Tuesday afternoon, I found out something new and exciting about my cervix. Apparently, it’s cancerous.
Words cannot express how freaky and upsetting it is to feel perfectly fine, and have had normal checkups for one’s entire life, and then to be told out of the blue, when one is 34 and single with no kids, that one’s reproductive system is misbehaving, in a potentially lethal way, no less.
Now for the good news: it was caught very, very early on a routine exam, so my medical prospects are excellent. They’re going to laser the crap out of the thing on the 20th, and there is a 99% chance that I will be perfectly fine afterward. It’s an outpatient surgery under local anesthesia, and theoretically I can go back to work the same day. (Hypothetically, but I will probably take a few days off, just to chill and calm down.)
The scary part: if they hadn’t caught it until it had become invasive and progressed farther into the cervix or uterus, I would have had a 7% chance of long-term survival. The other scary part: I wasn’t aware of having ANY of the risk factors, which include smoking and promiscuity. Apparently 95% of cervical cancer is caused by HPV (the human papillomavirus), which is sexually transmitted, and asymptomatic for the most part.
The other major risk factor is the number of partners one’s partner has had…and since I’ve had a grand total of 2 in the past 7 years, and since it generally takes a LONG time for cellular misdevelopment to progress to the cancerous stage, my doc says odds are it wasn’t the most recent. (That, plus the other one was a lying, cheating, manipulative sonofabitch.) I’m actually sort of looking forward to telling him what’s up, because he’s such a fucking hypochondriac that he thinks he’s going to die every time he gets a new freckle. Apparently HPV isn’t dangerous to men (they’re just carriers), and maybe I’m a bit of a sadist, but I’ll let him figure that out on his own. (And one source said condoms don’t necessarily protect you; can some doc explain to me in greater detail whatever is known about how HPV is transmitted, if that’s the case?)
So the moral of the story is: a) ladies, get a PAP smear EVERY year, the liquid-based kind (brand name Thinprep), which is more sensitive (this is the first year I had the new kind, and it may well have saved my life); and b) don’t have sex with lying, cheating, manipulative jerks, even with a condom. Tell all your friends! Probably 90% of the people I’ve told so far had no idea about the relationship between HPV and cervical cancer.
Anyone who has similar experiences/advice to share, please do so. And any medical folks, especially, feel free to offer advice and additional information; the more technical, the better. And if anyone has any thoughts on how to break the news to my mom, please share; she’s going to freak out. I had to have her restrained in the ER when I broke my leg, so I can’t even conceive of how she’ll take this. I’m more apprehensive about telling Mom than I am about the surgery, if that’s possible; I’m seriously considering not telling her until afterwards.