I Am So Popular: Are You There God? It's Me, Spike.

Meanwhile, getting back to my uterus. Some of you may recall that back in July, I wrote a piece here about how my womanly cycle had, of late, turned into a monthly event involving prescription drugs, much crying, and occasional bouts of me wrapped around the toilet while my young, hot boyfriend, Warren sang Phil Collins’ songs in an effort to help me puke more quickly and efficiently.

I had been told I had a couple of fibroids, but a second ultrasound revealed that actually I had around ten. And family history revealed that agonizing fibroids are my genetic lot and most likely the pain was just going to get worse. So I told the doctor I wanted the whole thing gone, and suggested I had an opening on November 3rd. He did not try to dissuade me, though many other people did.

Time for an aside. When I had foot surgery, not one person tried to convince me to consider alternative therapies. But when I announced, with some glee, that I’d be having the old womb extracted, many people—all with their hearts in the right places—responded strongly that this was not the way to go. Some people spoke from personal experience, so I understood why they had an opinion. But these sage advisors were in the minority. Most people, I think, were put off for various reasons at what must’ve seemed to them like a drastic measure because they had not felt the pain I was feeling regularly and with increasing intensity.

This opinion-giving, which I accepted as graciously as I could though admittedly I grew weary of it, was like a variation on pregnancy, when everyone—even and maybe especially complete strangers— seems to think it’s fine to touch your protruding gut without asking first and share unsolicited labor horror stories. Something about a gal’s reproductive parts just gets the conversation going.

I held firm with my choice for a hysterectomy. As the big day approached, my body began behaving the same way my favorite dog does when I get a suitcase out. She knows something is up and she gets real nervous and follows me around. At least once, because she loves me so much and she so doesn’t want me gone, she even got the bloody shits to demonstrate her strong feelings on the matter. Similarly, my body would wake me up at weird hours, be constantly on edge, and refused to eat— totally clued in to the fact that something big was going to happen, just not clear on what that was.

I also decided, as the date drew near, that I would like to write a musical about my entire reproductive history culminating in a show stopping number that takes place in the operating room. The name of the musical is going to be Period, Period! As in, That’s all folks, no more worrying about when I can and can’t wear white jeans—the bleeding is over for good!

I haven’t worked out all the songs yet, or even the narrative plot. But inspiration for this rock opera came flying at me in many different forms. Like the nurse at my pre-op hospital registration appointment who wore scrubs featuring gravely injured cartoon characters: Piglet on crutches, Eeyore falling apart more than usual and, I shit you not, Pooh himself on what appeared to be a funeral pyre. Very relaxing for the incoming patient.

Then there was the nurse who, right before a pre-op biopsy, informed me, This is going to hurt A LOT!! sending my blood pressure through the roof. It actually didn’t hurt that much but still, I think, bedside manners totally merit being addressed via clever lyrics.

And maybe I’ll do a montage scene, recalling all those times my period, or the lack of it, overshadowed everything else. Like being thirteen and waiting and waiting for my first period, which, of course, I got during gym class. Or being fourteen and sashaying around in shorts, feeling all womanly now that I was menstruating, only to realize later that a brick sized maxi-pad had been hanging out the back all day. Or that first box of Tampax I had to buy on the sly and smuggle into the house since in my we did NOT use tampons. And, too, all those pregnancy scares in my wild days in the ‘80’s, late periods brought on in the stress of post-drunken-one-night-stands-sans-birth-control. The miscarriage. The abortion. The seventeen-hour drug-free labor and home delivery that was disastrous. My god, so much material to work with!

Some actual song possibilities include:
• Spikey Get Your Vicodin! (To the tune of Annie Get Your Gun!)
• H-Y-S-T-E-R-E-C-T-O-M-Y (done in Bye Bye Birdie style)
• I Love My Anesthesiologist! (a duet done with Rufus Wainwright, who will be in the show playing the beloved doctor.)
• The Womb Will Come Out Tomorrow! (done, yes, to The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow!)
• Stand by Your Ovary (an insistence on keeping my one remaining gonad)
• Carry On My Wayward Son (a cover where I tell my son to not be sad if I die in the hospital.)
• Poison IV (about how my IV popped out of my vein and filled my hand with so much fluid it looked like Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after that unfortunate blueberry experience.)
• Shaving All My Love for U(terus) (about how I came out of surgery looking like I was the victim of an extremely botched Brazilian wax, done at the hands of a sadistic technician who stopped, mid-denuding, to beat my triangle of love with a baseball bat.)
• “Food”, Curious “Food”! (alternate title: No Fucking Way Am I Eating That Shit—about the crap they try to force you to eat in the hospital. Whenever the chorus sings out FOOD, they will use mavericky air quotes, ala John McCain’s quirky habit, to indicate it wasn’t really food)
• Insurance is a Girl’s Best Friend!
• I Feel Shitty, Oh So Shitty! (a takeoff of that West Side Story tune—about waking up in recovery.)
• Catheter, and the Peeing is Easy (to the tune of Porgy and Bess’s Summertime, about how fun it is to not have to get out of bed to empty one’s bladder.)

I’m sure I’ll think of more tunes as I continue to wean myself off the meds over here. Meanwhile, my entire job for the past ten days has been to rest, fart, and shit. Not so long ago I would’ve laughed at such a thing—how hard could it be, I mean, really? But I’m getting great lessons in how it’s all relative lately and a good day is one during which I can stand up straight for up to two hours at a time and produce a bowel movement.

Meanwhile, until I can get my head cleared and focused enough to start reading again, I continue to collect wisdom and information wherever I can get it. So far I’ve become an expert on the ins and outs of suppository laxatives (hint: tapered end first). And, indulging too much in the TV I borrowed to get me through recovery, I’m discovering a lot about how to quickly portray a character as good or evil. With men, it’s pretty simple—give the bad guy a black hat, a sneer, and a cheesy moustache. For women, it’s a little more nuanced. I’m still gathering data over here, but so far I’ve come to the conclusion that if a female character has a thick French accent and/or works in a lab doing harmful experiments on innocent animals and/or is the mysterious new tenant or innocent looking nanny, she’s probably a homicidal bitch.

Spike Gillespie is feeling better every day. She blogs regularly at LaunchPad Coworking and www.spikeg.com. She is also head mistress for the Dick Monologues. Email her if you want to reserve tickets for December 14th: spike@spikeg.com.