Dianny had a health scare

Tom Petty was right; the waiting was the hardest part.

I’ve always considered myself a relatively level-headed, even-tempered person. Sure, I can get angry from time to time. I’m Scottish and German. A volatile temper is baked into the genetic stew that formed Dianny. But as a general rule, I am not a panicky, melodramatic, emotional basket case prone to flying off the handle and shouting at people over the phone.

And yet...

For the last four months, I have been a panicky, melodramatic, emotional basket case as I waited interminably to find out if I had cancer.

Sorry, men. This column may touch on a topic you don’t want to read about -- namely, post-menopausal bleeding ... or as I have named it: Evil Aunt Flo’s Revenge.

Evil Aunt Flo made her first appearance in April. She stayed for a few days, then left. This had happened to me once before in 2019, and the gynecologist I was referred to ran some tests and determined that it was likely polyps. So when it happened in April, I just shrugged it off as that polyps thing and dismissed it. Six weeks later, Evil Aunt Flo reappeared for another few days. Six weeks after that, she dropped in again and stuck around for twelve full days, finally departing on August 3.

I’m sixty-two years old. I should not be getting regular visits from Aunt Flo at all, and a twelve-day visit was alarming to say the least. I’m not completely clueless. I know that post-menopausal bleeding at my age is potentially serious. I know it is a primary symptom of both uterine and cervical cancer, and I was starting to become genuinely worried. So I called my doctor on August 4 and asked for the soonest possible appointment. They got me in two days later.

Despite acknowledging the seriousness of the symptoms, my doctor didn’t do a pelvic exam or even order a transvaginal ultrasound. Instead, he ordered an abdominal ultrasound, which seemed odd since my uterus isn’t in my abdomen. When I asked, he explained that this ultrasound would encompass everything from my liver to my uterus.

As for a pelvic exam, my doctor fobbed me off. He said I should absolutely call my gynecologist and make an appointment because this needed to be seen to immediately -- that any bleeding at my age is cause for concern. I told him I didn’t have a gynecologist, and the only time I had been to one was when he referred me to Upstate Women’s Health in 2019. He said he would refer me there again, and that was it. He then sent the phlebotomist in to draw blood, and I left the appointment with a blown vein and arterial puncture, and no closer to knowing what was causing the unwelcome return of Evil Aunt Flo.

Later that day, the nurse called to confirm a September 16 ultrasound appointment. However, it took my doctor’s office two weeks to send the referral to Upstate Women’s Health.

Finally, September 16 rolled around. When the technician asked what medical complaint prompted the doctor to send me for an abdominal ultrasound, I told her about the return of Evil Aunt Flo. She frowned and asked, “Then why did he order an abdominal ultrasound?” I told her that the doctor assured me that my uterus would be included. She frowned again and explained that if he wanted imaging of my uterus, my doctor should have ordered a pelvic or transvaginal ultrasound. She confirmed that the ultrasound she would be doing that day was of the liver, pancreas, spleen, stomach, and kidneys, and the uterus would not be included.

“And is it likely that my pancreas is causing vaginal bleeding?” I asked, feeling an overwhelming desire to strangle my doctor.

“No,” said the technician.

By the time I got home from the ultrasound, I was fuming. It was six weeks after my first appointment, and my doctor had wasted time ordering an ultrasound that would get us no closer to knowing why, in Lucifer’s reach, I was being tormented by Evil Aunt Flo.

Later that day, when the nurse called with the “good news” that my abdominal ultrasound was perfectly normal, I lost it. In hindsight, I feel like a giant sack of crap that I hollered and cursed at her. She wasn’t the tit who wasted weeks and ordered a useless ultrasound. She wasn’t the one who waited two full weeks to submit a referral to the gynecologist. But there I stood in my living room shouting at this poor young nurse like a lunatic.

I’ve been trying not to curse so much. But in one phone call, all of the progress I had made got tossed aside, and I carpet-bombed that poor nurse with every swear word that came stomping through my head. My doctor’s medical practice has the word “Christian” in the name. That was not a very Christian phone call.

Finally, I stopped shouting and apologized for taking my fear and anger out on her. I told her that I would discuss it with the doctor at my follow-up appointment on September 25.

The day after the useless ultrasound, Upstate Women’s Health finally confirmed a December 12 appointment with a gynecologist. Not ideal, to be sure, but better than the projected six to nine months it usually takes to secure an appointment.

Evil Aunt Flo came with me when I saw my doctor on the 25th, so I was not in a good mood when I arrived. My doctor admitted that he hadn’t expected it to take so long to get an appointment with a gynecologist. He said that in the meantime, he would order a pelvic ultrasound, and depending on what it showed, he could press Upstate Women’s to see me sooner.

I was both relieved and annoyed. I noted that if he had ordered a pelvic ultrasound in August, we would already know the results, and he could have already pressed Upstate Women’s Health to see me sooner. As it was, an ultrasound ordered on September 25 probably wouldn’t happen until early November.

I was right. The pelvic ultrasound was scheduled for the fifth of November, three months after my first appointment.

