Some sentences make me happy

My school readings are so precious to me. They make me feel known and understood.

This morning I read about subjective omnipotence and objective reality. Subjective omnipotence is what a baby experiences: It has a need, cries, and then, as if by magic, the mother’s breast appears. The baby feels as if it is making the breast appear with its omnipotence: A wish makes things happen. Objective reality is when you grow up and realize that you depend on others’ wills to fulfill your needs. What happens in between these two forms of experience is the transitional experience.

My book Freud and Beyond says:

“The person who lives completely in objective reality is a false self without a subjective center, completely oriented toward the expectations of others, toward external stimuli.”

“In experience organized according to objective reality, the child feels she has to find the desired object out in the world; she is acutely aware of the separateness and distinctness of the object and her lack of control over it.”

“What is crucial in good-enough parenting with respect to transitional experience is that the parent does not challenge its ambiguity. The specialness of the teddy bear is accepted.”

After I read this, I felt good. I held on to my book like a treasure for it holds a truth that is helping to change my reality.

Seriously

I asked my brother if he noticed any change in me since the last time he saw me about a year ago, and he said “You’re not as serious.”

I win!

Maui playlist

I just spent four days on Maui with my brother and some of his friends. They were all here for a tech conference, and I joined them afterwards for a few more days of laziness on the beach. My favorite part was last night when it was just my brother and I in our room, and I played some music for him on my phone. These are the songs I played, all new favorites from within the last year or so:

Led Er Est – Plants
Led Er Est – Port Isabel
Proem – When Frailty Fails
oOoOO – Burnout Eyess
The Soft Moon – When It’s Over

IUD, Part II

So about three years ago I got an IUD. It afforded me birth control I didn’t have to think about.

Earlier this year I somehow inserted (parts of?) a tampon applicator and ended up having to dig for pieces of soggy cardboard hours later and pull them out. I found one particularly stubborn “piece of cardboard” really high up there and I couldn’t get a good enough grip on it to pull it out. After trying to yank it out about four or five times, I realized oh shit. That’s not a piece of tampon applicator. That’s the string of my IUD. I decided to stop pulling immediately because that needed to stay there.

I did some research to see if it was possible to accidentally pull the IUD out or cause any other kind of damage by pulling on the string, but it was inconclusive and all I really left with was the idea to have the IUD checked at my next OB-GYN appointment. I didn’t worry too much about it because every time I reached up there, all I could feel was the strings, so clearly I hadn’t pulled it out. Right?

Another thing I had noticed over the last few months was some pressure on my left ovary. I wondered if I had a cyst there. Or maybe even cervical cancer. The pressure came and went over the course of my cycle; sometimes it was really noticeable, sometimes barely there. I wondered if it had something to do with me having pulled on the IUD string but I didn’t really know how. Nevertheless, I decided to have that checked out at my next OB-GYN appointment as well.

That appointment was today. My doctor said that an ultrasound would be able to verify both of those things: The location of my IUD and the existence of a cyst. The ultrasound clearly showed that there was no cyst: My ovaries were empty like a virgin’s. But then she said “You know your body well.” The IUD had indeed been moved from its desired location. From what I understood, it was sitting too low and thus not as effective at preventing a pregnancy. She said that she was not able to simply move it; instead she would have to pull it out and insert a new one.

I was scared because there had been some complications the last time. My cervix had been very uptight. And this time there was no boyfriend to hold my hand or pet my head. But the doctor seemed almost excited to perform this procedure, so I got kind of excited too. I thought, why not give it a try. Maybe my cervix has lightened up a bit.

Since my doctor knew about my uptight cervix, she decided to not even try a dry run but immediately go for the injection to numb it. I’m pretty sure she injected me about two or three times but once again, I barely felt it. And I love that each time she poked my cervix with a needle she said “Here is some numbing medicine.”

And then she tried to get the old IUD out. The numbing medicine takes effect almost immediately so any pulling, prying and popping she did just felt like mild annoyances. One time she almost pulled me off the table. Yes, me, as in the entire person. “Is it just really stuck up there?” I asked, making small-talk. “Yeah,” she said. Then she turned to the nurse and said “Would you get me the, you know, the really long–?” And the nurse said “Yes, certainly.” I have no idea what these really long things were, but I do know that my doctor stuck them up my cervix. And then, I think, she kind of fumbled in the dark with them. She said “I’m sorry, I’m just looking everywhere in your uterus for the IUD.” “Oh, sure, no problem,” I said. I felt this section of my uterine wall being poked, then that. She said “Let me know if you need me to take a break.” I said “It’s okay. It feels weird but it’s not unbearable.” It’s true. I was sufficiently numbed so that it only felt like mild cramps.

Then she pulled really hard, almost pulling me off the table again, and then she said “Oh, thank God.” And she took some gigantic tongues and plucked something from right outside my vaginal opening. She held it up, and it was my bloody IUD. She said “I was starting to get so depressed because I wasn’t sure if I was going to get it out.” I said “It was just really lost in there, huh?” She said “Yeah, I’m thinking it was partially embedded.” PARTIALLY EMBEDDED? Holy shit, those are some gnarly words. I’m glad she didn’t use those words until after it was already over. I think if I had known earlier that my IUD was PARTIALLY EMBEDDED in what, my uterine wall? I would have freaked out. She told me that the string had broken off. She also said that “this” might explain the pressure I had been feeling on my ovary. It makes sense to me: Maybe the IUD had been partially embedded on the left side, creating the pressure there.

So now she still had to insert the new IUD. After what I had already been through, this seemed like a footnote. She asked the nurse to bring the ultrasound machine in again, so that she could watch the IUD on the monitor as it went into me, to ensure that it was in the right place. The nurse held the ultrasound dildo firmly against my belly, and the doctor inserted the IUD while they both watched the monitor. The nurse said that was the coolest thing she had seen and she wanted to do that all the time from now on. Then I went downstairs to have some blood drawn for STD tests. I was such a trooper today!

That was about six hours ago. It hurts down there, but not nearly as badly as it did last time. I’m having intermittent cramps, and I especially feel a pain on the left side. I imagine that’s the wound that was left when the PARTIALLY EMBEDDED IUD was dislodged from my flesh. I’ll be curious to see if the pressure subsides on the left side now that the old IUD is out.

God, I love writing about medical procedures!