So...one of the organizations I am collaborating with is the Negril Coral Reef Preservation Society or NCRPS. When they have funding, and no organizations really have any funding right now, they do about 18 dives per month for coral reef monitoring. I spoke with the head ranger and he said that I could go sometimes if I got dive certified. So...thanks pops, I got dive certified! So I am excited about helping the rangers, but I am obsessed with diving. I had to go on two dives to get certified and I was 40 underwater! It is such an amazing feeling. Not the being underwater part with the tube in my mouth or the tank and weight belt strapped to my back. The amazing feeling was being so far under our world that I saw that a whole different world exists! I don't even know how to explain it. When you are snorkeling, you get a glimpse, but this is so different. I can't wait to go again. I saw so many different kinds of coral and fish and they were all just doing there thing. Just living and surviving. Just amazing! Hopefully I will get to dive again soon.
I had to go to Kingston last week for some appointments. Three, with three different doctors. I wll spare you the story of me watching a vampire moving and then being totally freaked out in my shady not safe really cheap hotel room the Peace Corps put me up in and jump straight into the interesting part, my vagina. Yes, I had to get my pelvic exam. Usually, in the states, these happen pretty quick. Like 20 minutes or so. You ladies know the routine. The doctor warms the speculum, puts on the KY tells you they are doing to insert in and you will feel some discomfort. Well, aparently not in Jamaica. In Jamaica, things are different. I was too shocked to mumble my mantra...TIJ TIJ TIJ. Instead, after the doctor arrived 45 minutes late she rushed me through so fast I was in and out in about 3 minutes. Hurry come now she says. Take off your clothes and spread your legs she says. Is the rhinovirus prevalent in rural Jamaica she says...not to me this time but to the nurse studying in the chair next to the bed. I take off my pants with them as witness. I spread my legs. She puts cold water on the cold metal duck bill and crams it up in a not so careful way. She takes the really unnaturally long q-tip in sticks it up my vag. She scrapes it around and pulls it out. There is blood she says. Surface bleeding. Could this be from you stabbing my cervix with a q-tip like a wicked wench I want to say, but don't. She says I am done and goes about her business, which is quizzing the nurse. Good job she says, not to me. And while I am still spread on the table the Peace Corps nurse calls me. I answer. I am late for my next appointment. She is outside in the car waiting. I rush and dress faster than I have ever dressed, with an audience...oh and this after the doctor hands me a roll of toilet paper to clean up my mess. I wipe, with an audience, I dress with an audience and I am out the door and off to my barium swallow. It took me longer to type this than it took to have my vag stabbed.
They thought I had a hiatal hernia so I had to get a barium swallow. This was fast as well and an entirely different yet Jamaican experiment. They ask me to walk into a changing room resembling a room you would find in a Target. I put on an xl gown with tacky flowers on it. The arm holes were so big that my boobs fell out the side. I walk to the big xray room holding my gown in place. I had to drink this really fizzy tonic that tasted like bitters poured into alka seltzer. Don't burp says the technician. I can't help it. I stand there and belch and giggle because I can't help it. I am making faces. This is not pleasant or comfortable. Then comes the barium. It is flavored like something to make it more pleasant, but I felt like I was guzzling white vomit. Gross. They take xrays in a weird machine. I have to flop and spin while they were looking and my boobs were flopping in and out of my gown. I give up. Let them flop. Fuck it. I don't have a hernia they say. Just severe acid reflux. This is both good and bad news. Good news I don't need surgery. Bad news, I have to deal with acid reflux that my medication isn't helping.
After this, I go and get Burger King, eat it in a rush at the Peace Corps office, and before I leave for my 5 hour trip home I am blasted with my barium screaming to come out. And scream it did. And splash it did. And gross.
And now I am off to work.
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