Raw Drip

I’m guessing it might be taboo to discuss one’s gynecological issues in a blog, so my apologies in advance.  I suppose if you’re a male reading this post, you probably saw the word “ovary” in the title and moved onto the ESPN website.  I don’t blame you, really.  Believe it or not, we women don’t actually spend a lot of time thinking about our sex organs.  This is in sharp contrast to men, who spend most of their time thinking and talking about theirs.  But, of course, neither gender likes to think of their sex organs in a clinical sense – it’s uncomfortable, at best.  You’re just going to have to trust me on this, my story, while being rooted in the female anatomy is too weird not to share. 

Perhaps it’s a lack of attention on my part that prompted my left ovary to leave the building?  Suddenly, I’m down one and I still can’t figure out what went wrong.  I thought things were pretty good between us.  I mean, sure, we had our problems, but we always managed to work them out.  And with two ovaries, I assume loneliness or exhaustion wasn’t a big factor in my ovary’s decision to leave.  Whenever one gets tired, the other one is there to step in and take over for the next month.  Nice ying & yang, right?

Apparently, not so.  The ultrasound I had last week in the hospital confirms it – sometime between my last medical exam in 2006 and 2 weeks ago, my left ovary disappeared.  This leads to all sorts of questions.  Where did it go? How did it leave?  Why?  Is it just floating around in my body somewhere?  Do I have to worry about it getting stuck in an artery and killing me or coughing it up next time I have a really bad chest cold?  And, if it’s really gone – how did it leave?  I mean, I kind of just assumed I’d notice if an entire organ left my body.  I bet if my liver just decided to detach itself and walk away, I’d notice that. 

But the really big question is why.  Why would my left ovary just leave like that – without a note or a card or anything?  As with the unexpected end of any relationship, I keep combing through our time together and wondering what I could have done to make things work.   Maybe it was the two pregnancies in two years?  Perhaps lefty just got fed up with all the ovulating?  Or, maybe, the relationship with righty wasn’t as harmonious as I’ve envisioned?  Maybe there was a power struggle of some sort - jealous, back-stabbing, destructive behavior that drove lefty away? Or, maybe righty was a slacker and lefty was forced to carry all the workload.

Me and my ovaries have invested a lot of time with one another.  Heck, they’ve been there since the very beginning – releasing hormones (often haphazardly, it seems to me) and spurting out eggs with semi-regularity.  I always took it for granted that we’d be together forever.   In fact, I was so sure of it, that I went to great lengths to make sure they were well cared for.  Any ovary of mine gets regular check-ups and the privilege of living in a body that is most definitely NOT suffering from malnourishment.

So, why?  Why did you leave, lefty?  Could it have been the time I cursed you for giving me all those debilitating cramps? Or, could it have been the fact that I blamed you for a lot of my irrational decisions over the years?   I’m sure I bear some responsibility here. 

But even a tiny scrap of understanding is cold comfort.  Somewhere along the way,  you lost hope and you left me, lefty.  I guess my challenge is to make peace with your loss and put the past behind me.  It’s hard.  My ovary may have gotten over me, but I’m not going to get over my ovary so easily.