An open letter to the Veterans Administration

KillerMuffin

Seraphically Disinclined
Joined
Jul 29, 2000
Posts
25,603
Just what the fuck is it with the VA thinking they can schedule a pap smear any time they feel the need to view a cervix up close and personal? Just oh my mother fucking gawd. I had one in December and I had to get one again yesterday. Why? Nobody knows! The women's health people just stared at each other blankly when asked. But it said it right there so down I had to go.

It's not bad enough that you show up for an appointment you didn't know you had, but damn, they wanna go poking and prodding at ya. Yes, I have a scar on my left breast. Yes, it's freaking huge and yes, it's made by a knife. No, I didn't have a biopsy. No, I didn't have plastic surgery gone horribly awry. The scar is twelve years old, just oh my fucking gawd, how many times do I have to explain that it has nothing to do with now???? And what does it have to do with that ominous piece of metal they simply must pull out of the refridgerator and brandish about?

Now let's talk about KY etiquette. USE IT!!! Unless you gonna go down and lick the hell out of it, you'd better not be sticking that speculum where I can't see it without some motherfuckin KY. I consider the introduction of metal objects straight from the freezer without the benefit of a good dose of KY to be sexual assault and I will defend myself. At the very least I will bellow with every single bit of my lung capacity for the StudMuffin and you can worry about the enraged 215 pound beast throwing himself bodily at the door, making the wall shudder and sheetrock from the ceiling break off and fall on the floor. Sumbitches. Clue number 2. Don't use too much, okay? You don't have to squirt a gallon up in there, enough to make it slippery is just fine. I don't need to stand up and have it pour into my socks.

Can't you nuke that fucking speculum or something? I mean mother fuck. Run it under hot water or stick it in a heating pad. By the way, this is the year 2001. We are officially in a NEW MOTHERFUCKING MILLENIUM!!!! Okay? It's not 194fuckin2. Put that nasty spanish inquisition metal speculum into the freaking trash where it belongs. We have nice pretty less icy plastic ones. The design is improved so I don't have to walk around all day like someone just shoved a hockey stick the wrong way up in there. With KY in my socks no less. Muther fuck.

Must you people sit there and stare up into my insides for about five minutes, poke the living hell out of me with the stupid q-tips cause you keep fucking up the first time, then look up from between my legs with a confused expression and ask me if I'm sure I had a child. Oh my fucking gawd, like I could have missed that one.

Which brings me to the end of the exam. Two words for ya. Moist towelettes. Okay? STOCK THEM!!!!! Kleenex just doesn't do the trick, I still have to wander around the fucking hospital for a few hours trying to figure out just what the hell it is that you people want me to do. It really sucks to do that with KY sticking to your thighs.

I think I've been traumatized. I feel like using that archaic ice cold speculum sans KY to play a little baseball with someone's balls. If I can find the mutherfuckers.
 
Well i'd offer to kiss it better.....

... but you have me laughing too hard.
 
OMG KM, I'm so sorry, but the way you word it is so funny! I completely understand about the KY in your socks. You have to wonder just what it is that they're thinking!

Fucking military health morons!
 
LOL I know what you mean. Just did went through it on Monday morning, IT SUCKS!!!

The worst part is that at 10:15 my nurse has more facial hair than my honey does after skipping a day with the razor. All I could think was "How can she NOT notice that in the mirror???"
 
Oh, my good Goddess, KM . . . the last time I had a pap smear I thought the damned doctor was at bayonet practice!

There, there. It will be better. Really.
 
As someone who's just spent 6 weeks of the other end of the speculum, I cracked up at your description of your pap experience. I definitely can empathize, if not sympathize with what women have to go through to get that done. It's not comfortable. There are times when the woman's uterus is retroflexed moving the cervix out of it's usual anterior position and forcing you to go poking around for it like trying to spear-fish at midnight.

But for all our fumblings there ARE some methods to our madness. You mentioned that they were poking you with q-tips. If they were doing that (and you're not pregnant), I can only assume they were taking bacterial cultures as well as doing the pap smear (which uses a small wooden spatula and I cytobrush that's kind of like a bristly pipe-cleaner for your endocervical canal.)

If they're doing bacterial cultures, KY can't be used because it tends to kill the bacteria in the vagina before you can culture them - hence you get false negative results. We could lube you really good, but if don't discover your pelvic inflammatory disease and your fallopian tubes scar over and you become infertile, that's our responsibility.

As far as not heating the speculum, they have no excuse there. There's no need to make the procedure any more uncomfortable than it already is. I always make it a point to run it under the warm water first - tends to solve the lubrication and the temperature problem nicely.

I'm not sure what's up with the repeat pap either. Annual Pap smears are indicated for all women who are sexually or over 18 or older. If they scheduled you for a repeat it's probably because you had an abnormal pap or because they picked up some kind of infection on the first pap smear. Or it could just be a goofy clerical error.

Anyway, it's not just a hardship for the patient. Try doing a pap smear on a 400 pound woman with no sense of personal hygeine.

Need I say more?
 
Halibut fishing there Ollie love?

*snicker*

It's VA. They screw up all the time. *sigh*

Don't they have some kind of goo that helps that doesn't do the bacteria killing? I kinda like that idea. Kind of like the Battle of Culloden going on in my cervix everytime the goop gets squirted in.
 
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