It’s a Bloody Celebration!

For those who don’t know, PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) can fuck with your system in number of ways. It can: A. Make your periods be all too frequent, painful and require major surgery to control; B. Make your period completely disappear which will require drugs on a monthly or quarterly basis (depending on your doctor’s preference) so that you don’t develop cancer; or C. go for years undetected and have no bearing on your life whatsoever.

I role with Option B. I didn’t start out at 13 years old this way but somewhere around 20 years old when my gyno nurse practitioner didn’t laugh when I told her that I was regular with the dog, I started the pill. The pill was supposed to regulate my system (which I don’t necessarily agree with and would argue for different verbiage since its misleading). But less than ten years later (I was 27 years old) the pill stopped even doing that. I started at that time either not having, or honestly not really even caring, that I had a period. Then when I started to care I would call the doctor and get 10 itty bitty little pills that I took to induce a period. My friend Provera. So every few months I would take Provera and ten days later I would have a period. Then when we started trying to have a baby I started temping. After a few months of watching my temp erratically spike and crash I would call the doctor me and Provera would kick it for 10 days and *poof* a period. When the fertility drugs finally worked and I ovulated (those two times) I knew when the period was coming. Even after my son I went back on the pill (as a precautionary) and have been doing the Temp/Provera dance for the past year. For the past seven years (almost I guess I should say) I have be in control of when my period starts. It has never happened without some sort of outside force. This means there is no surprise package from Mother Nature on my vacation like the Tampon commercials. I don’t secretly communicate to friends that Aunt Flow is in town and even the dogs know when “The Playground is Closed.” I am a mini-God in my pelvic region.

So imagine my surprise (and bear with me as it might get gross) when I get out of bed this morning and stumble to the bathroom to pee and find blood soaked toilet paper. Honestly after so much time of being in control of it my first thought was “I’m dying, there has been a massacre in my crotch and I’m dying.” Like a Spanish Inquisition, no one expects a period.

On my drive into work I called Juanito who was shocked as well, which only goes to show how my nether regions are common conversation with us. He congratulated me on being normal, which is also a testament to how much my husband listens to me. So today we’re celebrating being normal. I’m not sure what being normal means. Sitting in the McDonald’s drive through? Eating dinner with your family? Planning a much need vacation? Watching Big Bang Theory reruns? Whatever it is to you, today I say go do it and enjoy it. It’s good to be normal every now and then.