Squick Alert: If you are particularly squeemish about medical stuff, or in any way upset that I'm discussing my Lady Business in a relatively public way, then maybe you should stop reading and go do something else.
The week after my routine Pap, I took the Girls for their annual portrait. Anyone who has had a mammogram describes it pretty much the same way: Take one boob, squash it hard between two sheets of glass and zap it with x-rays. They have to do a few views of each side, so by the time they're done you feel like you've literally been put through the wringer. I like the place I go, though. They give you lovely cloth robes and have a cappuccino machine in the waiting room and are never ever out of People Magazine. It's like going to the spa - well except for all the mashing and smooshing.
Two days later I get a call that they didn't like the way one side looked - could I come back for another look? More squashing and zapping on my tender bits, but good news!, I just have very dense and healthy tissue. The Girls were good to go!
Not so good news a few days later when my doctor called to say my Pap had come back with "abnormal cells". Now this is fairly common and most of the time nothing to worry about, but since we knew I had HPV we needed to follow up pretty quickly. I was brought in for a colposcopy, the next step in the diagnostic chain.
Keep in mind, from here on out there are never less than three people in
the room - a doctor, a nurse, and at least one terrified looking
resident. I've had two babies and more pelvic exams than I can count, so
I'm not particularly shy about doctor stuff, but the
more people there are in the room the more pressure I feel to be the
'good patient'. There's a bit of performance anxiety like I'm
somehow going to disappoint my medical audience if I don't tell a good joke. I
even dress for these appointments as if I'm going on a job interview or a
date, shave my legs, put on make-up. I suppose part of me wants to keep from appearing too
disreputable and part wants them to really really like me so they'll take extra good care of me.
For this appointment I wore my favorite socks. These are the same socks I like to wear when I fly - I call them my TSA socks. I figured if my feet were
going in the stirrups, at least they'd be warm and happy. On to the colposcopy (I still mispronounce it and so far everyone has gracefully not laughed in my face.) This is a procedure where they use a camera to get a closer look at the cervix. It's not enough just to look at it, though, they need to look at it under Certain Conditions. I'm pretty sure everything they did in this procedure was originally invented to torture suspected witches, only in this modern era we call it "diagnosis" and view the whole event on a video screen. First they spray down the cervix with an acid solution and peer at it awhile to see how it reacts. After that they swab it down with iodine and put a green filter on the camera lens. Yeah, I thought it looked surreal before - this was downright creepy. I'll admit it was pretty cool to be able to see what they were seeing - it's not often we get to peek inside our own bodies - but between the shaky camera work, blood red iodine and the green filter we definitely had a Blair Witch Project effect lighting up my happy place.
I couldn't watch the next part though. The doc gets out what looks like a tiny little bottle brush and says, "OK you might feel some discomfort for the next thirty seconds," and starts scrubbing inside my cervix. Discomfort, my Aunt Fanny. That was Satan's bottle brush, for sure. After they peel me off the ceiling, I was allowed to get dressed and go home.
A week later I get a call from Dr. Amy - it's bad news. She couldn't actually bring herself to say "cancer" at first, but after giving me the name of a specialist she did say I should expect at least a biopsy and later a hysterectomy. I realized at that point the diagnosis was definitely cancer and she was probably having a harder time telling me than I was hearing it. Later the enormity of the diagnosis settled on me and I wandered around in a bit of a daze just trying to feel. I wasn't numb exactly - it was more as if my brain was only going to let me feel what I was ready to feel. All my emotional barriers slammed down at once and were inching slowly open to let the feelings trickle through at a manageable rate. That's pretty much where I hang out now and I can honestly say at any point both "Yes I'm fine" and "No I'm not fine."
Welcome to the wacky world of cancer.
