So the Cosmo article came out today, as I discovered when I got a call around 10:30am from one of my redheaded friends (as usual, I was hard at work attempting to sleep for 24 hours straight).
I figured I'd check out the damage by picking up a copy at the CVS off 15th and P. Or the CVS on 17th and P. Or the one on 15th and K. Apparently CVS just keeps their stock boxes on the floor, infuriatingly closed so someone in dire need of a magazine fix can't root through them and put their mind at ease.
I finally found two copies (literally just two) at a small news and magazine shop somewhere along K Street. Fortunately the guy was in the process of actually unloading the boxes - unfortunately he was taking his sweet time, and I made several people nervous by practically jumping on his back so I could watch his progression as he literally stocked every single magazine that has ever been published... before he walked out for a smoke break. Luckily for me, this particular store actually opens their boxes before leaving them on the ground, so I was free to tear through it, pay quickly, and then run out the door when an odd feeling of embarrassment took over.
If you flip to page 154, this is what you'll see (please take note of the hilariously embarrassing headline) under the eerie "It Could Happen To You" section:
At 20 years old, Chelsea was starting her junior year at George Washington University. But on her first day back, she had such severe stomach pains that she went to the ER. Twelve hours and a batter of tests later, she was told that a benign ovarian cyst must have ruptured, and was sent home.
But the pain didn't go away. "At times, I was bedridden for days," recalls Chelsea. "No one could tell me what was wrong!" After about four months, she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition in which endometrial tissue, which line the uterus, grows outside the uterus and can lead to infertility. "I was so freaked out about the possibility of never having kids," she says.
Chelsea needed surgery, but her doctor wanted to wait until the school years was over. So she induced menopause with shots of a drug called Lupron Depot to stop the production of endometrial tissue.
The shots eased the pain, but "I had intense hot flashes and night sweats," says Chelsea. To ease those symptoms, she was given hormone replacement therapy, but "that gave me such psychotic mood swings, I went off it," she says. In June 2006, Chelsea had minimally invasive surgery to remove endometrial tissue from her nerve endings and bladder. To prevent further build up of tissue, she was advised to stay on Lupron Dept. Yet, she's lucky. For many women, the wayward tissue connects to the fallopian tubes or ovaries, which can cause infertility. Chelsea will start menstruating and likely can have children if she goes off the drugs, but the endometriosis will probably return too. Still, she remains upbeat. "I'm fit and healthy, and I have some dramatic stories to tell."
Now, once you've either finished squirming uncomfortably in your seats after reading such titillating words as "uterus" and "bladder", or you've stopped laughing hysterically, I would like to point out that I had the original idea for this story, and believe-you-me, it was nothing like this. They happily yoinked my idea and wrote this blabber themselves, and cheerfully inserted ridiculous quotes, while happily ignoring many of the key facts of the story. And managed to not really fact check at all, despite my constant harassment by some fact checker with one of those painfully trendy names like Ciara or Lissandra or whatever the hell it was.
First of all, it's THE George Washington University. Normally people mess that up all the time, but I corrected them no less than 10 times, and they'd JUST posted something about GW (and gotten it right) in the September issue, so you'd think this wouldn't be too difficult a concept to grasp.
Second of all, anyone that knows me knows that there is no way in hell I'd ever say anything like "I was freaked out about the possibility of never having kids!" That was, by far, the least of my concerns, and I expressed that several times (saying something instead like "well I'd like the option open to have it, but I was more concerned with the crushing pain and homicidal tendencies that many times I very nearly acted on.") Cosmo, I know you want to connect with women, but my god please save the baby love for your other articles, and not the ones where the person in question clearly said it was an afterthought.
To top it off, the writing is truly terrible. There are tons of fragmented sentences, way too many thoughts starting with "But!" and the kind of plodding writing that any fifth grader could have mastered.
Don't get me wrong, it's super cool to be in a magazine (and my picture's in there too, right with a happy little quote - a mostly real one! which I'm sure you've realized - that says in awkwardly incorrect English "Roommates would find me with my head in the freezer"), and I kind of feel like a celebrity - you know, I get to bitch because I was misquoted in this major women's magazine, and woe is me and all that crap.
But still! Cosmo, the next time you want to steal my pitch, at least... either make it hard-hitting and dramatic, or if you're going to sensationalize it and make it something it's not, do something cool and say that it wasn't a benign cyst at all, it was an alien life form that burst from my stomach and went on a killing rampage through the hospital, and the picture on the article isn't really one of me because I'm hiding in the Appalachians, beginning a new life as goat herder away from all the publicity of Hollywood.
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