I have a story to share with you / inflict upon you, and I was going to lead by saying I had a horrifying story to share with you, but you know what, this is not the time in our lives to use words such as “horrifying” without making it clear what KIND of horrifying we are talking about. And anyway, “horrifying” is an exaggeration and what I really mean to say is that I have a MORTIFYING story to share with you. And even so, everything was okay, everything IS okay, everything was/is deep-down fine—but MORTIFYING still applies, in my opinion. Here we go.
So today I had my first pap test in, as the receptionist pointed out TWICE, four years. To my mind, this was not odd: at my last one, in spring of 2017, the nurse-practitioner said to come back in three years for the next one, so that would have been spring of 2020, and perhaps you noticed we had a little pandemic right around then, so I put it off until now, and I’m not saying I felt None Nervous about that, but three years already seemed kind of arbitrary and four years didn’t seem TONS different than three—and, REGARDLESS, that is what I DID, and a receptionist gasping about it (TWICE) does not make it possible for me to go back into time and do things differently, so what is the point of it? JUST MAKE ME THE APPOINTMENT
(A side note: I COULD have my pap done at my usual annual appointment with my regular doctor. And I DID do that once. And her office accidentally mis-stored the samples so they were no good, and so I had to have it RE-DONE, and after that I felt a certain loss of confidence.)
Anyway, what was nice is that my OB/GYN’s office has, since my last appointment, opened up another office in my town, so I don’t have to drive 35-40 minutes like I used to. Everything was a little unfamiliar, because of the new location and because of Covid-19 precautions, and I was a little on edge ANYWAY expecting to have to deal with MORE gasps about why it had been so long, and also I don’t think anyone feels utterly comfy with a pap. I feel a LOT more comfy than I USED to (pregnancy/labor/childbirth cured me of a lot of nudity/exam issues), but it’s still just an uncomfy thing to have done.
Finally we are at the mortifying part: the nurse-practioner came into the room to do the exam. AND I KNEW HER. I’ve known her since her eldest daughter and my eldest son were in preschool together. Her secondborn and my secondborn went to preschool together. Her youngest and my twins are in school together. We have encountered each other at many, many parent events. We have chatted many, many times. I will continue to see her at school events for the next couple of years, and around town for who knows how many years after that.
Well. Well. What is to be done, in such circumstances? I suppose I could have said “Oh hey wow, I didn’t realize this was with someone I knew, I’m going to have to get dressed and reschedule.” And knowing I truly did have that option was helpful, I guess, except that it’s hard to imagine a circumstance in which I would actually do that.
Instead, as we chatted about our kids and updated my medical records (GAH, she is seeing my history of anxiety and all my other personal stuff!), I talked myself through it. “This must happen to her ALL THE TIME,” I told myself. “This is FAR MORE AWKWARD for me than it is for her—and much of HER awkwardness might be empathetic: feeling that this might be awkward for me, wondering if I knew that it would be her, etc.” And I thought back to when I was an in-home elder caregiver, and I’d wondered ahead of time if helping someone shower would be too awkward to manage, and then I did it one single time and was like “Oh! This is just another human body! This is no big deal at all! It’s not NUDITY-nudity!”—and after that I was ONLY worried that the OTHER person would feel awkward, since for THEM it was being naked in front of a clothed stranger, while for me it was just normal work and no big deal.
Still. STILL! This wasn’t even just a regular doctor appointment, this was a PAP. And a BREAST EXAM. And QUESTIONS ABOUT SEX AND CONTINENCE. And a KEGEL TEST. WITH SOMEONE I KNEW.
I WILLED myself through it. Like, “Welp, here we are, this is happening. Being all awkward/embarrassed about it, and/or apologizing for perspiring, and/or acting self-conscious, will make it WORSE. Being cheery/chatty and pretending to be unself-conscious and totally fine with it (this is my strategy even when I DON’T know the person) will HELP. So let’s get this show on the road and then I can GO HOME, AND PERISH LATER IF NECESSARY.”
And so I did. And it’s fine. It IS fine. It’s fine. This is her JOB. This must happen to her FAIRLY OFTEN, if she’s working in the same town where she lives and has children. It’s FINE. (NEVER AGAIN.)
I am horror stricken on your behalf! I’m a bit surprised she didn’t ask if you were comfortable or if you’d prefer someone else stepped in!
