Next.

Another day, another drama.

Last year I found out about a sliding scale women’s clinic in Dade City, and since I don’t have health insurance offered through my employer, and I can’t afford an individual plan and still provide for my family, I was thrilled to discover an affordable way to take responsibility for my health. So I went in April of ’09 and had my first annual gyn exam and pap smear since Faith was born in ’03. My doctor and I discussed the dysfunctional uterine bleeding I had been experiencing and agreed on having some labs done to attempt to confirm our potential diagnosis of PCOS. I walked away feeling at peace about my gynecological health.

I went back in December for some additional screening, and to have my medication changed.

I went yesterday to have another annual exam and pap smear, and get a new script for the birth control pill that has been terrific at controlling the bleeding I used to experience. I was sure it was just going to be a routine office visit..no big deal. I joked about the stirrups and having to clean up for the doc on Twitter. It was nothing, right?

Wrong. It turns out that my last pap results were abnormal.

I never found out. Until yesterday. They said they called and left at least two messages for me to call the office, and it’s quite possible they did. At the time there were two teenage boys here and I’m sure I lost messages, both erased on the machine and never passed on.

So, that’s bad. It means that whatever is going on has had as little as a full year, and as many as seven, to continue changing. And, see I know a little about cervical cancer. I know that Hispanic women, an ethnic group I belong to, are twice as likely to get cervical cancer. I know that over 10,000 new cases are diagnosed in the US yearly, and that over 4,000 women will die from it yearly. I know these things because I have a history of cervical dysplasia, or pre-cancerous cells.

Fourteen years ago, I went in for my annual pap. I had insurance then, and I was conscientious about my health. Even though my last pap from the year before was normal, that pap came back with abnormalities. I was sitting in this very room when I got the call from the same doctor who delivered Faith. I remember feeling betrayed by myself…by my own body. I scheduled a colposcopy, which is a procedure where the doctor stains the abnormal areas and while viewing the cervix through a scope, pinches a tiny bit of the abnormal tissue for further evaluation by the lab. As it turned out, I had CIN II, or moderate cervical dysplasia. Aggressive treatment was suggested by my doctor. Within weeks I had a conization, where a cone shaped section of my cervix was removed and biopsied. The lab said that the CIN II section was completely contained within that sample, so I was relieved that it was all removed. But I always knew it could come back.

And it appears that now, it has.

I’m scared. I feel like I am walking around with a monster inside me. I feel ugly and tainted and sexless. I’m trying to stay positive, and not worry until the results from THIS pap come back. But my anxiety is a “what-if” anxiety…and I know that last time it progressed from nothing to CIN II in under one year. This time it’s had a lot more time to grow.