Friday, October 31, 2008

For the woman who asked about follicular cysts

I got an odd email the other day, where somebody was asking me about follicular cysts. I can only assume she means something along the lines of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), something that I know only the vaguest details about. Her daughter apparently has it, and she wants to know my treatment plan.

I'm happy to announce that I have no treatment plan for my follicular cysts, because, as it happens, my ovaries are fine. They're quite perfect, actually, and I know this because after I was diagnosed with PKD, I demanded that my ovaries be imaged as well. I was surprised to discover that they look exactly like the pictures in my anatomy book. Most of the time, I just assume the pictures are sort of rough sketches of the human body, as I've seen many things in real life that bear absolutely no resemblance to artistic sketches in a textbook (polycystic kidneys being on top of that list, by the way. Seriously, it made me laugh when I looked up the drawing. It looked like a little kid had taken a crayon and drawn a bunch of spirals, and then labeled it.) But seeing my ovaries lookin' so awesome gave me new respect for anatomy book artists. Whoever they are. (Yeah, seriously, who does do that stuff?)

So, I have awesome ovaries. And I have never even written an ode to them. And they've never complained about that. What good little gonads.

I can't help you, woman with the daughter whose ovaries are not awesome. I wish I could, I really do. But PKD and PCOS are really very different. One means you have a hard time having kids. The other one means you have a hard time having kids AND you get to look forward to dialysis, a kidney transplant, and possibly early death. See? Totally different.

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