When I first shuffled painfully into the hospital, I was directed toward the emergency room.   The woman at the reception asked for my medical card and, upon typing in my details, asked, 'How are you today?' I could tell by her expression that she wasn't loking for a 'Fine thanks, and you?' kind of answer, so I told her where it hurt.  I was asked to wait, and then my name was called and I was led into the emergency unit.  As I walked in I glanced at the booth where Charlotte breathed her last.  Please God, I thought, don't let me be examined in there.  Thankfully, asking me some questions the doctor directed me upstairs.

Gynaecological tests revealed nothing.  The woman decided I was just a whinger with a painful period, and attempted to send me on my way with some Ponstan.

'No,' I argued. 'Something's wrong.  I need to find out what it is.'

'Okay,' she said.  'I send you for ultrasound.'

I knew something was up by the way the ultrasound woman kept running over and over the same spot, drawing up measurements on the viewing screen.  

I waited an hour for the results.  Finally I was called back into the gynaecology office.

'We have found a lump in your uterus,' she began, 'measuring 6cm by 7cm...'  Alarm bells rang in my head.

Suddenly a nurse rushed into the office, said something in Thai and raced out, and the gynaecologist muttered an apology and raced out after her.  I was left alone in the office and, confused, started picking my way through the file which had been left on the table between us.  The notes were all in Thai, though, and I could fathom very little.  A lump in my uterus?  Was this it?  Was I going to have to do like in the movies, and stammer, 'How long?  How long... have I got?'

I sat there for a few minutes, panic starting to well up inside, until finally a nurse entered.  'The doctor,' she said, 'go upstairs to deliver baby.  Maybe half hour.  You can go back to school, come back later...'

Come back later?  I could be in the middle of the most damning news of my life.  I'm not going anywhere.

I did, however, shift as far as the waiting room, where some idiotic late morning talk show was on, like probably every hospital in the world.  They only put them on to remind you how futile everything is when you're about to be told you're dying.

Finally, finally, finally the gynaecologist reappeared and invited be back into the office, apologising. 

'Boy or girl?' I managed to ask.

She looked confused for a moment.  'Oh.  Boy,' she said, a miniature smile flickering across her face.  And then, back to it.

'So, you have a lump in your uterus.  It's not cancerous, so...'

(INTERLUDE WHERE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS START DANCING THE TANGO, CUT TO FLOWERS BLOOMING AND BIRDS SINGING, THE DAWNING OF A NEW DAY IN WONDERLAND)

I come to to hear her saying, '....option is surgery, but there is every chance this lump will return.  The other is medication.  Either an injection once every month or a pill once every day...'

'And how long will I have to take this medicine for?'

'Oh, until menopause.  Of course, you could have a hysterectomy, but you prtobably don't need it, and it is a bit risky, and of course you would never be able to have children...'

'Sounds great.'

'You like this option?'

'Er, no.'

'Okay.  So you need this medication.  It will make the lump smaller and stop your periods.'

'What is this medication?'

'Testosterone.'

Oh, fabo.  Just what I need.  Any more of this shit and my mother will no longer be able to claim to have a daughter.