ISSUE I: P(art) of the Soul

PROSE
I
t’s only now, when
I have medical
professionals on
all levels looking
after me, when every step has been
taken after all these years, that I’ve
finally begun to feel like it’s doing
something. Maybe it’s a reflection on
myself, that I need someone to keep
an eye on every errant body part.
It has long been instilled in
me by numerous sources -
mostly the girls I saw around
me - that my body was not
what it was supposed to be,
neither inside nor out. For
years I half-heartedly tried
this diet, then that. I dragged
myself to the gym after
school, I drank innumerable
litres of water. My heart
wasn’t in the effort to change,
but it sank heavier all the time
when it became clear that it
wasn’t working. In around
all this was secret trouble.
Undiagnosed hormonal
issues, potential infertility
looming. I put it to the back
of my mind, and there it
stayed. Even when there were
seventeen months between
periods. I’d researched it,
vaguely. I had a deeper voice
than my friends in school,
and between that, my volatile
skin, weight retention and
excessive hair, I concluded
that I had polycystic ovaries.
I mentioned it to my mother;
she said we’d keep an eye on
it. I did blood tests at the local
GP’s office in early 2016, which
came back normal. Two years
later I finished secondary
school, having had four
periods since I’d first walked
through the glass front doors.
We were driving somewhere in July
when my mother suggested that we
try going to the doctor’s again. It’d
be good to get this sorted before you
start college, she said. I agreed. We
made an appointment again with the
local GP, who was a new lady. She
had the gentlest voice of anyone I’d
met, and cool hands, and she spoke
to me like I was an equal rather
than a child. It looks like polycystic
ovarian syndrome, she told me.
Or you could call it by its catchy
initialism, PCOS. Good to know that
my internet diagnosis was accurate.
We did more tests - hormone tests,
blood tests - and the little plastic
tubes of red were sent off, with
By KAMIL FECZKO
‘‘ We did more tests...and
the little plastic tubes of
red were sent off, with all
my hopes riding on them.’’
all my hopes riding on them. The
diagnosis came soon afterwards,
and I was referred forevermore to
a well-respected endocrinologist.
I was given a prescription and a
dietician’s appointment, and my new
life as a university student began.
It wasn’t drastically different,
medically speaking. I had to
remember to take the bitter white
pills with my meals, along with
vitamin B supplements and vitamin
D in my water. I had to keep a food
diary. I had to log every bit of exercise
I did, so that I wouldn’t end up looking
like a fool trying to remember it all
in my appointments with Elaine (the
dietician). My portions were difficult
to manage. I was supposed
to eat granola and yoghurt
for breakfast; for lunch, at
least two eggs on bread, or
two chicken breasts, or ham
and cheese. Some kind of
large protein for dinner. Cut
back on fruit, double up on
vegetable snacks. She was
very specific, in fairness to
her. No more than seven
blueberries in the granola,
and a strictly measured
portion of any carbohydrate.
Twenty-seven grams of white
rice, thirty-five of pasta. I hit
a little snag very early on;
my food intake had to go up
by a significant amount, but
my prescribed medication
has the unfortunate side
effect of being an appetite
suppressant. I often went
for an entire day without
eating anything, because I
couldn’t stomach it. These
days I kept from Elaine;
she probably wouldn’t have
approved. My mother would
ring me in the evenings and
ask if I’d eaten enough that
day, and the answering sigh
when I said no, probably
not, grew louder all the time.
The consultant, when I
saw her in January, was
immaculately dressed and
her office had doors which
went from floor to ceiling. Between
snippets of medical jargon and
terminologies she asked me about
my college life, my aspirations, my
friends, what I thought about the
place I was living in. My answers
for these were easily spoken, having
been said a thousand times before.
P
A
G
E
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