4 things you need to do in January
(AND WHAT MAY IS NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO AT ALL)
To quote Liesbeth: No one said it would be fun.
And certainly not January. Instead of easing the suffering a bit, I'm making it extra annoying for myself by going alcohol-free this month. Read here how that came about.
And once I started planning annoying things for myself, I went all out. Here is my list and I hope you join me because it will be more fun, because if we all finish it, February could turn out to be particularly fun.
Legs in the air for the smear test
“I’m at the gynecologist and I’m completely cracking up over a piece you wrote,” Anouk Smulders texted me recently. What on earth she was doing at the gynecologist, I asked. “Taking a smear test, May. Duh. You know how many women die from this?” And then I got a justified tirade about cervical cancer and ovarian cancer and how it’s called a serial killer because you don’t notice it at all and that so many of her friends turned out to be in the danger zone when taking a smear test and so on.
So I haven’t been to the gynecologist for this kind of thing for a long time. First because I was ‘constantly’ pregnant (my children came quite quickly after each other) and then because I got my period right when I was supposed to have a smear test. With a pretty nice male doctor. I found it so embarrassing and uncomfortable that I never went back out of fright.
But now it’s at the top of my list of annoying things that need to be done.
Breast examination
Now that I’m at it, I also want a mammogram. My mother had breast cancer two years ago (she’s doing great now) and then two friends got it. One day my friend’s daughter asked; “Hey mom, did you get your breast cancer from your cold or did you get it from grandma from Belize?” We had to laugh about it, of course, but it really seems to be contagious. My GP is quite left-leaning so he prefers that you don’t get it checked due to the radiation, but what the heck. I want that mammo. Period.
the coil
Yeah sorry guys, I’m in the medical breast/vagina corner for a moment. But did you know that one of the reasons Western women get breast cancer so often is that we use the pill and frequently sip Chardonnay? I’m doing well with my dry January (certainly already sixteen hours without drinking), but there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll have a small alcoholic treat again now and then in February. So that pill has to go. A coil (without hormones) is the perfect alternative. Or no sex, but then it’s really no fun at all.
Sports
Yahaa, you saw that coming. Although I must say that I don’t find exercising unpleasant at all, just the time, people. The time. I’m going to make that now. I’m going to South Africa at the end of January (where it’s summer, which is something nice in January) and then I want to lie there hard body on the beach of Camps Bay. Or at least have tried a bit.
Well, that’s about it really. If you look at it that way, it’s not so bad, don’t you think?
