The summer before my freshman year of college, my mom decided that I should start taking birth control. She had read that birth control can actually help prevent ovarian cancer which, I came to find out from my gynecologist later, was true. Apparently, being on the Pill for at least four years can cut your risk by 30 to 50 percent, which is important to our family because my great grandmother had ovarian cancer, as did my grandmother and now my mom. Obviously, I am at high risk. It think my mother was also worried about my chances of getting pregnant and wanted to prevent that at all costs. At that time, I was really confused by this worry because I had told my mother over and over that I was a virgin, and I was telling the truth. I remember questioning her prevention plan and told her, "But Mom, I've never had sex!"
"You will," was her simple response.
And boy was she right. Although I started college as one of those girls that had the must-find-the-right-guy-before-having-sex state of mind, it turned out the 'right guy' conveniently popped into my life that same year.
After I realized that obviously I was going to be having sex from then on, I decided to experiment with the different types of birth controls out there. I made this decision mostly due to the fact that I was a freshman in college who was staying up until five in the morning on week nights, sleeping in until three in the afternoon, drinking more often than I knew I was capable of and taking random road trips that were proposed through whimsical thought processes and I simply did not have the time nor the will to remember to take a pill every day. But just like my mom's worries, I didn't want to get pregnant either and I had heard about birth control in injection form from a fellow freshman friend. Apparently, the birth control shot could be injected and, depending on the patient's choice, would prevent her from getting pregnant for either three or six months before having to get the shot again. The idea of getting a shot and not having to worry about birth control for several months after that absolutely thrilled me and so, I went ahead with it.
I remember waiting with the 'right guy' in the doctor's office before they called me in. I was pretty nervous about it because I had not gotten a shot for anything for a long time. Eventually, a nurse took me into a small room to ask me a series of questions and explain all the ins and outs of what I was about to do. She also explained some of the possible symptoms: spotting throughout the month, longer than normal periods, weight gain, and so on. After I told her I was still on board, she left and came back with the largest needle I've ever seen in my life.
I've never really been the type to be afraid of needles, because my childhood consisted of weekly allergy shots from the time I was two until we moved when I was nine from Phoenix to Heber where there is not much pollution to be allergic to. But this needle was massive. I was given two options. I could receive the shot in the arm or in the ass, and I had told the nurse prior that I wanted to receive the shot in my arm. She tried to talk me out of this, saying that I was quite small and therefore should probably receive the shot in a larger area than my arm, but I insisted because I just didn't feel like dropping my pants for this woman.
As soon as I saw that needle, I heard myself saying out loud that maybe I'll just take the pill after all, but she ignored my scared mumbling and stuck that shot in my arm anyway. When it was all over, I felt fine. It wasn't that bad actually. The nurse handed me my chart and told me to take it to the front desk. Then she promptly left. I sat there for a moment and gathered up my purse and reading material. When I had finally stood up, I felt a little weird but nothing that seemed life threatening. I walked out of the room and immediately saw a chair about eight feet away which I decided I should go sit on for a little bit. As I walked toward the chair, the room got darker and darker and the floor seemed to be tilting. I told myself to just walk to the chair. No fainting, just walking. One step at a time the chair got closer to me and when I was finally right in front of it, I felt this sensation like someone was pulling on me from behind, like someone didn't want me to sit in the chair. There was some sort of invisible barrier that was preventing me from going any further forward. After what felt like an hour but was probably only a few short seconds, the barrier lifted and because I had been trying so hard to move forward, the momentum caught up with me as I slammed my head into the wall the chair was sitting up against.
I couldn't feel the damage done to my head, although I'm certain I should have, while I was finally able to sit on the chair and think to myself how lucky I was that no one was around to see what had just happened. That would have been embarrassing. I sat there until things started to look clear again and decided it was OK to try and make it to the front desk. To my surprise, I did without feeling dizzy at all. I handed my chart to the receptionist and waited while she clicked some things into the computer. While I was standing there, all I could think was, hurry the fuck up, lady before that feeling comes back. Suddenly, the room started to get darker. There were no chairs for several feet which were, at this point, unwalkable. I quickly grabbed on to the partition and as the room started spinning, I told the receptionist that I thought I was going to faint.
After that I don't remember anything. I woke up lying in a bed in a dark room with a can of Sprite and a package of Saltine crackers next to me. Soon enough a nurse came in and told me that I was lucky because usually patients don't have the time or the sense to warn anyone that they are going to faint. Because I had given the receptionist a warning, she was able to hold me up by my arms and yell for help until someone came and dropped me into a wheelchair and thus saving me from a hurtful landing on the hard floor.
Although not all women experience the symptoms of the birth control shot, I certainly did. The weight gain happened weeks later followed by irregular periods and ruined underwear from all the random spotting. The shot also made my entire body more sensitive than normal and therefore, sex was no longer enjoyable; it was painful. After that, I quickly decided that remembering the Pill every day was a much better option than fainting, extremely long periods and painful sex.
To this day I remain on the Pill which is covered by my insurance and doesn't cost me a thing. It is crazy though that a long and very sharp pointed stick can be stuck into someone skin without causing them to be in extreme pain or bleed to death. Unfortunately, if you're a small person like me, the best place to get poked with one of them is in the ass.
