Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Heating Pad

I have a whole series of posts about culture shock and how fun it is to travel around with my parents (AUGH) which I will post when I get around to posting them, but for now, here is a story.

About three weeks ago, I had an IUD put in. I'm not dating anyone, nobody panic. I did it for a whole variety of rational reasons, including but not limited to:

1) I was probably going to need a copper IUD at some point, because I can't have any hormonal birth control (I have enough problems controlling my depression without extra hormones floating around in there) and the only other options are the diaphragm or condoms, which I've always seen as being backup methods, or the rhythm method, which...well. I have nothing polite to say about that "method."

2) I was still afraid, at that point, that I was going to get kicked out of England. If I have the NHS put in my IUD, it's free. I like free. So I decided I'd better get on that before I got my visa results back.

3) My cousin is pregnant again, and is due in August. HER FIRST CHILD IS NOT EVEN A YEAR OLD YET WHAT THE HELL. Apparently she decided she had some extra sanity just lying around that she could afford to give up on mountains of diapers and never sleeping again, although I've never seen any evidence of her having any sanity to spare. I think my ever having children is a spectacularly bad idea and this just set off all my paranoia and anal-retentiveness, because GOOD GOD.

So now I have this IUD, and my uterus is very angry about it. I have never experienced cramps like this in my life and they've been going on for THREE WEEKS NOW. Even my Aleve is failing me. So last night I got home late, and I dug the heating pad out of the hall closet, and I considered it.

The thing about this heating pad is, it's really old. It still lives in its original box, which has an alarmingly retro design, not something you look for in an appliance that is plastered with warning labels designed to help you prevent it from electrocuting you or setting you on fire. Seriously, they're printed across the cover as well, which appears to be made of burlap, because this thing is old as hell. And the box is very clear about it only having a five-year warranty, and I know I used it in middle school when I was thirteen and it was old even then, because my parents are not enthusiastic about replacing appliances until they see actual sparks. But I had already had more Aleve than was probably advisable, and I had had cramps all evening, and I wanted some damn sleep, and it was way too late to go out and buy another heating pad, even though, strangely, all the shops in this country stay open later than 5 pm. So I plugged it in, and I switched it on, and I fell asleep on top of it despite all the dire warnings about how, if I did that, it would eat all the skin off my abdomen and I would never notice until it was too late.

This morning I wandered downstairs, with all my abdominal skin still intact, and my mother was down there getting ready to go to work. "Mom," I asked, "how old is that heating pad in the hall closet?"

"Oh, I don't know," she replied. "My mother bought it for me; I don't remember when."

Her mother has been dead since well before I was born.

So, since I didn't have a car today, I couldn't go out and get a heating pad that isn't in the final stages of cackling senility. I'm going to have to sleep with this one again tonight. It's starting to seem like a bad idea.

No comments: