Medical Stuff

[trickykitty]

Today I have to go to the doctor for a colposcopy, which is an "in depth" look at my cervix and vagina. This is the result of a positive pap smear (those things us women do once a year with the gynos, and positive means that something showed up that isn't supposed to be there). This is my second time to have this procedure. The first time resulted in a biopsy which then showed pre-cancerous cells. I had to go in for treatments once a week for ten weeks which managed to clear everything up. But now a couple of years later I'm back doing it all again.

In a way I'm nervous. This is the primary way that cervical cancer is found, and knowing that I have already had one bout of pre-cancerous cells doesn't make my outlook too good. My pap smear this time last year was positive. I was supposed to do a repeat pap during December, but it slipped my mind due to school and everything. They usually do it twice over six months when positive because other things can show up on it that create false positives (like if you are just getting over or starting your period or have had sex within 24-48 hours). So I finally got it done a couple weeks ago. I knew it was positive again because they had to call me in to discuss my results. They only do that when it's positive, otherwise they just call on the phone and say, "You're fine. See ya next year." So it's been a year now which is why I'm the most nervous, because as with anything related to cancer, the sooner you detect it the better. I probably won't know my results for about a week, but I'll let everyone know when I get them back.

EDIT: The spell checker doesn't like the word "colposcopy." It returned as alternatives "cloudscape" and "kaleidescope" spelled two different ways. Just thought that was funny.