{"product_id":"the-camera-my-mother-gave-me-isbn-9780679763437","title":"The Camera My Mother Gave Me","description":"Susanna Kaysen, who wrote about her teenage depression in the bestseller \u003ci\u003eGirl, Interrupted\u003c\/i\u003e, now takes on another taboo: her vagina–which suddenly and inexplicably starts to hurt.  And neither Kaysen’s cheery gynecologist, nor her internist, nor a laconic “vulvologist” has the cure.  An alternative health nurse suggests direct application of tea, baking soda, and boric acid.  Others recommend novocaine, oatmeal, “bio-feedback,” and anti-depressants.  Nothing works.  As sex becomes more and more painful, Kaysen’s relationship with her boyfriend disintegrates and she turns to her best friends, her wicked sense of humor, and finally wry self-reflection to get herself through.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUsing this unusual lens, Kaysen challenges us to think in new ways about the centrality and power of sexuality. \u003cb\u003eThe Camera My Mother Gave Me\u003c\/b\u003e is an unexpected and revelatory book from one of our most candid, insightful and consistently surprising writers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Scary, thought-provoking, and humorous. . . . Kaysen painstakingly constructs her own brilliant vagina monologue.” –\u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hilarious . . . intelligent and deeply felt . . . always interesting and, alas, occasionally heartbreaking.” –\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Strangely seductive, even entertaining, and frequently funny. . . . When one body part starts sending out a signal that can’t be ignored, you can suddenly find yourself viewing friendships, partnerships, even inanimate objects through a different lens.” –\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Pithy, funny, adventurous, sexy, and eye-opening. . . . Disguised as plain, brown memoir . . . [\u003ci\u003eThe Camera My Mother Gave Me \u003c\/i\u003eis] a voluptuous exploration of sexuality, aging, the failures of modern medicine, attempts at self-knowledge, and the meaning of pain.” –\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eSusanna Kaysen is the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eFar Afield\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAsa, As I Knew Him\u003c\/i\u003e and the memoir\u003ci\u003e Girl, Interrupted\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.If you have a vagina you know that most of the time it is without sensation. How does your spleen feel? How do your kidneys feel? How does your pancreas feel? Luckily, we have no idea how these things feel. The vagina is mostly like a pancreas and feels nothing. If it feels something, it is either erotically engaged or ill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this is obvious if you have one. But half of us don't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have one, and something went wrong with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome days my vagina felt as if somebody had put a cheese grater in it and scraped. Some days it felt as if someone had poured ammonia inside it. Some days it felt as if a little dentist was drilling a little hole in it. The strangest thing was that all these sensations occurred in one inch-long part on the left side. The rest of it was fine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGynecology: Fungus\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a yeast infection, said my gynecologist in June.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn one side? I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI guess it's localized, he said. Here, try this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was some antifungal cream. It didn't work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHmm, he said, when I returned after a week. Try this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was a three-day course of medication in a little bullet that I popped into a plunger and inserted nightly. It didn't work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's a stronger version, he said. Let's try that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was a cream in a tube. I filled a new plunger with cream and plunged it in. My vagina didn't like that. It became bright red and swollen and hurt worse for four days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet's try the pill form, said my gynecologist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI popped the pill. It made me queasy for two days, but it didn't hurt my vagina.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow let's do a culture, he said. He emerged from his lab grinning. Not a trace of yeast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhy does it still hurt? I asked. And why are there red spots here and here? I pointed to the two red spots, one under my clitoris and one on my inner lip. They hurt particularly, I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIrritation, he said. Let's try estrogen cream. Use it for ten days. It increases the blood supply and will help it heal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEstrogen cream dribbled out of me all day long, but for about a week my vagina returned to normal--I didn't feel it. Then it began to twitch and zing again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat can happen, said my gynecologist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe estrogen cream causes a yeast infection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh no! I said. Now I'm back where I started.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou're not meant to use it every day, he explained. Twice a week--but I thought it might clear things up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt did, for a while, I told him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet's treat the yeast infection and see where we are.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went back to the bullet in the plunger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI like my gynecologist. He is a robust gentleman of Italian origin with a resonant voice and large soft hands. His waiting room used to be decorated with pictures of babies he'd delivered. These days it's decorated with booklets about menopause. Malpractice insurance for obstetricians is very high, I guess.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI met my gynecologist twenty years ago when I had a cyst in one of the glands in my vagina. That was when I found out how lousy a vagina could feel. He removed this cyst in an operation called a marsupialization--because it makes a little pouch in the vaginal wall where the duct of the gland opens. That way, the gland can't get blocked again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know, I said to him after the bullet in the plunger hadn't worked for the second time, it hurts in the same spot as the Bump, or close to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the good things about having a doctor for twenty years is that you make a language together. \"The Bump\" is what we call that cyst he removed. Also, after twenty years I'm used to having conversations with him over the top of a sheet while he's got his head between my legs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a way, I continued, it feels as if the Bump has returned. It's phantom Bump!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Bump can't return, he said. But I see what you mean. It's inflamed there. Those red spots are gone, though.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow what? I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet's not treat the yeast infection. It'll resolve on its own, usually. Use the estrogen cream twice a week. It will help clear the inflammation, and it increases lubrication. Maybe some of this has to do with less lubrication.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut there isn't less, I said. It's just the same. And wasn't my estrogen level normal?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was, he said. Three months ago it was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes it hurts when I have sex, I said. That's what worries me. You can get a psychological problem from that--associating sex and pain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUse estrogen, he repeated. And don't avoid sex. You know--he leaned over confidentially--they have shown that the more you use the vagina, the better its health.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy gynecologist had told me this before. That's another thing I like about him. He's very much in favor of sex. So am I, except when it hurts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went home with my estrogen cream and my resolve to have sex and maintain vaginal health.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut my vaginal health was declining.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew bad things started to happen. Sharp lines of zinging pain, like a toothache, began to radiate from my former Bump site to the edge of my outer lip, culminating in a dot of soreness. Two things made this worse: driving a car and wearing pants. Then in September, the red spots returned. I went back to the gynecologist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's cancer, I told him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo it isn't, he said. He scraped a bit of skin off and went into his lab. It's not cancer, he repeated when he came out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIs it herpes? It doesn't feel like herpes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's not herpes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow do you know it's not cancer? I asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCancer doesn't come and go, he said. Cancer just gets worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo what is it? I asked him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don't know, he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eListen, I said, everything's getting worse. I'm really having trouble with sex. My vagina hurts all the time now. If I have sex it hurts more, but it never doesn't hurt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI know, said my gynecologist, but I don't know why. He walked over to the window and looked out. Western medicine doesn't know everything, he said. He turned back to me. I think maybe you should go to an alternative health center.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was astonished. He was sending me to an herbalist!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's a very good one here, he went on. They're not cranks. They're real doctors--I know some of them. They specialize in women's health. They aren't going to wave crystals over you or something. I think you ought to try them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was washing his hands of me! After twenty years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut what is it? I asked him. What's wrong with me?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don't know, he said. Try the alternative health place. The mind and the body--he wiggled his hands around. You have no bacterial infection. You have no fungus. You have no herpes. You have no cancer. I can't tell you why this is happening, but maybe they can.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305390493925,"sku":"NP9780679763437","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780679763437.jpg?v=1767738587","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-camera-my-mother-gave-me-isbn-9780679763437","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}