A neighbor once breezed in to see her next patient at Planned Parenthood and it was one of her husband’s grad students.
(Years ago, pre-HIPPAA, which I assume doesn’t allow these sorts of tales any longer)
Oh, gosh. I’m feeling it for you. And I’m impressed with how brave you were to act with aplomb. She must have been impressed with your confidence, really.
I am sweating with discomfort. I applaud you for getting through it.
I am a nurse practitioner and am here to reassure you it IS absolutely fine. She hasn’t thought another thing about it and neither should you. I’m glad you went, so many people don’t follow through with simple screening and potentially life saving exams. So, good on you!
Now having said all of that, I recently had to have surgery (just on my thyroid, no intimate parts) at the same hospital I work in and with a surgeon I see in meetings on a regular basis and I was somewhere close to mortified at being exposed and vulnerable and gorked out on Versed in an environment in which I am normally the one in control. So, I do empathize!
Ha, I love “gorked out on Versed.” YES. I know a knee doctor, and on one hand I trust him if I ever have a knee thing that needs attention—and on the other hand, I do not want to be unconscious, and also for some reason it feels Too Private for him to see the inside of my knee??
This reminds me of my mother-in-law’s story about going into labor with her third child (my wife) in the 1970’s. She was a college French professor living in a small city, and apparently in those days, it was standard to shave the, um, area before the birth. So here she is in a fairly vulnerable position, already in labor, ready to be shorn, when the person with the clippers walks into the room and cheerily says, “Bonjour, Madam [LastName]!” and my MIL realizes the person shaving her IS HER STUDENT.
It’s been 40+ years and I still don’t think she has fully recovered.
You (She) WINS!
I watched my first niece be born and I honestly don’t have a clear memory at all of my sister in laws lady bits, because like you said, it’s not NUDITY-nudity.
Also, and this is wildly different because it doesn’t involve the private parts, but as a professional editor I find people get really nervous and apologetic about things they’ve written that I need to read for whatever reason, and while I might notice something incorrect, I’m not judging in any way or even remembering after the fact. I get self-conscious showing stuff I’ve sewn to more experienced sewists. And I’m sure they don’t care.
Any professional who gets judgey can go jump up their own butt.
I AM SO APPALLED FOR HER!!!
Ok. I’ve verified that it’s the BONJOUR that is killing me right now. Like: Bonjour Madame! And BONJOUR MADAME!
::dying::
I am a college French professor in a small city and I am legally dead from this story
Oh this immediately gave me a nervous feeling in my stomach. I admire your “keep cool”-ness in such an awkward situation!
I can objectively see that this is absolutely no big deal for the NP and something she does all the time while I am simultaneously horrified on your behalf.
I had a pretty difficult birth with a long, drawn-out recovery, so when I was home visiting my parents, I saw a new, recommended uro-gyn for a second opinion, and she prescribed me a numbing cream for the afflicted area. It needed to be compounded, so my mom goes, our pharmacist in small-town-I-graduated-from does compounding, and I thought, perfect! So I bring in my prescription for “numbing cream to be applied to the perineum 15 mins before sexual intercourse” and the pharmacist is SOMEONE I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH. He dated/married a friend of my husband. It was awful. We made polite chit chat about his kids and my kid and our respective lives and I wanted to die the whole time.
ohhhhhhhhh nooooooooo!!
Good job on powering through.
I also think so fine (totally FINE) but yeah never again.
When I used to take graduate classes/teach (at three different universities, not all at once), I used to swim in the university pool and a few times I saw my own students or my own professors naked in the locker room. It was most mortifying when there was a status imbalance (i.e. not grad students in my classes).
But I have to say, some of the stories in these comments are worse.
Good for you, powering through.
I’m a nurse-midwife and a mother of four young kids and let me tell you this happens ALL THE TIME with my kids friends parents. I always begin by acknowledging the awkwardness and offering the patient a chance to reschedule with someone else. But while I feel nervous because I want to do my very best and give them the best care, it’s not as awkward for me (power dynamic and comfort definitely favors the provider). Also, with a history of normal paps, you only need a pap every 3-5 years so the receptionist should have given you NO shit. Even if you haven’t had a pap in decades, shame does no one any good at the GYN.
