… less than endowed.
(I sincerely hope my father and grandmother looked away about 200 words ago.)
It’s been a long standing joke amongst my friends and I. I’m the girl who likes small penises. And trust me – there is no good way to tell a guy that. Nothing about those words that makes him feel better about his situation. In fact, I would bet that any guy I’ve had a history of good sex with in the past would probably cringe to read these words right now.
I’m sorry boys. I really am. But seriously – I like you just the way you are!
I actually thought this was normal for years. That the whole “size matters” thing was just a myth. I couldn’t imagine any girl enjoying a sexual encounter with a larger guy. I knew only how much it hurt me to be with even average men. The second things get too deep – I can’t breathe and it stops being fun.
It was only recently that I realized that no – everyone else was not lying about what they liked. I was just an oddball. Someone who had pain when others didn’t.
It was honestly just me.
And this is one of those things that now makes me wonder if perhaps endometriosis wasn’t always an underlying condition. One that hadn’t yet fully manifested, but was there lurking in the background all along. Leading me to walk away from more than one possible relationship when it became clear that what the guy was packing was beyond what I was able to accommodate.
And now that I’ve completely unleashed a very private fact all over my blog, I’m going to get back on point.
Because yes, there is a point.
The reason I bring this up is because one of the first questions she asked me was to rate myself on the following scale:
1.) I sometimes find sex painful, but I don’t avoid it.
2.) I always find sex painful, and I sometimes avoid it.
3.) I always find sex painful, and I always avoid it.
I sat there and thought for a second, and then said (dead serious) “Well… It depends. If he has a small penis, then I’m a 1. If we’re talking average, then I’m probably a 2. But anything above average, and I am definitely a 3.”
Dr. PT just stared at me for a second. I’m pretty sure she was dumbfounded by my answer. I would bet money that she even thought to herself “Did this girl really just say that?” Because after what seemed like far too long of a pause, she let out a little laugh and then moved on.
Hey – don’t ask me about sex if you don’t want an honest answer!
She then had me strip down and put on a pair of loaner gym shorts, which seemed a little odd – but I was more than happy to at least still have pants on.
From there, she had me walk for her, stand (precariously) on one foot and then the other, and complete a series of other exercises that seemed simplistic enough in theory, but left me stumbling just the same and wondering what the heck my ability to hold one leg still without moving the other had to do with my pelvic floor.
After all this observation, she sat me down and explained that she wouldn’t be doing any internal work today. She said that she prefers to wait a few sessions for a patient to be comfortable first, and that with cases like mine (where there is an underlying condition causing the problem to begin with, rather than just a simple muscle pull) manual stimulation isn’t typically super effective anyway.
So it looks like there may be no happy ending after all.
Which I have to say ladies, is something I am completely OK with! Especially today. The idea of anyone touching me anywhere while I am actively bleeding is really just one of those things that makes me want to shudder a little. And not in a good way.
She had me lie back on the table, and felt around my exterior points. There was a lot of near vagina touching, which wasn’t exactly comfortable, but was no more awkward than going to the gynecologist. She found a lot of the areas where I just tend to be tender all the time, and explained to me that even those points directly under my rib cage where I almost always flinch when touched are linked back to those pelvic floor muscles.
Who knew?
Then she had me sit up and gave me her assessment of my overall issues.
She explained that she suspected I had an overabundance of cartilage, and that people with this overabundance tend to be more clumsy (check), because their body doesn’t give them the same signals about their overall parameters that most people get.
Apparently there isn’t much that can be done to fix this, but hey – at least I feel like there is now an explanation for every wall I’ve ever walked directly into!
She also said that people like me tend to be at their best when they have an active lifestyle. That they typically feel better both mentally and physically if they have a regular athletic routine, and that they need exercise more than most people simply to maintain their own sanity.
Again, this describes me to a tee. I was always happiest when I was active and moving, and I’ve long suspected that my deviation from an active lifestyle over the last two years has only led to me feeling worse. Which I think could probably be true for most people, but it was just that much more motivation for me to get back in gear and reclaim my body as my own.
She then said that people with this excess cartilage (and she had a term for this, but it’s not something I can even kind of remember right now) are typically much more flexible (which is something she was able to assess during her exam of me – I will admit, I’ve always been proud of my flexibility!) but are also more prone to pain conditions in general.
None of this is really relevant to anything, except that I am always fascinated by the things doctors in different fields can tell me about my body and life just by looking at me.
And, she said it was information she would be able to use in determining how to best treat me from here.
At the end of the day though, the bulk of my problems now are the result of so much time spent clenching up in pain over the last 2 years. Endometriosis broke my vagina. And now I'll just need a little help fixing it.
We set up weekly appointments for now, and she said that she thinks I’ll be able to see a 50% improvement by the end of the year.
Yes, you read that right. Only a 50% improvement and it’s going to take a year.
I have to admit – my head spun at the idea of one more weekly appointment. I have an incredibly flexible job, and they are more than willing to allow me to use my lunches for doctor’s appointments, but… it just gets embarrassing. I feel like I have gone to the ends of the earth and back in an attempt to be functioning at my very best, but at what point do I put my foot down and say that normal people don’t see nearly as many specialists. Normal people see a doctor once or twice a year, and that’s just fine. Normal people definitely don’t have multiple standing appointments with a variety of practitioners though.
The truth is, I had surgery. This invasive, extreme, miracle surgery. I wanted that to be the end of all of this. I wanted that to be the point where I got my life back. To have it still being dictated by appointments and checkups is just kind of... disheartening.
I think I’m going to give it a few weeks and see how I’m feeling. Technically, this is a problem that I didn’t even realize I was having. Had Dr. Cook not specifically told me that I was having muscle spasms, I would have continued to attribute whatever the heck was going on down there with endometriosis and not thought much more about it. I like the idea of feeling good again. Normal even. But… I’m not sure I have much more patience or time to commit to this endeavor.
I’m tired of being the girl who uses all of her lunches for medical appointments.
But I’m going to give it an honest effort, I swear. Dr. PT said that some of the exercises she’s going to be giving me would be easier if I had a partner (thanks for rubbing it in Doc), but that we would get creative so that I could do most of them myself. So that I could become independent of her and start taking my care into my own hands.
Which is good to know, because I’m pretty sure that “Hey, my vagina is broken. Would you be able to help me work it out sometime?” wouldn’t be one of my better lines.
At the very least, it wouldn’t make me seem very lady like.
Cootchie PT is over.
And it was wholly anti-climactic.
But for all the build up and fear surrounding this appointment in the first place, I think I’m OK with anti-climactic.
Because a climax?
Well… That just would have been weird
