like a natural woman

Dear Marianne,

I had my cervix scraped just before Christmas. When I say scraped, I don't mean like against a wall or something, it wasn't an accident, it was deliberately organised by my Doctors Surgery, obviously to put a damper on the festive season.

I had called the surgery to arrange a test about two years ago and they reminded me that I had had one six months after Mike was born. I had completely forgotten this smear test. I suppose it must have been a combination of a sleep-deprived addled brain, completely numb ladies bits and an indifference to yet another bird fafffing around down there, which put it clean out of my mind.

By the way it's not a smear test anymore its now called something like your: "women's screening programme appointment" - which implies something a little more glamorous and Hollywood-like than the actual fact of laying on a hard bed with your chuffer hanging out and a stranger coming at you, with a lump of cold unforgiving metal, saying,"and relax".

Apparently I will get my results in the new year, so says Jane, my nurse. Jane scored quite well on my Smearometer, a marking system I invented after my first painful smear test experience at a "well woman clinic" in Putney, 24 years ago.
For the Smearometer I give marks for general communication and behaviour on the one hand and for actual undertaking of the smear/scrape/screen on the other. Jane scored very highly in the second category, I would say a seven or an eight, but she lost points for using the word "pop" in the sentence: "pop your knickers off". Although after all these years, you would have thought that I wouldn't have to be asked. But I don't like to presume, I always fear that actually I may have the date wrong and I'm just there for a blood pressure test.

Jane scored less well on general banter etc. which seemed a little forced, and led us up a cul de sac when she said: "It must be very exciting for your children this week",I thought she was still talking about my anxiety over the test but she had moved on to Christmas. However, she had warmed the metal vice (which as always looked the size of a house), which was good, and I didn't get that feeling of ice cold water running through my veins as she scraped, so relatively speaking it was a positive experience.

They send the results to you now whether there is something wrong or not. Jane told me that this is because they found people were so anxious they always called to check in case the letter had been lost, or that somehow the horrible truth was being kept from them. I am very much from the unenlightened school of "don't tell me, don't want to know". In my twenties I got something quite unpleasant after staying in a dodgy flat in Barcelona - the loo was the shower, yes, not in, the shower or next to the shower the two holes were used for the water and wees. Poos had to be held in until you reached the local bar, as a morning person in this context, you can only imagine the terrifying way each day began. Anyway, after feeling unwell for some time I had to leave a stool sample with the Homeopathic hospital in London. "Just post it through the letter box" they said, so I did, and never heard another thing, I never checked, I wasn't called, my bum became my own again, eventually, and, I suppose, someone somewhere woke up one morning to find that the postman had delivered a test tube of poo.

I took the same "head in the sand" view when I was pregnant, saying no to most of the tests they offer when they take your blood, and they take a lot of blood, and wee, it seems when you are pregnant. The folk in the lab in Maidstone ignored me, obviously, and got carried away doing all the tests they could, so they reported back that amongst other things I'm not a man, I don't have hepatitis, or a strange inherited blood disorder etc. etc. After receiving this information I spent months worrying that the results were wrong, see it doesn't help to know you know.

I didn't tell Jane that I'd rather not know one way or the other thanks, it seemed ungrateful. So, here I am pretending not to wait for the brown envelope each morning. When it comes I may just post it back outside or take it down to the Homeopathic Hospital and "pop" it through their letter box.

Rx