Bad Customer Cervix
A couple of months ago, I headed to the OB/GYN for the dreaded annual exam. It's the same old shit every year, isn't it, ladies? I really like my doctor, though, so I always wear fun socks for my exams. After all, all he gets to see is my vagina and my socks so I figure I have to do my part to spice it up a bit. This year, as it was around Christmas, I wore blue and white striped socks with ice-skating reindeer. Nice, huh? He thanked me. He's a nice man. Anyway, all goes according to plan on the day of the exam. A week or so later I came home to a message on the machine from Dr. Feeney. "Nothing serious, just give me a call tomorrow around eleven." Nice. Love the suspense. So, the next day I called and he explained that my pap came back showing a type II abnormality. Apparently pap smears are graded type I through type V, type I being normal, type V being the 'Big C'. According to that scale, type II is no big deal, really. Dr. Feeney prescribed a medication designed to eradicate a very common cause of abnormal paps and asked me to come in for a follow-up pap in a couple of weeks.
If left untreated, 65% of abnormal paps in the type II or III range return to normal on their own. Thanks to the 35% party poopers, no gynecologist on earth will let an abnormality go, of course.
So I went back in for my second pap. This time I wore bright pink socks with neon green and silver sparkly Christmas trees. Again, Feeney gave me a perfect ten for presentation. This time he found a vascular spot on my cervix which he cauterized (much less dramatic than it sounds) and explained that the vascular tissue could certainly have caused an abnormal reading while being a totally benign issue. I left his office feeling pretty good. A few days later, I called for the results. Not good. The pap was still abnormal, still type II.
This past Monday I returned for a colposcopy, a giant vagina microscope. Fun, right? So I arrived, with my darling husband in toe, on Monday morning for the Great Vagina Experiment wearing snow white socks featuring dozens of brightly colored conversation hearts touting Valentine's messages. Appropriate? Probably not. Anyway, during the colposcopy Dr. Feeney found some fluid filled cysts on my cervix which are normal and harmless but, again, can cause abnormal results. Upon further inspection, however, he found two areas of white epithelium. That's bad news. White epithelium is a symptom of cervical dysplasia, the precursor for cervical cancer. He biopsied both areas, naturally, and I left the office with the same instructions; call on Thursday around eleven.
So today is Thursday. One of the two areas that were biopsied returned no evidence of disease. The other area, however, showed moderate to severe dysplasia which basically denotes very naughty cells. As there is no traditional 'Time Out' for naughty cervical cells, these guys have to be removed. How, you ask? Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure, or LEEP, as it is known to its close friends. The cervix is numbed with local anesthetic then, using a wire loop and a low level of electricity, the tissue is excised from the effected area and is sent off for further testing. The idea is to eliminate all the naughty cells so the well-behaved cells to go back to playing quietly together.
Very exciting, no?? So, in defiance of my faulty vagina, tonight I made gorgeous, silky, rich mashed potatoes with butter, evaporated milk, a dump-truck's load of salt, and scallions along side bone-in pork chops, dredged in seasoned white flour, then bathed in an egg wash WITH yolk, then forcibly pressed into seasoned white breadcrumbs and fresh grated parm, then FRIED IN BUTTER AND OIL. Take that, dysplasia!
I'm not sure how a high fat dinner is really sticking it to a bad pap but I surely felt better after I ate it......
If left untreated, 65% of abnormal paps in the type II or III range return to normal on their own. Thanks to the 35% party poopers, no gynecologist on earth will let an abnormality go, of course.
So I went back in for my second pap. This time I wore bright pink socks with neon green and silver sparkly Christmas trees. Again, Feeney gave me a perfect ten for presentation. This time he found a vascular spot on my cervix which he cauterized (much less dramatic than it sounds) and explained that the vascular tissue could certainly have caused an abnormal reading while being a totally benign issue. I left his office feeling pretty good. A few days later, I called for the results. Not good. The pap was still abnormal, still type II.
This past Monday I returned for a colposcopy, a giant vagina microscope. Fun, right? So I arrived, with my darling husband in toe, on Monday morning for the Great Vagina Experiment wearing snow white socks featuring dozens of brightly colored conversation hearts touting Valentine's messages. Appropriate? Probably not. Anyway, during the colposcopy Dr. Feeney found some fluid filled cysts on my cervix which are normal and harmless but, again, can cause abnormal results. Upon further inspection, however, he found two areas of white epithelium. That's bad news. White epithelium is a symptom of cervical dysplasia, the precursor for cervical cancer. He biopsied both areas, naturally, and I left the office with the same instructions; call on Thursday around eleven.
So today is Thursday. One of the two areas that were biopsied returned no evidence of disease. The other area, however, showed moderate to severe dysplasia which basically denotes very naughty cells. As there is no traditional 'Time Out' for naughty cervical cells, these guys have to be removed. How, you ask? Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure, or LEEP, as it is known to its close friends. The cervix is numbed with local anesthetic then, using a wire loop and a low level of electricity, the tissue is excised from the effected area and is sent off for further testing. The idea is to eliminate all the naughty cells so the well-behaved cells to go back to playing quietly together.
Very exciting, no?? So, in defiance of my faulty vagina, tonight I made gorgeous, silky, rich mashed potatoes with butter, evaporated milk, a dump-truck's load of salt, and scallions along side bone-in pork chops, dredged in seasoned white flour, then bathed in an egg wash WITH yolk, then forcibly pressed into seasoned white breadcrumbs and fresh grated parm, then FRIED IN BUTTER AND OIL. Take that, dysplasia!
I'm not sure how a high fat dinner is really sticking it to a bad pap but I surely felt better after I ate it......
posted by Corrina & Zack at 7:27 PM
2 Comments:
Yikes! I just left you a perky little voicemail, came in here to find the link to your blog, and found this.
This unbelievably entertaining and well-written explanation of what surely has been a heart-stopping series of visits and phone calls. I hope to hear a follow-up that this turns out to be nothing. All is benign. And you can wear one more pair of socks for the surgery and be done with it.
Hope to talk with you soon.
I know it's taken me ages to comment on this, but I've talked to you on the phone, so that counts, right? I'm glad you remembered your socks and your sense of humor about such a stressful and scary event...
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