The Avenging Uterus, OR Uterus 1 – Janet 0

In what I can only hope will be her final act of defiance, my uterus waved her magic wand (or her fist) and gave herself a reprieve.

It all started last Thursday when my Paul Bunyan sized husband had his arse handed to him by a virus.

It entered our lives innocently enough, disguised as a scratchy throat, a sniffle and cough. In other words just your common cold. But by the weekend things took an ugly turn as we both realized this thing had teeth. The cough was deep and relentless, and it was accompanied by the pain of a thousand sit-ups.

I’m just imaging the body aches as such since I myself have never even come close to doing a thousand sit-ups. Fifty can leave me barely able to take a deep breath for a week, and watching my husband, who breezes through Cross-Fit like it’s grade school recess, suffer like he was, well, to me it was the agony of a thousand sit-ups.

A thousand sit-ups and being hit by a car.

Again, I cannot draw on personal experience on this kind of pain, let’s suffice it to say, he looked miserable as fark, and this “cold” began to look like the nastier cousin of Ebola.

As Florence Nightingaley as I am (not), I attended to him at arm’s length. After all, I had a date with a surgeon scheduled for 7 am on the 12th that I was not going to miss under ANY circumstances.

Here’s the funny thing about me. I drag my feet about some things. Most are health related. I ponder, reasonable doubt it and procrastinate it—ad nauseam. Then, when I finally, after careful consideration, (and usually by the fact that it can no longer be tolerated), decide to take action—I want it done YESTERDAY!

As he hacked up a lung all night in the den, I slept peacefully in our bed knowing all of the insidious germs were sequestered there with him, on the other side of the house. Does that make me a bad person? If you think it does, you’re gonna love what happens next.

Although he was far from one hundred percent, he rallied enough to go back to work half day on Monday. What can I say? The man is a specimen. (He has since relapsed, this shit is REAL!)

At that point, it had been five whole days and I was fit as a fiddle. I did the happy song and dance. “Too da loo you pesky uterus! No lame-ass virus is gonna come between me and my freedom from…wait…eh, hem…what’s that?…a scratchy throat?”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Long shot of the word NO echoing around the globe.)

I started pounding the vitamin C and practicing my ninja mind-over-matter superpowers.

“I got this!” my deluded brain convinced itself as it began it’s battle with a virus with teeth.

I think I heard my uterus chuckle.

Never mind.

Then I got a phone call, which I missed because I was gargling with Listerine.

It was the hospital. The woman wanted to do an early check-in like it was the Ritz Carlton or something. When I dialed her back I learned the real reason for her call. Even though I was pre, pre-approved, and we had double, triple checked. Even though I had changed insurance companies and was paying a house payment sized premium to avoid anything remotely resembling this…the hospital we had booked my surgery in was OUT OF NETWORK!
If you are reading this from Canada, or anywhere besides the US, stop smirking, or looking up this term. In plain and simple American it means: you’re fucked.

By the time I hung up with the hospital, my doctor, and my insurance agent, I only had strength enough to crawl into bed. The next morning—T-minus twenty-four hours to surgery— I was shivering and hacking, sweating and sneezing, the pain of a thousand sit-ups wracking my pre-operative body.

Needless to say, we canceled.

This eleventh-hour, Hail Mary play had her “fingerprints” all over it.

Even though her enormous size has left little room to move, my uterus did a victory lap around my abdomen adding to my misery.

I’m letting her gloat. Her days are numbered. The procedure has been rebooked at the proper hospital, IN NETWORK, in a month.

So stay tuned and carry on,
xox