today i wept

Eliza Matthews

scrapings

today I wept
I cry for the futility.I cry for the waste.I cry for my friend who's body is failing her; a body that is rebelling against her because it simply wants to stop. It is tired. She is tired.I weep for what may not be.I cry, but I'll keep believing, because that's all we have. Faith and love. Two true certainties.

Eliza Matthews
I was wheeled into the ward. Groggy and shaken, I’d had three days of asthma attacks and vomiting out my guts, and the world was fuzzy. In one corner of my room was an old Chinese lady. Dying of lung cancer, her family would visit her at all hours with what seemed to be a fifteen-thousand-course banquet. Out would come the chopsticks. Once that happened, the family would talk in loud foreign words not seeming to care about me or the other languishing occupant of our space. I didn’t care that she was dying because I hated all the noise that she brought to the room. I was sixteen years old, felt like crap, and just wanted to sleep.In the other corner of the room was a girl wit

18.10.09
There is a growth in my throat. I do not know how long it has been there. The anaesthetists made no note of it when I had my last surgery in May, so it must not have been there at that time. When I had a broncosopy a couple of weeks ago, my doctors would have been concentrating on other things, so they missed it, through no fault of their own.I am angry at myself. I've had an aggravated throat on and off for month. I have had trouble swallowing food and swallowing. It is slightly bigger than the size of a pea which means it has grown aggressively.I am angry at myself. I'm supposed to know my body; I should know if there is something amiss, be it an ache, a strange br

south
Note to doctors:When referring to my vagina and vulva, please refrain from saying 'down below'.It makes me feel like I'm in the engine room of the Titanic shovelling coal, and my vagina resents you. It resents your Dickensian modesty and inability to look at it's host (that's me) in the eye when talking about 'down below'.I do not have a 'down below'. I have female sexual organs with substantiated names like vagina, vulva, labia and clitoris.That is all.

scrapings
Today I had my insides scraped with a brush and now I feel empty.The dog trap of a speculum was eased into my vagina, wound tight to open my cervix and keep the widening secure. Cotton balls soaked in vinegar were packed into my vagina and cervix to see if there was any dysplasia, or 'changes'. My cervix was brushed and scraped with 'brooms', then sticks of silver nitrate were inserted to stopper the bleeding. My doctor said the application of the silver nitrate onto skin is just like a cigarette burn.The dog trap that had been inside me for thirty minutes was pulled out. It was a strange feeling of sweet agony.My vulva was then painted with vinegar. Obvi