I had the same thing happen several years ago, only it was the OB/GYN herself that I knew. Her daughter and my daughter were (and still are) close friends. It was SO AWKWARD. She was entirely professional and pretended like we had not known each other for years, but obviously I changed practices after that. We continued to see each other all the time at various school events and I’ve been in her home and my younger daughter and her son are now best friends too and GAH I still feel so weird about it.
I believe that “Let’s get this show on the road and then I can GO HOME, AND PERISH LATER IF NECESSARY.”” will be my new mantra for uncomfortable/awkward/unpleasant situations, and maybe just, “PERISH LATER IF NECESSARY,” for short.
This would make an excellent t shirt. Just text except for some sort of small graphic I think. Maybe a bee????? Someone make shirts!
I LOVE this!
I’m laughing out loud at this! I need a tshirt made with this sentiment. It’s just – me.
I had a similar experience once. I had just moved to a new city, and scheduled a long-overdue OB-GYN checkup at the local Planned Parenthood. Midway through the exam — I was already on the table in my gown, if not mid-Pap smear — our chit chat revealed that she was married to a good friend of my husband’s new good friend. It was immediately clear that we would soon be seeing each other socially — and that is exactly what happened. I felt awkward briefly when we saw each other later, and she admitted that she had a moment of awkwardness in the exam when we realized our overlapping social circles, but now she is one of my very dear friends
Omg, I’m laying my head on my desk in empathy. I mean…just..and…sigh.
Kevin had a physical done by someone he went to school with, kind of the same thing – if you get what I’m saying. Poor guy.
I’m sure you did great in the situation. I am wholly unsure what I would have done so Well Done.
Attempted to post a thoughtful and calm comment but all I can muster is AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. Nononononono. No.
I would have felt the exact same way and am empathetically mortified on your behalf. It reminded me of an episode on the sitcom “I’m Sorry.” So, if it might help to laugh at someone else’s awkward OBGYN visit, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_svopkuIZ6g
Okay. Wow. I could not even finish watching, so perfectly awfully horribly squirmy!
Reminds me of the Mindy Project episode where Mindy challenges Danny try to do a GYN exam on her, even though they are colleagues:
My current GYN and also my current dentist are both women I met because we all volunteered for a Dem candidate (now elected!!) who lives around the corner from me.
I was looking for a new dentist because my then dentist had my opponent’s yard sign in his yard when I ran for office, and I was looking for a new GYN because my old one retired.
So I asked them both if they were accepting new patients and would it be weird for me to be their patient since we knew each other from outside?
But that was me KNOWING GOING IN what the situation would be.
I do like having doctors I can safely chit chat about politics with.
I misread this and saw, “My current GYN *IS* also my current dentist” and I thought, “Wow! That’s an interesting dual specialization! 😂😂😂
It sounds as if you handled the awkwardness beautifully and if anything remotely similar ever happens again, you’ll know you managed and recovered successfully this first time.
My husband is a surgeon. After one of my middle kids’ births, he was in the my hospital room’s bathroom showering because he had to go to work shortly after the baby was born early in the morning. While he was in there, a nurse and a trainee came in to check my perineal incision and such. So, two women peering at my parts with one describing everything to the other and commenting on the necessary bits. Husband walks out of bathroom in scrubs, gives me and the baby quick kisses on foreheads, and rushes out to work without ever really giving the nurses a glance – just saying thanks over his shoulder as he exited. Second he walks out, the trainee says, “Your husband did my surgery; how fun running into him like this!”
That was so painful to read! Kudos to you for handling it SO WELL, ohmygosh. And I think good you had the “Oh! This is just another human body! This is no big deal at all! It’s not NUDITY-nudity!” experience (I loved this part) to draw upon. Brave, brave lady!
Oh God. OH. GOD.
Several years ago I was at a GI checkup (I also have Crohn’s disease) and my doctor asked if I would mind seeing the resident first. Of course I said that was fine, then the resident comes in and I realize it’s someone I go to church with, but we don’t know each other well. I’m mortified but we go on to have an EXTENSIVE conversation about my bowel movements.
Two weeks later our church has a special “sit with someone you don’t know” post-Easter brunch and someone we end up sitting at a table with this guy. THE HORROR.
I replied to the wrong comment but OH MY GOD I am perishing on your behalf.
It was truthfully the most mortifying moment of my entire life. And that is saying a lot for a person with Crohn’s disease. THANKFULLY dude acted like he had no idea who I was. And maybe he truly didn’t! But I was dead.
