A Different Kind of Bloodbath

Yesterday morning, I woke up in a pool of blood. Sticky, gooey, red, eekily bloody blood. Whose? I had no idea. Definitely not mine though, I crashed last night completely unscathed. Well, as unscathed as one can be after you get off a 32-hour surgical shift and you're so blindingly exhausted that the liquid flowing in your veins is no longer blood, but caffeine.

How did I know it was blood? I didn't until I opened my eyes. Before I saw it, I was scared for a minute–had I peed myself again? I'm not a slob, no, but when you get home from a 17-hour labor stint where the mother is crushing all the bones in your hand, the last thing you care about is your own bladder. I thought it was sweat, maybe some kind of bodily fluid, or maybe just water from the shower (a lie, truly–I hadn't even bathed the night before). Imagine my absolute shock when I sat up and saw the darkening crimson stain near my pelvis.

Ugh, I thought, I'll have to shower before I leave for the hospital. Yawning, I padded over to my bathroom, dumping my cargo shorts on the way. I need to set a reminder to do laundry today after I go out for dinn–AHHHHHH. I was transfixed, my eyes focused on the set of breasts I saw in the dull bathroom mirror.

Breasts.

The lightbulb in my head flicked on and I dropped my pants and voilá, there it was–a vagina. Don't get me wrong, I love vaginas. They're the reason I'm here and the source of utmost pleasure and yada-yada-yada but I never had one myself. Up until today, evidently. It didn't take much to figure from there that my newly-found vagina had decided to, ahem, shed today.

Before the confusion could settle in, a dull pain started creeping up into my stomach. I was suddenly hyper-aware of the ache in my lower back and the throbbing of my thighs. A watery bit of blood trickled down my leg, staining the tiles. I looked up at myself and sighed–at the very least, my face was my own; the genitals could be hidden. The pain amplified–they could be hidden, definitely not ignored.

I'm a medical professional. I have four sisters. Periods are right up my alley, this is not going to be that bad–another cramp hit. Holy mother of Jesus, this is going to be fucking terrible.

By now, I–no, my vagina–was dripping blood onto the bathroom floor. A quick scan through my bathroom told me I had condoms (lots of those) but absolutely no sanitary products. I was going on an adventure.

A quick shower and a prolonged period of staring at my breasts (breasts, they made giggle like I was 14 again) later, adorned in my darkest boxers and baggiest clothes, I headed out.

The stark lights at CVS reminded me of the hospital–which I have to be at in less than an hour!–except these were more accusatory, as if singling me out. I snuck into the sanitary product aisle, hoping to pick up a box and rush out, maybe grab a couple chocolate bars on the way to substitute breakfast. But as soon as I saw the piled-high shelves with packet-after-packet of pink and purple and orange products, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Did I want medium flow tampons? An applicator, maybe? Oooh, night-lock pads sound fun, how much are these fo–20 fucking dollars! Oh Lord, they don't lie to you, it really does take a toll on your bank account to be female.

40 minutes of pondering various colors and choosing between 5 kinds of chocolate bars later, I left with a significantly lighter wallet (FYI, I took all 5 bars). Panicking about the time, I headed home to waste a little more time watching a 12-minute tutorial on how to wear a pad.

Ah-ha, I'm not even running late, I thought as I scarfed down mmy fourth chocolate bar for the morning, on the lookout for my keys. Pads aren't such nightmares, they're pretty comfy if I'm being honest. Then something weird happened (as if everything that had gone down wasn't weird enough). As I bent down to pick up my bag, the little bit of the pad I assume had stuck to me, came off. And boy, oh, boy. The less said the better, but I could guarantee that I'd lost some of the hair on my butt.

A couple aspirins, two pads and a very long 14 hours later, I hit the hay.

This morning, I woke up to feel something uncomfortably pressing up against my dick. Wait, my dick? A quick check told me that the breasts and the vagina had been given back to their rightful owners. Whoever you are I hope you're okay–that shit is like a damn bloodbath.

I still don't know what happened or why what happened happened, but what I do know is this; women are made of some kind of metal and you'd best know that I was going to treat every woman that came into my ER with more respect.