How Planned Parenthood Kept My Head From Exploding
If you read one of the circles of blogs that I don't belong to, you already know that there's been a spate of posts titled something like "How Planned Parenthood Helped Me Not To Have An Abortion." These are in reaction to recent legislation that could severely limit women's access to Planned Parenthood services. (Please note that government funds do not pay for [elective?] abortions except in cases of rape or incest, and that most sources I find suggest that less than 5% of the services provided by PP are directly related to abortion.)
Honesty forces me to go with a different title, because my Planned Parenthood experience is a little different and definitely not the stereotypical story from Judy Blume's works for grownups. It's apparently the Planned Parenthood experience that most women have, and I'd like to see those stories capture our national attention.
What with getting overeducated, the first part of my adult life included doctor visits at the Student Health Center. Female patients could count on walking out of any consultation with a prescription for birth control pills...seriously, I once went in for a tetanus booster and came out with prescriptions for The Pill and for a powerful migraine drug. (How powerful? K happened to be at Osco with me when I filled the prescription, and the five minute discussion of possible cardiac side effects lead her to announce, "You are never taking those when I'm with you." Ironically, she'd have a much more complicated migraine protocol by the end of the year.)
Okay, so what? Well, my migraines always came with an amuse-bouche of aura; women with this condition have a significant stroke risk (in my case, compounded by a family history of early female death from heart disease) and should not use hormonal birth control. All of these factors were known to my Student Health doctor-of-the-day, but the rule was to keep us little minxes from getting knocked up. So, if I needed on prescription, why not hand me a second?
When I aged graduated out of Student Health, I got myself a nice grown-up "gyny-gal" (Evil Ex's family referred to female-parts doctors as "gyny-guys"; do remember that he had no clue why women wore underpants). Of course, you had to make an appointment at least three months in advance to use the services of such a doctor; since my schedule changed every ten weeks, the phrase "yearly exam" was something of an anachronism in that phase of my life. (She did, at least, switch me to fewer hormones, and we had thorough discussions about other risk factors and warning signs.)
Enter the unemployed phase of my life. As it happens, there's a Planned Parenthood right around the corner. When I called, they had appointments available the next week. When I went in, my appointment actually started right on time. I mentioned my concerns about hormones and stroke risk (recent years have revealed a trend of "female cancer" in one branch of the family, which further compounds the issue), and was given a thorough briefing about the various options available to someone who is thirty- mumble*cough, including a few that I honestly thought had gone out with the seventies. When I chose a long-lasting and non-hormonal option, the nurse-practitioner was able to discuss the ways in which I was a less-than-ideal candidate, but contrasted those with the the reasons why this was a good choice. She'd managed lots of patients who made this choice, and was able to back up published statistics with her own experience of who made a successful candidate for this method. It occurred to me that this was something only a Planned Parenthood (or similar clinic) practitioner could offer--even my gyny-gal with the very fancy degree (it was Burb, after all) couldn't have had that much experience with the various methods. The nurse-practitioner had plenty of experience with implementing this particular method--I think I was something like one of five that day--which also increased the chance that things would be successful. (Seriously. There's research that says a medical professional practiced in implementing this method is very important.)
So...despite being a comparatively old chick who really should have been knocked up a couple of times by now...I've had the most thorough reproductive care of my life at a Planned Parenthood. The one in my neighborhood also offers "male health" services (not completely clear on what that means), which suggests that everyone is benefiting. The ease of scheduling means I'm likely to go once a year--meaning someone is checking up on all of my parts at the appropriate intervals, which wasn't happening when I had more traditional but harder-to-schedule care (I don't need to remind you that research says that's important, right?). Frankly, even when I have grown-up health insurance again (speedily and in our days, please!), I'm figuring I'll keep making appointments at a Planned Parenthood. I like the idea of having experts in charge of my reproductive health, and I like the idea of sliding-scale fees. Because while I can't truly say that Planned Parenthood helped me not to have an abortion, I like the idea that the money I spend there might prevent someone else from facing that situation.
What's your Planned Parenthood story? Let's fill the interwebz with the truth about Planned Parenthood.
Honesty forces me to go with a different title, because my Planned Parenthood experience is a little different and definitely not the stereotypical story from Judy Blume's works for grownups. It's apparently the Planned Parenthood experience that most women have, and I'd like to see those stories capture our national attention.
What with getting overeducated, the first part of my adult life included doctor visits at the Student Health Center. Female patients could count on walking out of any consultation with a prescription for birth control pills...seriously, I once went in for a tetanus booster and came out with prescriptions for The Pill and for a powerful migraine drug. (How powerful? K happened to be at Osco with me when I filled the prescription, and the five minute discussion of possible cardiac side effects lead her to announce, "You are never taking those when I'm with you." Ironically, she'd have a much more complicated migraine protocol by the end of the year.)
Okay, so what? Well, my migraines always came with an amuse-bouche of aura; women with this condition have a significant stroke risk (in my case, compounded by a family history of early female death from heart disease) and should not use hormonal birth control. All of these factors were known to my Student Health doctor-of-the-day, but the rule was to keep us little minxes from getting knocked up. So, if I needed on prescription, why not hand me a second?
When I aged graduated out of Student Health, I got myself a nice grown-up "gyny-gal" (Evil Ex's family referred to female-parts doctors as "gyny-guys"; do remember that he had no clue why women wore underpants). Of course, you had to make an appointment at least three months in advance to use the services of such a doctor; since my schedule changed every ten weeks, the phrase "yearly exam" was something of an anachronism in that phase of my life. (She did, at least, switch me to fewer hormones, and we had thorough discussions about other risk factors and warning signs.)
Enter the unemployed phase of my life. As it happens, there's a Planned Parenthood right around the corner. When I called, they had appointments available the next week. When I went in, my appointment actually started right on time. I mentioned my concerns about hormones and stroke risk (recent years have revealed a trend of "female cancer" in one branch of the family, which further compounds the issue), and was given a thorough briefing about the various options available to someone who is thirty- mumble*cough, including a few that I honestly thought had gone out with the seventies. When I chose a long-lasting and non-hormonal option, the nurse-practitioner was able to discuss the ways in which I was a less-than-ideal candidate, but contrasted those with the the reasons why this was a good choice. She'd managed lots of patients who made this choice, and was able to back up published statistics with her own experience of who made a successful candidate for this method. It occurred to me that this was something only a Planned Parenthood (or similar clinic) practitioner could offer--even my gyny-gal with the very fancy degree (it was Burb, after all) couldn't have had that much experience with the various methods. The nurse-practitioner had plenty of experience with implementing this particular method--I think I was something like one of five that day--which also increased the chance that things would be successful. (Seriously. There's research that says a medical professional practiced in implementing this method is very important.)
So...despite being a comparatively old chick who really should have been knocked up a couple of times by now...I've had the most thorough reproductive care of my life at a Planned Parenthood. The one in my neighborhood also offers "male health" services (not completely clear on what that means), which suggests that everyone is benefiting. The ease of scheduling means I'm likely to go once a year--meaning someone is checking up on all of my parts at the appropriate intervals, which wasn't happening when I had more traditional but harder-to-schedule care (I don't need to remind you that research says that's important, right?). Frankly, even when I have grown-up health insurance again (speedily and in our days, please!), I'm figuring I'll keep making appointments at a Planned Parenthood. I like the idea of having experts in charge of my reproductive health, and I like the idea of sliding-scale fees. Because while I can't truly say that Planned Parenthood helped me not to have an abortion, I like the idea that the money I spend there might prevent someone else from facing that situation.
What's your Planned Parenthood story? Let's fill the interwebz with the truth about Planned Parenthood.