Coping With Cervical Dysplasia

I am almost 40 years old, and have just had my second LEEP (electrocauterization) procedure to have stage 3 (severe) dysplasia cell tissue removed.

My first procedure was 6 years ago, when I was 33. I’d had “atypical” PAP results before, but my former gyn just had me retest, and that was it. After moving to another state, my new gyn decided to do a colposcopy after an atypical result, and that was the first time I found out I carry the HPV virus. I have no idea how long I have had it.

My first LEEP was in my gyn’s office, using a local anesthetic. Being a needle phobic, that was by far the hardest part. The rest of the procedure was hardly comfortable (a fair amount of cramping) but otherwise not difficult.

The results of the LEEP were Stage 2 and Stage 3 cells. I thought the dysplasia had developed that far because I hadn’t had a PAP in almost two years, and the one just prior had been atypical but not retested.

After the procedure, I went in for a PAP every six months instead of every year. After three clean PAPs, I went back to an annual PAP, feeling like I’d just dodged a bullet.

This past year, my annual was scheduled for December, but my current doctor turned out to be unavailable and the earliest appointment was for March. When they called to tell me the March PAP had come back showing Stage 3 dysplasia, I was shocked. It had only been 15 months since the previous, clean PAP. I didn’t know it could come back, or that fast.

I’m not sure why they didn’t do the colposcopy or cone biopsy this second time, maybe because I already had a history, maybe because it was progessing so quickly. But they scheduled me immediately for another LEEP, this time under general anesthesia I’m not sure why the general, whether that’s because my current doctor is more comfortable with me ‘out,’ or because she anticipated having to cut away a significant amount.

At any rate, the needle (IV this time) was again the hardest part. After that, this second procedure was even easier than the first. Not even any significant cramping or bleeding that day or the following days.

My difficulty now is realizing that this could keep coming back, over and over, and I may have to keep undergoing these procedures.

I do not have HIV, or any sexually transmitted disease aside from HPV I eat a healthy, balanced diet, and take a multivitamin every day. I’ve never been a smoker (although my husband smokes, and that may be a factor). I don’t know if my mom took DES or not when pregnant. In my younger days, I had many sexual partners, and it almost seems unfair that perhaps my lifestyle then is causing this problem now.

I don’t know if there’s anything I can do, that I haven’t been doing for years already, to stop the displaysia from recurring. I don’t know if I will need PAP smears every three months for the rest of my life, as it apparently can go from nothing to Stage 3 in just 15 months. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with the threat of cervical cancer hanging over my head and nothing to be done about it.

One more thing: years ago, my husband developed a small fleshy bump on his penis. His doctor told him it was a “skin tag,” was nothing to worry about, was not communicable, and neither he nor I needed to do anything about it. In recent years it has grown larger, and they are now calling it a genital wart. It’s clearly related to the HPV although whether he had it first and passed it to me or vice versa is unknown, and a moot point besides.

It makes me angry to think that all these years, I could have let my doctors know that my husband had a genital wart — if only we’d known that’s what it was. Maybe there was some precaution we could have taken.

It makes me angry that my former gyn in California must have known, or at least suspected, I had HPV but never told me and never let me know about the link between it and dysplasia, or between dysplasia and cervical cancer.

But despite this, overall I am still grateful. Grateful that although I have twice now been diagnosed with severe dysplasia, I have not yet been told I have in situ, or cancer. Grateful that I have a good doctor who I trust to do the right thing, even if I have to work pretty hard sometimes to get the information I want to have. Grateful that my husband and I can be supportive of each other, instead of letting these medical revelations of previously unknown STDs make us feel betrayed. Grateful that if I am at a high risk for cancer, that it is a type of cancer that moves slowly and has treatment options. Things could be a lot worse.