"Get your finger off my clitoris"

I expected a beast. I almost hoped for a beast. I would have been happy with a lunch-lady looking behemoth sporting foul breath, a hairy mole, and a gunt that hung down to her knees. She was supposed to be ornery too. Like a drill sergeant who just found a jelly doughnut in your footlocker, barking orders and screaming at you to drop and give her 50 for inserting the speculum incorrectly. I walked into the examination room and sitting on the table in a loosely-fitting hospital gown was a very good looking athletic woman in her early 30's.

"Hi guys, my name is Capeli and I am going to teach you the breast and pelvic exam! Aren't you excited! I sure am!"

The four of us, Minerva, Aladdin, Torres and I, somewhat shocked, smiled and nervously introduced ourselves. I didn't shake her hand. You have to understand that the person giving us the instructions on how to perform the female exam is also the person upon whom we were to perform the exam. As in "gently insert your index finger into MY vagina, being careful not to touch MY anus, and now see if you can spread MY labia with your free fingers." She was clearly working hard to put us at ease with her upbeat attitude. Either that or she was just one big bucket of crazy.

We started out with the relatively easy breast exam. Capeli had a sing-song way of going through the procedures of how to perform the maneuvers of the exam such that it felt like we were learning gynecology from Sesame Street.

One of these lumps is not like the others,

One of these lumps just doesn't belong...

We settled on the batting order for the evening. I was first up on the breast exam followed by Torres, Minerva and then Aladdin. For the pelvic portion, Torres was leadoff, Aladdin was in the two spot, Minerva was our three batter and I was hitting cleanup.

The breast exam went off pretty well. We all performed the exam as directed and save for a little extra "good job" pat Torres gave the nipple at the end of his exam, we were consummate professionals. But really, that was the breast exam. That was child's play compared to the real challenge of the evening, the pelvic exam.

Torres was first to perform after we had a complete run through of the procedure. Because he was first to act, there was a fair amount of fumbling and questions of "is this it?" In the end, he managed to see everything that he needed to and was congratulated by our fine instructor. Aladdin was up next. Aladdin is left handed. Everything he saw and was taught he had to translate to his dominant hand. He was doing great until he was asked to move his hand into a fornix to attempt an ovary palpation during the bimanual exam. So here is Aladdin standing at the end of the exam table, between the footrests, with his left hand inside, palpating the cervix. Capeli then said to him, "now move over here to my left fornix" and patted near her hip with her left hand. Aladdin, wanting to do exactly as he was told, started to walk over toward Capeli's left flank and stand next to her ovary. He looked as if he was going to climb, hand still inserted, over the footrest and to her side to where she motioned him to move.

Capeli started asking vehemently "Where are you going!? Where are you going!?"

Aladdin froze, wondering himself why he took her literally when she said to move to her left fornix.

Capeli began to laugh. A lot.

I began to laugh. A lot.

Torres began to laugh. A lot.

Capeli's laughter caused her pelvic muscles to contract around Aladdin's hand. A lot.

Capeli began to apologize for crushing Aladdin's hand, while laughing. A lot.

I quickly moved from laughing a lot to that uncontrollable, I-know-this-is-inappropriate-but-I-can't-help-it, yeah-dude-let's-pack-the-bowl-again laughter.

Minerva started punching me to get me to quit laughing.

So this is the picture of our learning our first gynecological exam: Aladdin's hand is being crushed inside the vagina of a woman laughing hysterically, tears literally rolling down my cheeks as I grab my abdomen trying to control myself with Minerva repeatedly punching me in the shoulder to get me to stop laughing, and Torres simply standing back, hands in the air like he's being arrested with that "is this really happening?" shit-eating grin on his face.

Next it was Minerva's turn. She was a natural. But as you know, when you own the equipment, you can practice any time you want. She did have a little trouble keeping her extra-vaginal digits tucked into her palm and at one point Capeli admonished "Tuck those fingers, don't you dare put your thumb in my butt".

By the time I went, I had seen the exam four times. I managed through it without too many fumbles. The speculum was in a little off-center, but I could still see the cervix. As I was examining the external genitalia, Capeli said, rather loudly and a little angrily, "Hey, get your finger off my clitoris!" All I could think to myself was "Doesn't that just fucking figure. The ONE time I'm not supposed to hit it..."

Then it was over. It only took us 2 hours to learn all the procedures. We made a few mistakes and were a little embarrassed, but we made it through and are the better for it. I'm also happy to report that Minerva and Aladdin respected the gas barrier.

Next semester, we tackle prostate exams.