hYstErOsALpiNGogRaM - You'Ve BeEn wArNeD!

      Add some more expensive pieces of equipment and 2 rooms coming off this one with even more technical looking stuff and some computers and a few monitors and 3 staff wearing those lead vests; then you have a good idea of what I walked into yesterday.

Hysterosalpingogram = flight or fight


Warning: Do Not Have One Of These!


Do not even attempt to pronounce this mouth full.


This is the most painful and degrading test I have ever had to endure.


I was told...'oh some women feel cramping, some women feel nothing'.......Bullshit they feel nothing!!! I want to talk to these women who I'm sure are just fictional characters made up by nervous Doctors who know damn well how fucking excruciating this procedure is.


I am a happy-go-lucky soulful woman who desperately wants to have kids. I will do anything to make this happen. I was even willing to have this test, even though it was already proven from the laparoscopy surgery that my fallopian tubes were blocked; just to double check this fact. What the fuck was I thinking?! If I knew what I know now I would have told them to shove it up their arses, because why do they need to double check that some one's fallopian tubes are blocked. And guess what....Result of the hour and a half long torturing session....'Yep - they're still fucking blocked!' - funny enough.


I was composed to begin with. I was feeling as positive as humanly possible while sitting in a dreadful green hospital surgical gown with nothing more on except my woolly blue socks my mum and brother sent me over from Oz recently (a little touch of home - just to make you feel even more home-sick and isolated), while precariously perched at the end of a very technical looking examination table that I needed a two step stool to gain access to, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of specialty medical imaging equipment.


The female Doctor was a pleasant surprise, I must say I have come to expect male doctors in this field of work, and she explained the procedure well and in depth which gave me no indication what so ever as to what I was about to go through, but I smiled and breathed deeply and thought she looked like a nice person and I liked the sound of her voice, even when she was saying things like 'in through your cervix' and 'might be a bit uncomfortable'.


I was OK still when the speculum went in, and out, and up, and down, and round to the side, and up again, and then in a bit further, and then off to the right a bit more, and then *Snapped* shut accidentally on my now tender and battered cervix. This happened again and again as this procedure proceeded with more and more difficulty unfortunately for me and my unprepared cervix.


The female nurse and the male radiographer who were also in attendance were chatting to me about life in NZ compared to my old life back on the Gold Coast, farming, my midwifery career, my new husband and the recent wedding, Akitio Beach, Dannevirke and the Viking, a brief history on Vikings...but eventually they lost me to overwhelming 'discomfort' that had me shielding my face, crying uncontrollably real tears and sobbing and eventually they lost me all together as I went into complete shut-down mode.


I couldn't speak. The pain was so bad, especially when the catheter actually made its way into my uterus finally, but the worst bit was definitely the dye radiation being injected into my fallopian tube. This pain I cannot describe. Just believe me when I say that it caused me to cry out, throw my head back in anguish and I think I almost kicked the doctor in the head.


The right fallopian tube had been done, it was blocked. the image recorded just before the balloon on the catheter gave way and completely came out. The whole procedure would have to be repeated to get the left tube.


Now I was numb beyond anything I have ever experienced, streams of tears streaking both sides of my face and into my hair and ears. My legs and body shaking convulsively from being in the 'frog position' for too long. I looked at the doctor who was now up near my face and repeating 'are you still with us? do you want to go on?' - oh shit...I have to make a decision. I said...'well if you have to do it all again just to get the left side...you may as well do it now, because there is no way in hell I am going to be coming back to have this done again!' She seemed to get my point and prepared for round two.


The nurse (who's name eludes me now) was so nice. Holding my hand and joining in to shielding my tears and face. Everyone in that room looked just as traumatised by this event as I felt - including the doctor. The nurses hands were warm and her voice was sincere and I wonder what I would have done without her - These are the thoughts I had while my body was going into shut-down freak-out mode for the second time in just under an hour.


This time I was positioned on my side - no good. Then back onto my back with my hands under my bottom - no good. Then slightly onto my right side with my hands still under my bottom - catheter in. Now more pain while they hold that position and check with the CT scan that the tube is in the correct place...and now for the dye - aahHHHhHHhOowWWWooOOhhaaHHHHHHHhhh!!!!! Full on outwardly crying and sobbing again. And again, and again. The catheter would not stay in the left fallopian tube (or at least that is my understanding of what I was hearing muttered around my nether regions). The intense pain that I felt could not be described as 'uncomfortable'. Wind pain can be described as 'uncomfortable', chatting to my mother while she is manic could also be described as 'uncomfortable', but this can be only described as 'Fucking insanely painful'. I give it a pain score of 8 and a half out of 10 - and I'm being realistic about the fact that I'm sure there are more painful things but I don't ever want to experience those either.

Turned out the left fallopian tube is so badly blocked and damaged that the dye could not penetrate it even a little bit, hence why we had so much trouble and why the catheter balloon kept being pushed back with the intense pressure building up and back out through my cervix and why I was in so much more pain and 'discomfort'.


So what did we learn from all this? ....my tubes are indeed still blocked (clap, clap), there is absolutely no way that I can ever get pregnant on my own, and although hopefully now I will be ordaned and accepted as infertile enough to go on the lengthy IVF waiting list (Joy), for the time being I'm sore, bleeding and I can't walk straight.


Following my ordeal I had to go grocery shopping and I admit I wasn't concentrating and overspent as usual, I had a two hour drive home on my own; to which I cried all the way, and then hobbled into a warm bath, after being yelled at for over spending on the groceries and then crawled into bed and stayed there for several hours.


Is it all worth it? I think not, now.


I told the doctor and nurse that I thought adoption was looking better and better all the time.


Hope my cervix forgives me. Better not tell it that all this is so I can hope to give birth through it one day.