That Takes Ovaries! (15 page)

Next, the bimanual exam. With two fingers inside me, a student checks for cervical tenderness and feels for the uterus. The outside hand palpates the abdomen, pushing down toward the inside fingers. The most rewarding part for students is finding an ovary (yet another first), which feels like an almond hidden under layers of pastry dough (“The number of layers depends on how much pastry I’ve eaten”). Lastly, a student inserts one finger in my rectum, another in my vagina. They are often surprised at how much better they can feel my uterus from two angles.

In separate sessions with students, I also teach breast exams. The first time I did this, I looked at my 38-C breasts (heavy and pendulous: nipples soft, not pert) and wished they were perkier. Then I thought,
Who the hell looks like a centerfold in real life?
I’m a real woman, and this is what women look like. More important, this is what their patients will look like. My self pep talk ended with:
You’re healthy. Get over it. Focus on the work.

With up to eight students, we first practice on a silicone-filled model (with quite lumpy breasts). I show them the palpation technique: Fingers make circles of light, medium, and deep pressure as they move in a vertical stripe pattern (lawnmower versus zigzag). Then I take off my shirt and bra and we look for rashes, dimpling, and changes in the nipples (such as spontaneous discharge or inversion). I teach them to palpate my nodes along the clavicle and under the armpit (“No tickling!”). Then, one at a time, they practice the vertical stripe technique on my breast.

Most students have been a pleasure to teach. A few had terrible palpation skills (I can only hope they’ve gone into research). Two got noticeable erections (I sympathized, as they seemed mortified at this betrayal of their body). A couple were inappropriate (one kept asking if my parents and boyfriend knew I did this work), and one asked me out (though I thought,
Wouldn’t
this
be a story to tell our grandkids?
I said
no,
of course). The majority of my students, however, have been respectful and grateful for the opportunity to learn from, and on, me.

I’m amazed by all the ways this job has impacted my life. As hoped (and as strange as it may sound), undressing in front of strangers has made me more comfortable with my body. Now, years into the job, I take off my shirt and bra, drop my pants, and often feel like a superhero. I’m not a “perfect 10,” just a healthy, strong woman, unashamed of her body. I feel students’ admiration and respect, and I deserve it because I am doing important work for women and women’s health. In addition, I’ve become knowledgeable about my reproductive health. Knowing where my uterus is and what my cervix looks like makes me more in touch with being a woman. On the downside, as “party talk” goes, telling people I’m a pelvic educator can be a conversation starter—or stopper. And at times, no amount of kisses could summon my libido because it got lost earlier in the day during the third pelvic exam. In general, however, I’ve found this to be rewarding work, both because of the immediate positive changes I see in my students and because of the ripple effect I know my work will have on their future patients. Finally, a nice benefit is that every day when I go to work, I’m reminded that
Hey, I’ve got ovaries.

The women and girls in this chapter are risking their lives. Or at least a trip to the hospital.

When we read their stories we might think,
I could never do that!
But they might have thought that, too. Before. So then is there a potential daredevil in each of us? If so, what has to happen inside a girl’s head to make her decide to put herself in harm’s way? What has to happen in a woman’s heart to move her to risk her life?

These women are motivated. They are inspired by needs that take a variety of forms: an instinct for survival, a lust for adventure, an impulse toward self-defense, a calling to help another, a dream that must be pursued. The potential hazards just don’t matter. Meeting those needs takes precedence over everything else—worries, fear, even safety.

Some of the women here actually enjoy danger! They purposefully incorporate adrenalizing activities into their lives with the work they do, where they live, or how they play (read:
Xtreme sports
).

Pretty remarkable, considering that the message girls have gotten for eons is to be cautious, certainly not to
put
themselves in the line
of fire. And if women somehow found themselves in that line, they were to wait for some benevolent Y chromosome—Prince Charming, James Bond, Batman?–to save them. The message was clear: Women were not to participate in their own rescuing.

Well, here, the damsels in distress do. In fact, the reality is that gutsy broads have been taking an active, primary role in their own saving since women have walked the Earth.

These stories illustrate what women are truly capable of, and some of the many ways their risk-taking can be expressed. Some planned, some not; some wise, some foolhardy; some about fun, others about survival–these acts show that women and girls can be aggressive and engage in life-threatening, taking-it-right-to-the-edge-of-the-cliff behavior that traditionally they’ve been told they’d better leave for others.

The summer before my senior year in high school, I worked as a cashier at a movie theater near an area of Los Angeles nicknamed the Jungle. In the late 1980s, the Jungle was an economically and socially depressed district. Many of its inhabitants were angry, unemployed, disillusioned, or on drugs. This movie theater was one of the few money-generating businesses in the area. In many ways it was a cool, air-conditioned oasis in a land of heated despair. Because of the gang-infested location of the theater, we had unusual rules and regulations for admittance, including “No hats or headwear for men.” Hat colors and styles were one of the ways a local could show his gang affiliation.

