where are your gloves and your helmet?

Rule of thumb: it is never a good sign if your doctor uses the word 'shy' to refer to any part of your body. The best you can hope for is that they are talking about your inability to pee in the presence of others, and it only goes downhill from there.

This goes double if the doctor in question is a gynaecologist.

That feeling where you try to look up a single symptom about your sleep issue in the hopes of getting neutral information from a reliable, non-cancercancer source. Prompted by waking up the other night absolutely convinced that I'd heard the smoke alarm start to go off, then stop on its own:

( Medical foo. No pictures of anything but the text of a Startpage search, but still, medical. )

Awake, at work, and starting day 1 of my colonoscopy prep. Medical butt stuff, wheee.

( Medical foo relating to the keyword of this icon rather than the level of frustration conveyed in the text. )

ETA: surprise! Doctor is apparently going to be out of the office that day, so I have to reschedule, and my options are Nov. 10 at a time that means I'll be going home in a taxi during evening rush hour, Nov. 15 at a time when I'd be taking a taxi into the morning rush hour, the day before Thanksgiving, or the Monday after Thanksgiving!


AAAH HAHAHAH HAHAHA HAHAHAH no. At least, as far as those last two.

I'll take the Nov. 10 appointment. Beats the alternatives.

Signed up for cancer insurance this morning. Mutual of Omaha. I'd been considering the possibility for a while now- honestly, since before last year's colonoscopy, and I'd looked at reviews and checked a couple of companies. Never actually went through with it, but...

Well, I have health insurance through my job and that's a start, but honestly, there's a lot of stuff that goes on when someone has cancer that isn't covered by health insurance and that stacks up. And even what's covered can get expensive; I'd like to avoid being completely whammied if I ever get bad results on a mammogram, or on a colonoscopy, or-

Did I mention that this past year the World Trade Center health program added 'uterine cancer' to the list of conditions covered for WTC responders? And that my doctor had me go in for a biopsy last year to make sure that my getting two heavy periods a month, more than once in a year, was just because my parents neglected to invite Menstrua the Wicked Fairy to my christening fibroids?

yeah.

If it happens, I want to be able to pay for the process, including the stuff I didn't think I'd have to pay for or the stuff I hadn't thought about that turns out to be associated with the whole godawful mess.

Well, my last solid food yesterday was a pair of hard-boiled eggs. Today: nothin' but liquids.

Mildly pissed that the Ensure Clear that I bought with the full intention of using for its nutritional content turns out to have Red #40 in it. The rules for today specifically state nothing dyed red or purple. I didn't look closely enough at the labeling... then again, to be fair, I was only looking for Ensure Clear because it was mentioned by name as a thing I could consume during the earlier stages of prep. I held off on drinking it because I had other material I could consume.

Oh well. I'll chug the stuff afterwards. The Gatorades I bought for later, at least, are safe.

Dave Barry's colonoscopy column said that the preparatory drug they make you take to ensure all systems are clear beforehand comes in a box the size of a microwave oven. I realize Mr. Barry is prone to exaggerating, which is part of why I love him, but I was still a bit disappointed when my box arrived yesterday and it was only about the size of three 12-ounce bags of coffee beans, maybe four.

Researchers Looking Into Link Between COVID Vaccine and Menstruation

By Lauren Petty • Published April 26, 2021 • Updated on April 26, 2021 at 4:58 pm
NBC Chicago

Anne Thompson received her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine April 12, on what should have been the last day of her period.

“I continued to have spotting the entire time. And now two weeks post getting the vaccine, I think it was three days ago, I started my period again,” Thompson said.

Her next period came a week a half early, prompting Thompson to wonder if the vaccine had somehow impacted her menstrual cycle.

It’s a question researcher Katherine Lee asked after her own experience.

”I had spotting when I normally don't have any sort of menstrual symptoms, because I have the Mirena IUD,” said Lee, a postdoctoral research scholar in the Division of Public Health Sciences at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Lee reached out to Kate Clancy, an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, who then tweeted about it.

“That tweet was sent February 24th, and I'm still getting, like, every minute an additional 20 notifications, that have some kind of engagement with that thread two months later,” Clancy said.

The overwhelming response prompted the researchers to create a survey, which they posted on social media. In all, 59,000 people have started the survey, describing varying experiences.

“People are reporting some differences in the timing of their cycle," Lee said. "Some people report much lighter periods and other people report a much heavier period."

Clancy said researchers have also heard about bleeding and spotting for postmenopausal women.

One woman emailed NBC 5’s Lauren Petty and said she has been menopausal for nine years. She got her first Pfizer dose in March, started bleeding that night, and it continued for 10 days.

“I honestly haven't had many of my patients complain about any irregularities in their menstruation,” said Dr. Elizabeth Yepez, a gynecologist at Rush University Medical Center.

However, the doctor believes women who have concerns should talk with their doctors and that research into a possible link is a good idea.

“I think that women's voices should be heard and like I said, I think there's definitely room within this to, you know delve into a little bit further, the side effects that women are having," Yepez said.

“If vaccine trials had bothered to ask about this, we would have already known about it, and then we could have included it in our list, right, sore arm fatigue, fever, possible changes to your menstrual cycle,” Clancy said.

The women hope their research can determine if there is a link, but they do not want to deter women from getting vaccinated.

“It certainly won't stop me from getting the second dose. It's just, at this point, it's an oddity to me,” Thompson said.

If you want to participate in the online survey, click here.

Music in the office during exams - good
Standard issue morning radio programs that do not involve sports or politics - good
Happy techs - good
Radio programs playing four decades of music - good
Taking blood pressure immediately after drawing blood samples, with the morning radio program playing Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" - maybe not the best way to get a decent blood pressure rating

I'm just, y'know, saying




(I'm not ill. I went for my annual World Trade Center Health Registry exam today and they did a twelve-hour fasting blood draw, same as every year, and then moved me to another room and had a machine take my blood pressure, and the morning radio they had on was a decent enough program but it was, in fact, playing a Queen song I more normally associate with getting my heart rate up during aerobic exercise. Don't know whether it was Freddie Mercury or the fact that I had just been, y'know, stabbed in the arm vein but either way I don't think the initial blood pressure reading was timed as well as it could have been.)

I saw Incredibles 2 on Friday. It was brilliant in so many many ways.



HOWEVER.



THIS MOVIE ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES A GODDAMN PHOTOSENSITIVE EPILEPSY WARNING.



There is a fight sequence in a room with many, MANY flashing strobe lights that goes on for long enough to be a problem. There was NO warning of any kind about this possibility. I am guessing no one at either Pixar or AMC remembers that one Pokemon episode.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, people, if you’re going to put a flashylight sequence in the middle of a movie you have to let parents know before they buy the ticket. If movie theaters can put up ‘hey, there’s several seconds of absolute silence during The Last Jedi and it’s not a technical flaw, it’s part of the movie’ posters to warn people, then they can put up ‘hey, if your kid has a seizure disorder or if anyone in your party has photosensitive migraines, you need to not be where you can see the screen at TIME_1 through TIME_2′. This isn’t protecting feelings or spoiling plot. This is a medical issue.