Yesterday was both a horrible and a great day. It was horrible, because some ongoing premenopausal bleeding problems (due to fibroids) had me in the emergency room. I’ve been dealing with this since June, when I had my first-ever three week period. Fortunately, I didn’t need to be admitted yesterday (I was astonished I wasn’t a transfusion candidate).

But I’m really to blame for it getting this bad. First, a decade or so of crappy eating and drinking too much didn’t just lead to a 200lb weight gain. It probably also contributed to turning me into one major estrogen factory…not such a good thing now at age 47.

However, I think the real problem wasn’t just the weight gain per se. It was that the weight gain kept me from going to a gynecologist from the day my GP said “We can’t reach your cervix. You need to go somewhere else for your Pap smear.”

I guess they used some plastic speculum, and whether it was my weight or something else I don’t know, but I was embarrassed. And since I was in my mid-30s (and frankly not sexually active once the weight piled back on), I just said the hell with it.

So I think my last Pap smear was probably at least 10 years ago. And I’ve never had a mammogram, as I really just didn’t want to go through it with size 48I cans.

When my periods started getting obnoxiously heavy a year or so ago, I still put off doing anything about it. I was pushing 400lbs, and the thought of dealing with an ob/gyn at that point was like going on the Dean Ornish diet. You know you should, but you can’t make yourself do it.

I was also involved in a major project at work through the spring. So even after I started losing the weight early in the year, I still put off doing anything, even though my friends had to have been getting tired hearing me bitch about my periods.

Enter my three-week period.

Here’s the scary part I didn’t know. If you aren’t an established patient, any good doctor won’t see you for well over a month. Even if you have an urgent need, like I did. You’re considered a “new patient” and you have to wait for one of those slots. Really good doctors are usually booked for two months or more. (This may be different in the world of HMOs, but that’s not what I currently have.) So basically, I went to see the first doctor who could fit me in. Not a good start.

Anyways, I won’t go thru the gory details. But in the three or so months since I first experienced this, I’ve been through the ringer. And even though I’ve lost 75lbs since the beginning of the year, I still have this anxiety about going into a doctor’s office as a fat person.

I mean, I realize that I’m probably not as good a surgical candidate as thinner women are. But it’s almost an internalized fear I have that most doctors are going to see the fat and miss the real problem. Or maybe it’s not that so much as anticipating the lecture: “Gee, you’re quite fat. Did you know that fat puts you at risk for blah blah blah? Have you ever tried to diet? What about OA?”

No. Golly gee, I’m an anomaly. A big fat woman who’s never tried to diet or do OA. Please, spare me!

Well, the great news is that persistence paid off. The gynecologist I saw yesterday (my third ob/gyn since June) was so refreshingly different, I just couldn’t be happier. It took an impossible amount of time (I made yesterday’s appointment at the end of August), but I’m feeling optimistic about the future. I must admit that it was nice for her to respond very positively when I mentioned I’d lost a lot of weight. And she also explained what she might do differently (and why) because of where I was.

What a relief!

That said, I wonder just how many women are like me, and aren’t getting good care because there’s no easy way to find a doctor who won’t just read you the fat riot act. Maybe we need to start a list.