Como se dice "tampon" en español?

           Okay so this is one of those great foreign country stories that I'll probably tell for years to come.  This is the tale of my first period in Europe.
           For the past 11 days I've been on a traveling seminar.  I packed one suitcase for the seminar and the rest of my stuff stayed in Madrid.  I was very careful in packing only the necessities for the seminar, but a few mistakes were made.  I wasn't expecting to get my period until the seminar was over and I was officially living in Madrid, so I didn't bother packing many of that particular type of necessity.  I brought two tampons and one pad, believing if my period started early I could just buy more.  Probably because of all the walking and stair climbing, my period arrived early.  I did mention the stairs, no?
            Anyways, the group was in Valencia and I had seen a couple of pharmacies not too far from the hotel.  We were enjoying one of our brief moments of free time so I headed out by myself to a pharmacy.  I kept seeing the stores, but all of them were closed.  This was at around 5pm, and many small stores close around 2pm.  But I kept walking because I hoped to find an open store.  After about 40 minutes of wandering around Valencia it became clear that I needed help.
           I did some people watching to choose people who looked safe to talk to.  I saw two middle-aged women walking together and decided they probably wouldn't attempt to rob or kill me.  I approached them and started to ask where I could buy some tampons but then I realized I didn't know how to say "tampon" in Spanish.  Here is our conversation:

Note: The following has been translated from its original format in Spanish.

Me: Excuse me.  Can you help me?
Woman: Yes?
Me: I'm looking for a store that sells....I don't know the word in Spanish...but things that girls need during three or four days each month?
Woman: (laughs) Yes.  You can go to a pharmacy.
Me: All of the pharmacies I've seen are closed.  Do you know of a store that is open?
Woman: El Corte Ingles is open late.
Me: Great! Where is El Corte Ingles?
Woman:  Keep walking on this street and you'll see it on your right.
Me: Thank you so much!
Woman: (laughs again)


I managed to find El Corte Ingles (my new favorite store by the way because they have absolutely everything and it's like a mall all in one store) and I completed my mission and returned to the hotel.  Despite my embarrassment at the awkwardness of the situation, I was beaming with pride.  My Spanish may not be perfect, but this was the first real test of if I knew enough to truly get by.  And I did! I was so excited that I ran to my room to look up the word tampon.  I knew I would remember this word for the rest of my life because of this experience.  I grabbed my Spanish/English dictionary eager to add a new word to my vocabulary.


So to answer the question, ¿como se dice -tampon- en español?


el tampón