Ha ha ha oh noooooooooooooo
This is the one — this is the story that made me go NOOOOO out loud.
what is a kegel check??????
TOO MORTIFYING TO DESCRIBE
(Okay, no, I can do this. The medical professional. Has you try. To squeeze their fingers. Using a kegel. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. BAD ENOUGH with someone I DON’T KNOW.)
YOU HAVE TO SQUEEZE FINGERS WITH YOUR VAGINA????
This isn’t really the same, and I agree this was mortifying, but I was sent to a dermatologist for a mole check and she said I might as well get naked and she’d do a head-to-toe check, and then she started talking to me and she was really interested in books and blogging so we were having this completely normal wide-ranging conversation while she was going over every inch of my skin with a magnifying glass, lifting up my boobs and parting my hair to look for suspicious spots. At the end she said “nothing alarming. I’m glad for you and sad for me”. I wanted to ask her out for a drink.
This isn’t really a reply to your comment, but I wanted to mention how neat it was to meet you today!
Swistle and readers: Allison and I had figured out from comments here and me following the link to her blog that we live near each other and today I recognized her in the parking lot of a local grocery store and we were parked right next to each other and I introduced myself with “Do you write a blog by any chance? I’m SHAWNA from SWISTLE’S BLOG!!!” while tearing off my mask because it somehow seemed less disturbing to be called out by someone whose face was visible I guess? Fortunately she was very gracious and didn’t (outwardly) freak out.
So yeah, Hi Allison!
Oh this is SO FUN!
I had to have some kind of cardiac ultrasound – external, not the kind where they put something down your throat – and the tech was a neighbor. I was basically lying there on the table with my chest exposed while she did the ultrasound thing. I didn’t recognize her at first and she told me she was my neighbor (up the street a little) and I said – oh this isn’t awkward at all! She offered to see if another tech was available and I said no this is fine, and talked myself through it same as you did. It was fine.
No mortifying stories to share but here to comment on the gap between paps . The guidelines for the pap’s changed to once every 3-5 years so you are well within that timeline. That receptionist should learn to keep her comments to herself.
I live in a small-ish town and always seem to run into people I know when I’d rather not. Dealing with some post-partum pelvic floor issues, I scheduled an appointment with a physical therapist. When I got there I had a similar moment of horror, the PT was someone I knew through my kids’ daycare. There were some Kegel tests involved. She was great and didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. Still it would have been easier if it were a stranger.
Dying dying DED. Oh my word. The closest I have come to having this happen was getting a (trans vaginal…) ultrasound at a clinic where I knew one of the radiologists from my daughter’s preschool. Luckily the actual scan is done by a tech, but I still don’t know if Mary saw pictures of my insides. The only comfort I can offer is that doctors and nurses have seen it ALL, and they don’t/can’t care. My SIL is a nurse and nothing phases her anymore.
When my daughter was born, a good friend of one of my very closest friends was a senior midwife at the hospital where I gave birth.
She’s LOVELY. She came to check on me during my labour and then several fairly traumatic hours later, she heard my daughter had been born and rushed in to meet her. I was literally lying back being stitched back together at the time! But… you know what the intent was kind, she literally spends 14 hours a day dealing with vaginas. It was FINE. Or more accurately I was just past the point of caring! I think if she’d been a less lovely lady and I’d not just spent 18 hours in labour I would have found it a lot more awkward.
I once had the situation reversed. I was in the hospital for chest pain (never discovered the cause). They wanted to run tests and one of the nurses popped into the room and was like, “OH! Hey, Coach!” (I used to be her coach when she was in high school.) At that moment, another nurse told me to remove my shirt and bra and my girl just noped right out. She said, “Yea, I just can’t see my coach’s boobs!” and left. It was really funny.
I’m not reading the other responses, BECAUSE this happened to me! Long story short, back in the 1980’s I went in for a check up, and I needed contraception. Cue to the nurse being the wife of my boss! I HAD NO IDEA! Then I had to explain I needed birth control, while I could see her mind spinning-like who was I having sex with. It was a super small community, I was one of the few females, and I could see her brain turning, like “who is the guy?”, It remains, to this day-one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. I’m a private person, and honestly with the wisdom of years-as soon as I saw her I should have left.
