A Lump Where?

THE STRANGE (AND FUNNY) TALE OF A DOWN-THERE SCARE

Irecall my family's medical history: no tumors, carbuncles or lumps. We were, as a family, lump-free. Three great-aunts had been diagnosed with what they quaintly called sugar disorders, but they were big as Buicks and regularly baked and ate tremendous amounts of pie—eventually dying of complications from being too fat. I count one aneurysm, one stroke and a broken hip. Mostly, women in my family lived too long, dying from the stress of being the only one left.

It is a surprise, then, when one day I feel a concentrated pressure between my legs near my panty line, vaguely on the left. While showering, I look for its cause and find it: this thing, two fingers wide and the size of a dove's egg, tucked above the entrance to my vagina. Suddenly, I become aware of pain. To sit without suffering, I prop up on my right butt cheek. I can't cross my legs. I tell myself it's merely a pulled muscle. It's nothing, a 24-hour bump. Then a fine and steady nervousness begins to dismantle me. I leave the litter box unscooped. I plug in the vacuum and forget to run it. I can't perform normal, everyday tasks.

The 7-Eleven lady watches me limp in for my daily Diet Dr Pepper. "Charley horse?" she asks. YES, I want to scream, IN MY VAGINA! I smack a pocketful of coins into the take-a-penny tray. Maybe it's time to become a philanthropist. If this lump continues its greedy invasion, in days, hours, I might not be alive. But I don't call a doctor. I am a terminal avoider. When it comes to potentially bad news, I'd rather hear the good news first and second.

It's day two and the rubbing is painful. In baggy sweats, I hobble like Ahab. I conjure explanations informed by nothing but a leapy imagination—my mind is a pinwheel shooting frantic sparks. Self-diagnosis #1: I am a man. The lump is a previously undescended testicle, descending. It is the same feel and shape, an egg in a slippery sack. Too many jogs around the Hollywood Reservoir, twisting yoga poses and more than 30 years of gravity have caused it to drop. With a mirror, I examine my upper lip for hair.

Self-diagnosis #2: I've been poisoned. The makers of my favorite laundry detergents have poisoned me through the cotton panel of my panties with chemically induced freshness. I win the lawsuit— Miss Latter Day Testicle v. Giant Corporation, Incorporated —on the irrefutable evidence of 1,102 machine washings.

Self-diagnosis #3: I have cancer. Even the pie-eating aunts were immune to this. I would be patient zero, the first in my family. My mind flies to the funeral details. The family plot in suburban Philadelphia is crammed full. Not married, I worry about who will be buried alongside me. Probably someone who hated me in high school.

I review my life: (1) money ill-spent, (2) time ill-spent, (3) staying in relationships too long, which in turn has kept me from the business of being myself, resulting in money and time ill-spent. Assessment: glum. I cry myself to sleep.

Even a terminal avoider has a breaking point, and it is a lovely moment. I wake up the next morning in an oasis of calm. This is simply because I am a wrung rag. I can no longer summon the energy it takes to worry maniacally. I hoist a surrender flag, ready to hear my death sentence confirmed by someone other than me. I call a gynecologist.

"I can't walk," I tell the nurse over the phone. "It's the size of a golf ball." It's probably not that big, but being an Aquarius, I tend to exaggerate for emphasis.

I'm put on hold for less than a minute, a doctor's office record for swift responses. "Come right down," she says. I am a code red. Fear rerevs its engine. I practice yogic breathing and drive slowly—too slowly. People honk, but I don't care. My hands grip the steering wheel for dear life.

In the waiting room it's only me and a young couple snuggling with one another, oozy happy about a pending baby. He pats her beach ball belly. Self-diagnosis #4: I am a sacrifice. In the weights and measures of nature's justice, I'm assigned to get this thing, this lump, so someone else can live happy, healthy and free to reproduce. I hate the cheery couple for tossing me into their selfish volcano.

Before I have time to hijack all the best magazines, the nurse ushers me into the office of Dr. C. She is Chinese. Her English is choppy. I laugh whenever she does, and she laughs a lot. In the exam room, she pries my legs apart to pinch and prod me and to consider the lump.

"Golf ball," she laughs. "You got golf ball! We suck it out!"

I hear a paper wrapper tearing and see a syringe wavering in the air, with a gauge so thick the hollow in the needle barrel is visible from my reclining position. It is heading between my legs roughly 20 seconds after I've been swabbed with a topical anesthetic I was told takes five minutes to take effect. Then I am stabbed. My eyes fly open at the shock. I come onto my elbows, contracting my belly, sucking in air. I know the doctor is done when over the tops of my knees I see the syringe. It is full of a custard yellow goo tinted pink with blood.

The nurse hands me a Kotex, industrial size, thick as a brick. I hobble to the dressing area, bent in two from the shock and pain. Through the curtain Dr. C. tells me that I had a Bartholin cyst. Later, I will get the nurse to spell this out for me.

I then ask Dr. C. what caused my sudden lump, and she says, "You have no sex for long, long time. Then, a lot, a lot of sex. Gland goes wacko!"

I soon learn that "a lot, a lot of sex" is not the only or truest explanation. Not long after, I'm in the office of Dr. M., my new gynecologist, sitting on half my butt with cyst number two. "Which way do you wipe?" he asks.

"I get a wad of TP and squirrel it around down there until it's clean,"I say. He shows me a medical drawing. There are two pinholes, exit holes for lubricating secretions, that flank the vagina, close to the anus. Faulty wiping, which spreads bacteria around, he says, was a possible cause of the cyst, an infection. I flush with embarrassment. I have two master's degrees and am going for a third. I am over-educated. How can I be a faulty wiper?

Dr. M. tells me to wipe from front to back—not back to front. He takes care of the cyst, not with a syringe, but with an incision made by a surgical knife. It hurts like hell.

From now on, I vow to be the most conscientious wiper. I'll lobby for a new Girl Scouts badge for Good Wipemanship. I imagine myself as a troop leader, yelling through a bullhorn over roasted wienies, Front to back! Front to back!

Then I remember I was kicked out of Girl Scouts for an abysmal attitude; so rather than yell, I sit, because I can, comfortably and on both butt cheeks. Maybe I can save a few vaginas from here, because my typing fingers are louder than my mouth.

Robyn Ewing lives in Los Angeles.