Last summer my vagina started to sting. I would wake up more conscious of my genitals than usual and, as I came to, I’d realize why. As work began, as we all waved hello and ate our eggs on a roll and decided who to hate that day, I would feel it. It was like someone had poured a drop of vinegar inside of me, followed by a sprinkle of baking soda. It bubbled and fizzed and went where it would. I chugged water, having decided acidic urine was the problem. I took pills found in the refrigerated section at Whole Foods that my hairdresser suggested. I asked the doctor to test my urine and questioned the lack of results. I imagined the worst: a flesh-eating bacteria acquired in India making its way up my urethra, soon to turn me into a bag of bones. A tiny tumor, like a pea, sitting high up inside me. An imperceptible scratch from a sandy tampon.
I have a lot of worst nightmares, and chronic vaginal pain has long been among them. The Camera My Mother Gave Me is Susanna Kaysen’s lyrical little memoir about her struggle with vaginismus, a pain in her vagina that she could neither explain nor ignore. I’m telling you: never have you read such a page-turner about female genitalia, and Kaysen masterfully illustrates the fact that the vagina is an organ uniquely qualified to express our emotions to us when we aren’t capable of listening to our brains or hearts. And the vagina is our most emotional organ, subject to both science and spirit. At the height of her saga, Kaysen says:
“I wanted my vagina back.…I wanted the world to regain the other dimension that only the vagina can perceive. Because the vagina is the organ that looks to the future. The vagina is potential. It’s not emptiness, it’s possibility.”
As a result of this book, I associate pain in the vagina with weakness and sadness. Kaysen has made a career out of turning her madness inside out for the world to see, and the book never does pin her vaginal pain on a single medical cause. Rather, she finds relief by exiting a bad relationship, reclaiming her life and spirit and, in the process, her vagina. So what could I be suppressing that was filling me up with pain? Was it ambivalence about sex? Was I ever molested? (If so, that would explain some other things, too.) Was I afraid of where my career might be taking me, and was I running so far ahead of myself that I couldn’t catch up? Did I even know the difference between my urethra and my vagina?
The pain came and went, but my anxiety about it grew steadily. I avoided the doctor, sure the prognosis would simply be “basket case.” But eventually my catastrophic thinking became unbearable, and my incredibly patient boyfriend became sick of the refrain “My vagina hurts.” So I went to see Randy.
Randy is my gynecologist. I have had a number of gynecologists over the years, all talented in their own ways, but Randy is the best. He is an older Jewish man who, before deciding to inspect ladies down there for a living, played for the Mets. He still has the can-do determination of a pitcher on an underdog team and, to my mind, that is exactly the kind of man you want delivering your babies or rooting around in your vagina.
Which is exactly what he did one Thursday, as he asked me about work and told me about his son’s new French bulldog. “Does it hurt when you schtup?” he asked. I nodded yes. He inserted the speculum as he described his wife’s commitment to her spin classes. He said “I’m not a foodie” at least three times.
“Well, it all feels okay to me,” he said. With the exception of a small bump of inexplicable scar tissue, my vaginal canal was just great. “But let’s just take a closer look to be sure.” He summoned the ultrasound tech, Michelle, who kept her engagement ring on her tanned, lumpy finger as she snapped a rubber glove on and covered the ultrasound wand with what appeared to be a dime-store prophylactic.
“Is that a condom?” I asked.
“Yeah, basically,” she said.
“But is it different than a condom? Like, what do you call the product?”
“A condom.”
Kind but firm, she slid the ultrasound wand inside me and watched the screen closely as she moved it back and forth. Randy watched with interest as Michelle attempted to part my large intestine like a curtain.
“Her uterus,” she said. “Look. It’s pretty far to the right.”
Randy nodded. “But her ovary?”
“It’s pinned against the wall.”
“My uterus?” I asked.
“It’s far over there,” Randy said.
“There’s some adenomyosis right there,” Michelle said, pointing to a roiling gray shape. “But nothing larger than that. No cysts. The left ovary is—”
“No, it’s the right ovary that’s wonky,” Randy said, taking the wand from her like an impatient kid playing a video game with a friend.
After a long moment, he patted my leg reassuringly and removed the wand in one swift motion. “Okay, hop up and get dressed and meet me in my office.”