I think the physical exam, okay, they see lots of bodies – but the sex and continence questions, Ohhhhh NOOOOOOO. I would just imagine her thinking about my answers every time she saw me with my husband but maybe that’s just what I would do? I bet she has a very special compartment of her brain where she tucks all the info and bodies she’s gathered and it just doesn’t come out in normal life. I’m going with that on your behalf!
I am a family physician and I will echo others… A four year gap is nothing to be alarmed about.
I feel for you and I applaud you for getting through it.
I had a similarly awkward experience accidentally seeing my neighbor as a patient once. We know each other via our married names. I practice under my maiden name and she, apparently, scheduled her appointments under her maiden name.
When I walked into the room, we were both very taken aback and there was some stammering and overly cheerful “how are yous” exchanged. But then I thought, OK this is no big deal we will talk about her cold symptoms or her neck pain. Nope! She was there for diarrhea!
If I’d had more composure I would’ve offered to let her reschedule, but by that point I was so far into it I felt I just had to be clinical and get it done. I could tell she felt really awkward and uncomfortable and I tried to breeze through chattily because, honestly, I do deal with the stuff all the time and it doesn’t phase me in the least. I felt really bad for her feeling uncomfortable around me though.
She has never returned to see me again and I don’t really blame her.
Oh, Swistle. Oh. Hooooo. I am deep breathing on your behalf. Okay. Okay. So here is the thing: you did the exact right thing, being cheery and chatty and acting like it’s no big thing. After all, she’s a professional, this is her job, she does this all the time, I’m sure that you are not the first person she’s given a pap to that she knew. STILL OMG. I guess if I were you I’d weigh the longer drive to the other office against the possibility of this ever happening again. Yeeeeeee.
Once I had an old cracked filling from childhood that had to be repaired, and the woman in the dental office, she was someone who was on school council with me. So I tried to have normal conversation with her, with my mouth frozen and actual drool on my face. I mentioned to her later, how awkward I felt, and she was like, girl, we see this every single day. So I am going to imagine that this person compartmentalizes all the things she sees at work. I HOPE.
My best friend’s father ended up being my 90 year old grandma’s gynecologist. But we didn’t find out for years because when he asked if she was related to us (same last name), she said no! Not sure if she was straight up lying or just didn’t hear him well 🤷🏻♀️
A KEGEL TEST!!!! That is not something I have ever done at an OBGYN test. I would be super uncomfortable with that even without knowing the person. Eww.
Oh dear. Count me among those who (a) congratulate you on getting the PAP test done (I too am due, for similar reasons) and (b) say we are sure the NP thinks nothing of this and immediately relegated it away to whatever part of the brain stores, “Stuff that happens routinely at work.”
Two stories of my own that are vaguely though not directly related — I was at student health as a graduate student at a time when my sibling was an undergraduate at the same institution, and darn if said sibling wasn’t in the adjacent exam room discussing, well, issues related to sexual health and birth control. The walls were sufficiently thin that I knew exactly who that was and … OK, not a big deal, but so much for privacy (we are close and it really wasn’t a big deal, but on principle — yikes. I honestly do not remember whether I shared that I overheard the conversation or not. Probably not.).
As an infertility patient I was in early one morning for a transvaginal ultrasound to see if my ovaries were/were not responding to the (chemical) instructions that had been administered to tell them to produce vast quantities of eggs, and the resident wielding the wand, while standing where she needed to do the ultrasound while I was in the stirrups (i.e., between my spread legs) — we were chatting about it being early morning, etc. — said, “I’ve been drinking my coffee in snatches this morning.” I managed not to dissolve in paroxysms of laughter (or tears, or hysteria), but only just.
As a teenager I had gone to planned parenthood and the provider was someone whose kids I had babysat. That was fun.
These situations are The Worst. I declined to be stitched up by a doctor following my daughter’s birth, because the OB working was a man from my church who we socialized with regularly. I just couldn’t. At the time I felt like Death might have been preferrable to letting him stitch my lady parts.
And my pelvic floor physiotherapist and I both have kids in the same kindergarten class. I was so surprised to see her, said “Oh, hello!” but she acted like she didn’t know me AT ALL so I felt super awkward. But maybe it’s considered unprofessional to recognize patients outside of the office? I don’t know.
There is no Miss Manners guidebook about this type of situation but there should be!