I liked my job at the theater, as did most of the people who worked there. With our first-run movies, freshly popped popcorn, and a guaranteed secure environment, everyone felt we were in some small way giving something positive to the community.

One unusually hot day, a questionable looking gentleman came to the front desk to purchase a ticket for himself and his two young sons.

“I can sell you tickets,” I said, as I casually flipped through the latest
Glamour,
“but I can’t let you in until you remove the rollers and scarf.”

I was certain that his bright blue hair curlers and navy blue bandanna indicated gang affiliation. And although there was a sign clearly stating the rules of admission above the theater’s entrance, this guy became absolutely furious at me. He stood at the cashier’s booth (with his boys standing behind him), screaming and berating me for almost ten minutes. Everyone in the theater lobby—children, elders, my coworkers—could hear his yelling and cursing. I stood there eyes wide, head tilted, and mouth agape, alternating between shock and embarrassment, for me and for this guy standing before me in blue rollers. Eventually, my boss came over to reason with the irate customer. It didn’t work. Security was summoned to escort him off the premises.

Not more than thirty minutes later, I was in line at a local fastfood fried chicken place with some friends from work. I was complaining about my horrible encounter with the guy at the theater, when who should burst through the door but the same guy and his two sons. I hadn’t expected him, but I wasn’t at all surprised to see him either. He began cursing and calling me all sorts of names again—and then he pulled out a huge, steel-gray gun. (I later learned it was a 9mm.) Wild-eyed and sweaty, with his sons in tow, he walked toward me screaming, “Now how tough are you, now that you’re not behind that glass? I could kill you right now!”

Yes, he could. But for some reason I remained calm, observing the entire incident with a detached sense of amusement: It all seemed so unreal—a gangbanger, a gun, my life on the line? The restaurant patrons stared at the two of us, likely wishing they had been in the mood for burgers and not chicken that day.

At the time, I was seventeen years old, five feet tall, weighing
in at less than a hundred pounds, and possessing more mouth than brains. Anyway, something inside me snapped. This man had cursed and berated me at the theater for what seemed like an eternity and now had the gall to follow me here on my lunch break …
and pull out a gun?

I don’t think so.

I stepped away from my friends and toward the guy: “If it will make you feel like a big man in front of your two kids to shoot a ninety-pound teenager, then just go ahead and shoot.” My anger fueling me, I started to walk even closer to him, “Just shoot me. What’s wrong? I’m not behind the counter now.”

From the corner of my eye, I could see the people in the restaurant literally drop their chicken wings, corn on the cob, and biscuits, and witness this insane scene. My two friends were behind me, in complete shock, as they later told me. The guy must have been surprised, too. For a moment he just froze, staring at me.

“What are you waiting for?” I screamed, becoming hysterical and lunging toward him. “I thought you were going to kill me!” I was enraged.
Just who did he think he was anyway?

He hadn’t counted on my being as crazy as he was. Frankly, neither had I. He started backing away, slowly at first, then turned around and ran, yelling
“Crazy bitch”
over his shoulder. His children trotted after him.

I stood there for a moment to regain my composure. A detached feeling of serenity came over me, yet at the same time I felt vindicated at having taken on the bully and won. I glanced at my Hello Kitty watch and turned to my friends, “Are you still hungry? We only have fifteen minutes left for lunch.”

Sensing that the guy would not be coming back, the restaurant patrons gave me a round of applause and the managers offered me a free meal, but none of us was hungry anymore.

When we got back to the theater, my boss called the police, who questioned me about the entire drama. I didn’t remember much, so my friends supplied most of the details. When I casually mentioned the incident to my parents at dinner, they
wanted me to quit, saying that working in the Jungle was far too dangerous. I told them it wasn’t that bad, and I wanted to finish the summer with my friends. I did, and the incident was forgotten (except by my parents) within a few days.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a big hockey fan, so it wasn’t surprising that I was at my boyfriend’s game. During the event, I watched with the rest of the crowd as the two teams were violent on the ice. We all figured it would cool off after the game ended.

Wrong.

On the trip back to the locker room, one of the other team’s players started trash-mouthing one of ours. A fight broke out between the two, and soon everyone from both teams was involved. Before I knew what I was doing,
I jumped in to break up the fight.
First, I grabbed a player from our team and peeled him off some defeated doormat under him. Then I shoved aside dumbfounded bystanders.

It was exhilarating … a complete rush. It was like my whole being had abandoned my body and was now watching myself break up this jumble of brawling bodies. Sure, I was scared being in the thick of it. I could practically
feel
the fear pulsing
through my veins. But that didn’t stop me, because I was also ticked off. I suppose that’s why I started screaming at
all
the players—as if they didn’t each outweigh me by a whopping one hundred pounds! When the players and I came to our senses, the fight ended with the exchange of a few vulgar words and the referees escorting everyone (except me) to their respective locker rooms.