The ECHO, May 2023

echhsechoonline.com
Vagina surgery sucks!
By Avery Tortora
Staff Writer
The first time I went to the
OB-GYN, I was terrified.
Getting the most personal part
of your body examined is quite
an unnerving thing to think
about. I was 15 at the time
and extremely uneducated in
anything to do with the female
reproductive system. My mom
would assure me everything
would be fine, but when I
wasn’t at the OB-GYN, I was
laying at home, unable to walk
and on an impressive selection
of pain medications, so to be
truthful, I didn’t believe her.
After going to the OB-GYN
multiple times and getting
all sorts of examinations and
tests done, I was told I had a
bartholin cyst (don’t search
this if you don’t want to be
traumatized). I was given
medication and basically told
to wait it out, and if it got worse
then to go to the hospital.
Unfortunately, the pain was
becoming unbearable, and was
preventing me from falling
asleep, so one night I woke my
mom up and we made our way
to the ER. This was the night
I would experience the most
pain I’ve ever had in my life.
Sitting in a blue gown on a
hospital bed, I was cold and
very tired. Hours passed, and
multiple nurses and doctors
filtered in and out of the room.
A children’s specialist came
in and offered me a stress ball
to squeeze on. That’s when it
clicked that I would be very
much conscious and awake
during this procedure, which
was probably the thing I was
most worried about to begin
with.
After multiple hours, three
nurses and a doctor came
in, and it was finally time to
begin the procedure. I was
relieved, yet very nervous, and
my palms started to sweat an
abnormal amount.
To begin the procedure,
local anesthesia was applied,
and they would say, “You’re
going to feel a touch on your
left side” to warn me before
doing anything.
If anybody heard me during
the procedure from outside
the door, it probably sounded
like I was giving birth—it
probably looked like I was
giving birth too. The stress ball
the counselor gave me most
definitely came in handy. That
night was probably the most
I’ve ever cried. I remember
my mom hovering over me,
holding my hand, crying with
me.
Before the procedure they
told me that they would be
placing a catheter in the
incision to keep it open, but
they also said the chances of
the catheter staying in were
quite low, and they were right,
because not even a minute
after they inserted the catheter,
it fell out. This meant that it
was very likely the cyst would
come back and I would have to
go to the hospital for a proper
surgery.
The days that followed I
couldn’t walk properly, I was
basically bed-ridden, and for
the days I was in school, I
had mastered the art of
manspreading. Barely a week
after the first surgery, it came
back. This time we made an
appointment for surgery at the
UNC hospital.
The experience at UNC
hospital was definitely less
painful, as for this procedure
I would be under anesthesia. I
was rolled to where the surgery
would be taking place. There
was a bright white light above
my head, it looked like the
cliche shot in a movie when
the character wakes up in the
hospital after a near death
experience. That was one of the
last things I thought before the
doctors told me to count back
from ten. I remember getting to
six, and after that it went dark.
I woke up with a few graham
crackers and a cup of water
next to me. I couldn’t see
straight and I remember my
saliva feeling very heavy in my
mouth. I was definitely feeling
the after effects of some very
heavy drugs.
Since that day, I’ve had a
great story to tell people, and
an experience that very few
get to encounter. My fear of
OB-GYN’s quickly dissolved,
and this experience has taught
me to be grateful for something
that many people forget to be
grateful for: our vaginas!
By Hammond Cole Sherouse
Co-Editor-in-Chief
OPINIONS
Behold the healing power of kindergartenism
Looking back on my time
at East, I struggle to recollect
too many happy moments. I
remember late nights spent
fudging procrastinated essays,
bleary-eyed 10-hour tech
rehearsals and kafkaesque
dysinteractions with the school’s
ever-shifting administration.
I remember losing my voice
to a sore throat in the weeks
leading up to the fall play
back in 2019, standing out on
Freshman Hill with my scene
partner, screaming silently into
the wind.
I remember (and how could
I forget!) the chaos which
consumed the school last spring.
In the anarchic days which
followed the infamous May 5
fight and lockdown, I remember
watching a group of kids in the
back of my study hall fashion a
slapdash flamethrower from a
can of deodorant and a lighter.
“It has been a week,” the
email from the PTSA read that
Sunday. “If you are feeling
helpless, you are not alone.”
Some comfort. I may have
been drowning, but at least
everyone else was drowning
with me.
Oh, how dearly I remember
all the hollow gestures by all
the cowardly leaders, all the
superficial solutions to all the
deep-seated issues and all the
endless recommitments to a
non-existent wish for better
days.
Perhaps I’m a bit too hard
on East and the poor people
who have to hold it together,
but this place has inflicted such
misery on myself and so many
others that I can’t help but form
something of a negative opinion
about the school.
Of course, I’m sure many of
my fellow students have had a
completely opposite experience
from mine. Maybe there are
even those who truly love
East Chapel Hill High School.
All I’m saying is that upon
reflection, I can’t count myself
among that number.
Yet now one happy memory
does return to me. Last year,
at the end of third quarter, I
sat in the stairwell outside my
Latin classroom in Upper Quad
A, reveling with my fellow
students in the simple joys of
children’s toys.
