Kisses from Kairo

Warning: If you have an aversion to feminine products or problems, or are generally squeamish, proceed no further.

I totally didn’t intend my first blog post of the year to be about my period, but hey, it’s better than some soppy post about New Year’s resolutions. Years come and years go, and I never make resolutions. They’re worthless, and nobody keeps them anyway. Besides, there’s nothing special about January 1st. As far as I’m concerned, July 29th is just as good a day to make resolutions as January 1st. Because there’s no such thing as time. Not here in Egypt anyway.

Back to my period. If anything, my monthly cycle is the closest thing to time. It’s always punctual and always painful, and I can always count on it coming (that’s more than I can say for most people, including myself :D). And, conveniently enough, it came back to haunt me on January 1st, at the stroke of midnight, to be exact. Couldn’t possibly be a better way to kick off the new year, now could there? :)~

The reason I’m blogging about my period is because I wound up touring 4 hospitals because of it. In one of my many moments of absent mindedness, I inserted a tampon without remembering if I had removed the previous one. Being the sissy that I am, I panicked. Left unremoved, a floating tampon can cause Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS), which is potentially fatal. Not to mention, I have extremely long nails, which I wasn’t about to remove to perform a tampon extraction.

At 1 am with all private clinics closed, I had no other choice but to go to the hospital. So I went to the one closest to home. But I left sooner than I entered. The receptionist informed me that because I’m a foreigner, I’d have to pay double what an Egyptian would pay to be treated. For crying out loud, I’m a tax-paying resident who pumps more into this economy than most Egyptians, and the hospital wants to play Khan el-Khalili with me?

Determined to be examined, I then went to a reputable international hospital called Mustashfa Al-Salam Al-Dawli. I entered the emergency room and requested to see a gynecologist. There were 2 of them on staff, but first I would have to explain my problem to the nurse. I did just that, telling her I had a tampon floating around “up in there” and needed to have it removed.

“You have a what?” she asked. “A tampon,” I answered. “You know, Tampax?” The nurse had no idea what I was talking about, so I told her what a tampon was. She still didn’t get it, so I pulled one out of my purse and opened it, thinking that if she saw it, she would understand.

Nope.

“Ok, could you please call the doctor in?” I asked. Surely a licensed gyno would know what I’m talking about. The nurse phoned the doctor and tried to explain my situation, but to no avail. She too had no idea what a tampon was. I tried explaining again, only to have her tell me there was nothing she could do for me. “Ok nurse, what about the other doctor?” “He’s home right now, but I’ll call him and have him come in.” She called him, we spoke, and I left. He too hadn’t a clue what a tampon was, and didn’t think it was worth coming in to find out.

Pissed and getting more panicky by the minute, I then went to Qasr El-Aini, which is supposed to be a French hospital. Surely the French know a thing or two about tampons.
Nope. The only thing French about that hospital was its history. I gave the same spiel to the resident gyno there and pulled the opened tampon out of my purse to demonstrate, only to be met by a confused look and an “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is so I can’t help you.”
Ughhhhhhhhhhh! I don’t care what culture you come from…how do you call yourself a gynecologist and not know what a tampon is?!? And what do I have to do to get someone to put their hand up there and take something out? Go to a mechanic? Tell them there’s a pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow? Sheesh! You’d think since most Egyptian gynos are men, getting examined would be much easier than this.

Next, I walked my way to a nearby public hospital. It was now 3am, and I was tired, cold, cranky and panicked. To make matters worse, I heard a woman screaming bloody murder from the hospital while I was still quite a distance away. “Yikes. Is this a hospital or a torture chamber?” I thought to myself.

Reluctantly, I walked into the hospital and asked to see the gynecologist. A youngish man came to greet me and ask me what my problem was. “Doctor,” I said in Arabic. “Do you know what a tampon is?” “Yes,” he said. “Are you sure? Shall I show you?” “No need,” he responded. “What’s wrong?” I told the doctor that I had my beeriood, that I think I accidentally shoved a tampon up my system, and would need to have it removed before it caused a potentially fatal bacterial infection.

And then, the doctor said the magic words: “Tooxic Shook Syndroom”. :P

“Thank you!” I blurted in English. “You actually know what I’m talking about! I’ve just been to 3 hospitals and no one knows what a tampon is, let alone TSS!” The doctor laughed. “Heeya di masr.” This is Egypt. :) He then took my blood pressure and told me to sit tight until he finished with his screaming patient.


Continued here: http://kissesfromkairo.blogspot.com/...us-x-none.html :)