Coping With Cervical Dysplasia

I found out I had HPV when I was sixteen and I have been plagued by it ever since. I had the strand that caused warts and I immediately felt dirty. For a long time I thought who will want me now. I spent five years alone in my own little world feeling ugly and unattractive. Giving this to someone would be horrible. So I just didn’t try to meet guys. I would have little crushes but nothing ever came of them because I didn’t feel worthy, so now one else ever saw me that way either.

I don’t know what changed. I guess I realized no one is perfect. Especially when the statistics show that 50% of sexually active men and women acquire a genital HPV infection at some point in their lives and age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have been infected with genital HPV infection. I no longer felt alone. I was actually in the majority. So I moved on with my life!

I found a wonderful man who told me he didn’t care about my HPV. We are now engaged and set to get married on September 12, 2008. We are hoping to start having children not to long after we are married. We hope…

Well you remember when I said I have been plagued with my HPV since I was diagnosed at sixteen? Over the years I have had abnormal pap smears on and off as well as warts. Over three years ago (which is an estimate because I know I have been with my fiance for two and a half years and I have been wart free the entire time!) I was battling the strain of HPV that causes warts. You know there are different types. I know that I have either had 6 or 11 which cause visible warts and are harmless and easily treatable. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to have them removed just that the process is quick, thankfully. Then there are types 16 and 18 plus some more, but these two are the strands associated with causing cancer.

Anyway I had been going to the county health clinic for treatments for some strain 6 or 11. The nurse would freeze them off and it sometimes took two or three appointments to get it done. Then one day I noticed a bump on my cervix. This scared me because it reminded me of a lump in a breast that could be cancerous. Since the county health clinic didn’t actually do pap smears I decided to go to a gyno and have it checked out. She said it was just a polyp. Well if you are like me and you don’t get a good impression of someone in the beginning you just cant trust them after that. This is what happened with me and this certain gyno. I had to make two appointments with her because she would not believe me when I said the county health clinic did not due full pap smear testing they were just treating my warts. So when she let me come back for the second appointment to actually do the testing I had no respect for her because she wasted my time and didn’t believe me when I was giving her the correct information.

So I found a different doctor and stopped going to the county health clinic. I felt I needed someone I trusted and that could take care of all aspects of my treatment if I needed more. The new gyno did confirm that it was a polyp. Thank God. But my problems didn’t stop. Now came the abnormal pap smears. My new doctor confirmed that I know had type 16 HPV which is connected with a majority of the cases of cancer. He advised me I would have to come in for a colposcopy. Which is when the doctor takes a big microscope and looks at your cervix up close. He also took a clipping from my cervix to biopsy. Thankfully I didn’t have cancer! But I had to keep going back for pap smears every three months to make sure they came back normal.

I have had two abnormal pap smears since my biopsy. Which brings us up to date. I am yet at another doctor because I no longer have insurance and have to go to a free hospital. This could scare me a little but for some reason I feel comfortable because the nurse has been so helpful. At this point what I know is that since I have had two abnormal paps whatever is wrong is not going away. So the doctor has to get rid of it before it causes cancer.

I am scheduled for a LEEP in a month. Which sounds like a very strange procedure to me. Can you imagine having to have a pad placed on your thigh to ground to electrical current being shot inside you to rapidly heat up and burst abnormal cells? I guess I just hope it works.

I have thought for a long time that I would get cancer. I always thought the odds were against me. Think about it, I have had some strain of HPV in my system since I was sixteen years old. I am now twenty-nine. Since I have one of those depressive personalities I have always thought I needed something bad to happen to me just to make me thankful I am alive. Right know I wish I could take that all back.

Why, because all my life all I have wanted to do was to have a baby. If something goes bad with this and I do have cancer then I may not be able to.

So, now it starts from here… will I have a baby or not?