Posts Tagged ‘health’

My Helicopter Mother and the Gynecologist Appointment

July 19th, 2011 by Manda | 3 Comments | Filed in Family

My mother insisted on driving me to the gynecologist this morning for my yearly check-up. While ordinarily this would have been an innocent enough gesture, the fact that she wanted to take me to the gynecologist meant only one thing: she wanted to know the details of my appointment.

Generally speaking, this is not always a bad thing. It’s good when a mother cares about the health of her child, after all. But it does have the tendency to get mighty awkward when it’s about gynecological health, because there are certain things about a daughter’s life that a mother doesn’t need to know about her daughter. Or at least, certain things MY mother never needs to know about me.

The awkwardness set in as soon as I returned to the waiting room after my appointment was over, where I found my mother reading a magazine.

How was it? What did she ask you? Did you have to have a pelvic exam? You have a bandaid on your arm – did you have a blood test? Why did you even need one?

I explained to her that I had a pelvic exam because they recommend all women to start getting them annually once they are 21, and that a blood test was routine. It wasn’t a lie (perhaps a lie of omission, at least for the first part; the blood test was actually routine) and it did the trick as she seemed satisfied with my answers. However, I can’t help but think that the whole situation could’ve been avoided if I could’ve just gone by myself to my damn gynecologist!

Tags:

Deadly Bug Bites

June 20th, 2011 by Manda | 5 Comments | Filed in Life

I woke up this morning to find that I’d been assaulted by a deadly, vicious mosquito in the middle of the night.

Let me preface the rest of the story with two things:

  • The mosquitoes in the greater Shanghai area are vicious. Also, it’s been raining like crazy the last few days, although yesterday and today the rain eased up a little. You know what they say; after the rain comes the mosquitoes…
  • I have crazy sensitive skin that reacts really badly to mosquito bites. Mosquito bites cause me to swell up like no other.

The first thing that alerted me to the fact that something wasn’t quite right was the strange sensation I had in my lower lip. It seemed tingly and felt huge. A quick look in the mirror and I discovered that my lower lip had swelled to almost triple its size. My right middle finger has also swollen, to the point where it hurts to adjust the ring I wear permanently on that finger, or to even bend the finger. Also, the top of my right hand as well as my right wrist has swollen almost beyond belief. At least I can bend my wrist, though.

You know what the worst part is? I don’t have any ibuprofen on me (forgot to pack that, all I have is Tylenol which is useless for swelling) and my mom steadfastly refuses to let me take anything to help ease the pain and swelling. She’s all about “letting it heal naturally.” (She’s even gone as far to give me silent treatment when I asked if we had any ibuprofen around.) Well, that’s easy to say when you’re not the one that’s swelling up the way Violet Beauregarde did when she became a blueberry!!

Tags:

This Means I’m Next

May 14th, 2011 by Manda | 3 Comments | Filed in Friends, Travel

The two friends I am backpacking around southeast Asia with have succumbed to a most awful virus. High fever (104F/40C), body aches, nausea… they’ve got the whole shebang going on. Luckily the tests for malaria and dengue fever came out negative, but whatever they’ve got still seems pretty miserable.

At least they got sick in Saigon, where we planned to spend the most time in any one city and where there are good (albeit pricey) English speaking hospitals and clinics. Better to get sick in Saigon than somewhere in Cambodia, which is next on our itinerary!

As one friend got sick right after the other, I fear that I’m next…

Tags: ,