While translating some
lurid section of Ovid’s “Ars
Amatoria,” we had come upon
something truly wonderful,
unveiled to us as if by some
occult hand. Looking to cram
in a last-minute story credit for
my journalism class, I decided
to interview my classmates
Kevin Chen, Laney Hunt, Nadia
Mansori and Clara Brodey
about what had been discovered.
“We found little plastic
kids’ toys, like you would
probably get in a McDonald’s
or something,” Hunt said at the
time. “It was this paddle thing
and it had beads attached to
it, and if you spun it, or if you
twisted it really fast, they would
hit the thing and it would make
a cool little noise.”
We also found another one
of those, along with what Hunt
called “an awesome ball-rocketlauncher
thing.” We took turns
with the toys, played ping
pong with them and otherwise
enjoyed ourselves throughout
the period.
“I’ve never felt so enlightened,
yet monkey at the same
time,” Chen said. “I enjoyed it,
obviously, but also in my head I
was just going, ‘Oo oo ah ah.’”
Our Latin teacher, Jennifer
Hoffman, also took part in the
“kindergartenism,” playing with
the toys and ultimately keeping
the rocket launcher when the
other two were put back.
Though the artifacts were
gone the next day, the joy
they had brought into our
lives lingered. When Brodey
suggested that she might bring
in more “toddler toys” for the
class, we became ecstatic.
“That would be the best thing
that has ever happened to me in
this school,” Hunt said. “I’m not
even kidding.”
Indeed, we all agreed that
time for this sort of simple
pleasure had been tragically
lacking in our high school
experience.
“East is such a competitive
place, you don’t have time to
relax, or just have fun and enjoy
yourself,” Mansori said.
“Everyone treats us like
we’re all grown up,” Brodey
added. “But really we’re just all
kindergarteners at heart.”
This kindergartenism, I
believe, is vital. If it weren’t for
the occasional stolen moment of
childish delight at an awesome
ball-rocket-launcher thing or a
literal log that someone had left
in the bathroom, I don’t think I
ever could have made it through
these four long years.
One of my more melancholy
pastimes, to briefly change
the subject, is looking through
old school newspaper articles.
I’ve wasted countless hours
browsing scanned editions
of Grimsley High School’s
centenarian student rag, losing
myself in the youthful cares of
the distant past.
In 1920, the GHS “High
Life” declared its purpose—
“to exert a strong influence
in school life for the ‘highest’
things.” Then, through a world
war, a space race, an internet
age and all the century’s other
adversities, it strove to maintain
that commitment. How strange
it is to witness the nation’s
history from such a view,
through the once-fresh eyes of
long-aged youths.
The ECHO is a much younger
paper, and generally of far less
lofty aspirations. But reading
through the digital archive of
its 2010-2011 publication year,
I’m struck by the same strange
sense of melancholia.
While many of the old
articles reveal truths about
the school that have remained
largely unchanged over the
years (“Sleep deprivation
pervades East’s academic
culture” by Morganne Staring,
for example), others paint a
picture of a slightly different
East.
This was still a school with
troubles. The final post on the
website from 2011, for instance,
includes the ominous reminiscence,
“Remember when Rex
tackled that naked guy?”
But overall, looking at these
old articles, there’s a palpable
sense of stability that seems
lacking nowadays. Looking
back on his time at East, former
scholarch Dave Thaden, whom
student reporter Brie Broyles
refers to as “the epitome of an
awesome principal,” had the
following to say about the era’s
troublemakers:
“The students at East were
great, even those that thought
they needed to show the world
they could cause trouble. They
were still great.”
3
Maybe it’s just my own rosetinted
glasses talking, but this
seemed like a truly happier
time for our little school. And
to circle back at last to my
main point, I think it all comes
down to the prevalence of
kindergartenism.
This was a school year
which saw the ECHO’s former
advisor, Ms. Colletti, crowned
the queen of something called
the “Sweetheart Extravaganza”
alongside civics teacher Brian
Link. This was a year in which
the school hosted a burrito
bar, a stinky cheese night and
a Custodial Appreciation Day.
There was also an annual
event called Springfest, which
would bring a halt to classes
for one day in April, bringing
“fun and enlightening special
classes,” “mesmerizing musical
performances by students and
professionals” and “delicious
food catered by vendors” to the
school. It was like last year’s
Wellness Wednesday, only far
grander.
In these halcyon days, romance
blossomed too, as “for
East’s fencing team, swords and
masks seem[ed] as effective an
aphrodisiac as a love potion.”
Quoth one fencer: “When
people ask me where I get my
bruises, I say my boyfriend.”
Perhaps this wasn’t a time
for the “highest” things, but it
certainly was a time of soaring
kindergartenism.
Above, I said I wanted to be
excluded from the number of
those who truly love our school.
But, in all honesty, I can’t bring
myself to fully forswear my
feelings for East. In my fourodd
years trapped in this place,
I’ve developed an undeniable
connection with it.
I’ve covered its many sordid
happenings for the newspaper.
I’ve been in a slew of its
theatrical productions. I even
went to one of its football games
this fall. However toxic my
relationship with the school
may be, I can’t say it’s not real.
I do care for this licentious
lyceum, for better or for worse.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m more
than eager to be leaving it
forever in June, but I do hope
that someday, after I’m gone, it
will undergo some measure of
repristination.
With a redolent sprinkling
of kindergartenism amidst the
daily fetor of East, maybe we
can start that healing process
sooner rather than later.