In the meantime, Evil Aunt Flo showed up again in early October, and she never left. From that point on, the bleeding was non-stop, the pain and cramping were constant and unbearable, and my panic and fear only increased.

Throughout all of this, I wasn’t eating, and I barely slept. The series of short stories I started in July sat gathering dust. I couldn’t calm my thoughts, let alone organize them. I’m what they call a stress non-eater. I don’t even get hungry. There were days when I would have to think long and hard before I could remember the last time I ate anything. By November, I was living on soup. I’m still living on soup.

It was almost a relief when I finally had the transvaginal ultrasound. Finally, after three months, I might get a clue to what was wrong.

The same nurse who got the brunt of my curse-laden shouting after the abdominal ultrasound must have drawn the short straw because she was the one who called the following day with the results of the transvaginal ultrasound. She said that, according to my doctor, the ultrasound showed a thickening of the endometrium, which is often caused by a lack of progesterone.

“That’s it? That’s all it showed?” I asked with relief. “It’s just a hormonal imbalance? But that’s good news, isn’t it?”

The nurse said a copy of the report and the ultrasound had been forwarded to Upstate Women’s Health, and the gynecologist would review everything and get back to me.

I felt a hundred pounds lighter. I told her that I had been so worried that I had cancer that I wasn’t eating or sleeping. I thanked her for the good news and immediately informed my brother and father that the ultrasound appeared to have ruled out cancer.

An hour later, the nurse called back to “clarify” that she had not read the full report and had only relayed what the doctor had said. She said the gynecologist would review the ultrasound and, if there were any concerns, would notify me.

At first, I thought the follow-up call was unnecessary as she didn’t say anything she hadn’t already told me in the first call. Finally, it made sense. I had concluded that the ultrasound ruled out cancer, and that was not at all what she meant to convey. I texted my brother and father to tell them I may have jumped the gun.

Later that day, I got an email from Upstate notifying me that a new test result was available for review through my online health portal, and I finally read the ultrasound report for myself. It was brief. Six or seven sentences. Yet in those few sentences, the term “endometrial carcinoma” appeared three times.

Way to bury the lede, Doc.

That Friday, a nurse from Upstate Women’s Health called to confirm that they had received the ultrasound and that the attending gynecologist would be reviewing it, and if it showed anything serious, they would absolutely get me in sooner than December 12. She called me back the following Monday to let me know that I would now be seeing a gynecologist on November 26.

So after nearly four months of mucking about, on the day before Thanksgiving, I finally had an endometrial biopsy.

You men should be grateful you never have to get an endometrial biopsy. It’s not so much a medical procedure as a form of torture. The attending gynecologist could be brought up on charges for violating my human rights. Holy mackerel. Fifteen years of suffering from Lupus symptoms couldn’t even prepare me for this level of pain. It was like getting a D&C without the D part or any sedation of any kind. The attending was scrape-scrape-scraping away at my endometrium like she was stripping paint from a door.

“Holy shit! Are you planning to circumnavigate the entire uterine lining?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” she answered. “I want to get as large a sample as I can.”

“Well, fuck you very much!” So much for not swearing.

I hemorrhaged for days. I spent Thanksgiving with a heating pad and no food, lying on the couch in constant pain while watching “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” and “Uncle Buck.”

The biopsy was hell, to be sure. But it was also definitive.

Last Tuesday, I got the results: “No malignancy detected.”

Four months of little food or sleep. A series of short stories gathering dust as I spent months unable to calm my mind enough to write anything. Four months in a panic, terrified that I had cancer. There are no words to describe the relief I felt when I read those three words, “No malignancy detected.”

The gynecologist put me on medication that she believes will correct the problem. If it doesn’t, we’ll discuss the other possible options, including surgery. But my gynecologist is confident that the pills will send Evil Aunt Flo packing once and for all.

I confess. I’m feeling rather invincible right now.

My appetite hasn’t returned, and I’m still waking up around midnight only to rattle around the house like Banquo’s ghost. It’ll probably take me a while to return to a more normal eating and sleeping pattern.

On the plus side, I’ve lost 19 pounds.

And while I may not have had the concentration to write, I have continued to read. In September, I read all eight of the Cormoran Strike novels by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling). I enjoyed them so much that after reading six of the Slow Horses books by Mick Herron, I went back in early November and started reading the Strike novels all over again. I’m currently on Book 6, “The Ink Black Heart.” These aren’t young adult books like the “Harry Potter” series. Galbraith (Rowling) tends to toss in words I’ve never heard of. I’ve been keeping track of them in a list titled “JK Rowling is Expanding My Vocabulary.” When I stumble across one of those words I can’t define (Recrudescence: [n] A sudden new appearance and growth, especially of something dangerous and unpleasant), I look up the definition and record it. So far, I have recorded the definitions of 53 words. Now, I will be prepared if I ever need to describe someone as vulpine or peripatetic.

For the first time in months, on Friday, I sat at my laptop looking through the short story I was working on when the health scare bollocksed up my creative juices. I’m not ready to dive in yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Hopefully, I’ll be up and writing again before Christmas. After all, Dianny’s Ten Most Tiresome People of 2025 won’t write itself.