And yet, we persevere

I’m sitting here typing this with a feeling in my lower abdomen that I can only describe as being punched in the cervix.  For those of you without a cervix, imagine having a splitting headache in the deepest, most inaccessible part of your body.   I just returned from the gynecologist– I have had some abnormal cervical cells on my pap smears for the past few years, and they’re not going away.  They’re not getting worse and I do not have HPV, so that’s the good news.  But my doctor advised that I have them looked at every six months just to be on the safe side.

Today the gynocologist and I discussed my IUD and whether to leave it in for two more years or take it out now.  I told him I preferred to leave it in– I’m only 52, I still have occassional spotting, so I think I’m still ovulating from time to time.  He agreed, and he proceeded to do the biopsy which suddenly felt like a balloon had exploded inside my body.  Then he calmly said, “Your IUD came out.  It was attached to the biopsy piece.”

Here’s what I get to take home: 1. Cramps like I haven’t had since I was a teenage girl getting her period.  2. Two requests for blood work– one three weeks  from now after my hormones regulate and one for three weeks after that to see what my follicle stimluating hormones are doing.  Based on those results, my gynocologist will tell me if I still need and IUD.  3. The gyno’s suggestion that I use a condom if I have sex between now and the last blood work results.  (Thanks for the reminder that I haven’t had sex in six months and have no good prospects in sight.) 4. A nagging question– When will there be a MALE birth control pill or device?? and 5. An overwhelming sense of shock and awe that any women my age have a positive attitude toward life.

Being an aging woman is hard enough.  Being a middle-aged woman who is going through a divorce and then grief is indescribably difficult.  I remember one day when my husband had just moved out of our house and I was cleaning up the piles of stuff he had left behind.  I was feeling sad and angry and scared about the future and wondering if anyone would ever find me attractive again.  I picked up a beautiful wooden hand mirror that I had received as a gift in my twenties, and in my reflection I saw my neck skin, loose and crepey and old looking.  I literally fell to my knees and cried in a heap on the floor.  Why now?  Why did I have to be “resingled” when the ravages of old age were just around the corner?

After that, it seemed like one slap in the face after another.  My ex got a girlfriend right away and was flying to Baltimore every other weekend at her expense.  Then his lawyer decided he should ask for alimony from me since his hearing loss might prevent him from working in the future.   The first man I slept with was less than forthcoming about his sexual history, and when I learned the truth, I rushed to a walk-in clinic to be tested for everything, crying as I sat in the exam room.  The nurse who did the tests said quietly “Maybe you’re not ready to be dating yet?”  She was right.  Five months after my husband died, when I did feel ready for dating, I ended up with a genital wart (which, by the way, condoms do not prevent) and an abnormal pap smear.

I got the IUD when I met a decent guy who was patient with me as I tried various methods of birth control and finally opted for the Mirena.  I feel like the hormones in the IUD screwed up my emotions for the first six months I had it in, although my doctor assures me that it is too small a dose of hormones to do that.  My emotions have been rocky for six years– is it because my marriage ended? Is it grief due to the tragic death of my soon-to-be-ex-husband? Grief over my mom’s death a year later?  The empty nest syndrome?  Peri-menopause?  Birth control?  Who the hell knows?  Now I am going cold-turkey on the hormones my body had become accustomed to– what hormonal joys do I have to look forward to next?

All I know is this– aging is not for sissies.  Older women are portrayed in our culture as weak, out of touch, clingy, and useless.  (They are not.  If they persevere and keep their heads up, they are the strongest creatures on earth.)  Men write articles about why they date younger women, saying “Older women are so negative.”  Really?  I wonder why?  It’s not as if biology and society hit women with a double whammy at mid-life.  Women are the ones who deal with birth control, pregnancy, breast feeding, and the bulk of child rearing.  Then at mid-life, after we’ve given our best reproductive years, many of us are left by the fathers of our children so that they can puruse younger women.  And yet we persevere.  We keep caring for our children and grandchildren, we keep learning new things and exploring the world.  We keep showing up.

So if you see me, or any woman my age, and we have a positive attitude about life, give us a pat on the back.  If you don’t, I’ll punch you in the cervix.