Hysterosalpingogram: I'm Paying You to Do What?!?

Hey kids. Today I went to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for my Hysterosalpingogram or HSG for short. I had done a little research in advance, through friends who had experienced this as well as on the web.  And through my experience with this I want to tell any woman who is reading this to stop Googling.  It is nothing but a recipe for confusion and disaster- that is unless it brought you here to this blog, then Googling is the best choice you've ever made.  I had a myriad of experiential stories from friends from "meh, I went straight to work after" to "it will hurt like hell".  I also tried to

look up the procedure on the web to see how people prepare- they told me to take 600mg of Advil. Have you seen me?  I have more surgery scars on me than Michael Jackson (#toosoon).  600mg isn't going to touch me.  Then I wanted to see how medical websites describes the procedure.  Stop it.  I don't know who lets WebMD still continue to exist on the interwebs, but they are probably the same people who invented Candy Crush (why can't I quit you?) or the people that keep saying, "You know that Nicholas Sparks book?  Let's make that into a movie!".

So, I'll list here my experience, take it or leave it, but you know it's gonna have some good gifs so you might as well read on.  When you first get called in by a nurse, you strip from the waist down and put on a hospital gown.  Another of my favorite things- being naked from the waist down in a public

place. Not only that, they gave me one gown to put on where the ties are in the back and another to wear like a robe backwards so you don't have to walk around the halls pinching it closed like a dog chasing his tail.  But on the second gown, they hadn't buttoned the parts at the top that actually form the arm holes.  Now.  I'm not an idiot.  I have a degree from a solid college (that I'm still paying off and probably will until my own child goes to college) and work in a pretty challenging job.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they snap together.  I

ended up, in haste, throwing it around me like a matador.  And, of course, when I get nervous I get chatty and the nurse complimented my sandals.  I said, "Yeah, I wanted to wear something that complimented a hospital gown, but didn't say 'I'm trashy'". Then you go into an imaging room and climb up on a large X-ray bed.  Then they put what feels like a brick wrapped in a thin sheet at the very small of your back in order to tilt your pelvis backwards.  Then they tell you to put your feet on these little balls that kind of feel like stepping on a baseball directly on the arch of your foot.  Now the next part, I'm not going to go into great detail, but basically they "Jack Cousteau" you (artist's rendering below).  They dilate the cervix, insert a radio

active dye into your uterus and take xrays as they see it travel through to the fallopian tubes, which tells you that your baby makin' pipes are clear. Guys put on earmuffs for this part: The most painful part is the speculum.  It feels like they are recreating the Holland Tunnel inside your body.  The cramping from the dye being inserted into the uterus isn't that bad at all.  In total the procedure probably takes about 4 minutes (but in all honesty it will feel as long at this:)

and you will leave feeling ok, but honestly, you'll just want to go home, put on your big girl sweats and eat cheese puff balls.  Follow your instincts.  I went back to work- asshat.  The good news is that my parts are in working order.  The bad new is that I screamed an expletive during the procedure that would make George Carlin blush.