After finally being brave enough to go to an OB-GYN for the first time in 51 years (I know, I know, I suck and it’s my fault… significant shame issues kept me away), I left feeling pretty good because I’d conquered a terror I’d had for years.
Well apparently I was right to have been scared. The pap test was returned w/“Atypical Glandular Cells of Unknown Significance.” My gyn. has me scheduled for a colposcopy and a biopsy for the 19th, as well as an ultrasound.
At first a bunch of other women told me “Oh it’s very common to have atypical pap smears, don’t worry,” but after reading every single frickin’ link on the first six pages of Google results it’s patently clear that my situation is rare and quite different from the ‘usual’ finding of Atypical Squamous Cells.
I know I don’t have STDs or HPV. Given my age and being overweight, the bigger concern (vs. cervical cancer) seems to be endometrial cancer. I have no symptoms–not that it matters, this stuff is often symptomless. I’ve always had irregular periods that ranged from nothing to pretty heavy (though the heavy portions only lasted for a half-day at the peak of my period).
Now I’m pretty firmly in perimenopause zooming fast in on menopause–I haven’t had a period since September. Although maybe that’s just a big tumor blocking my uterus, I dunno.
I’m now terrified and certain I’m doomed. The research seems to be all over the place and I can’t fully understand the findings related to what my odds are. The odds of malignancy are supposedly much higher with AGC. I’m seeing crazy ranges, though; the malignancy rates given range from 5.2% to 48%. How the hell can it vary so widely?! Come on, docs, get it together!
Because of the rarity of this finding (it’s like 3 out of 1000 tests) the sample sizes of these research findings have been very small, like, 55 people. One researcher used 3000 AGC+ subjects.
I’m not an expert on reading medical research papers but I can certainly understand things are bad when a paper says that a finding of AGC is “ominous.”
Does anyone understand AGC and can decipher just how petrified I can be? I already feel like I have a death sentence and can hardly get out of bed. Worse, I hate myself for waiting so long to get to a gynecologist. Serves me right for being an irresponsible coward.