Save a Life

Save a life.. maybe even your own.

Ladies (and gentlemen, while this isn't specifically addressed to you.. you can pass this along to the women in your life.. wives, moms, daughters, girlfriends.. any female that you care about their health and well being).. please be sure and get your annual pap smear done.

If your monthly bleeding has become unusual.. more frequent or less.. see your doctor. If you're post-menopausal and start bleeding again.. see your doctor.

The doctor may tell you everything is fine .. or you may catch the beginning of a more serious process.

I have a friend who had a sister.. said sister had avoided going to the gyn for a number of years. Guess what? That sister died in 2006.. ON MY BIRTHDAY.. of a gyn cancer. A year later.. I had my diagnosis. I was so scared.

And I have a word for the gyn's and other doctors who do endometrial biopsies out there. I was seeing a doctor who would not give ANY pre procedural pain medication. After having two painful biopsies.. I quit going to the doctor for a couple/three years. This is when my cancer started to develop. IF the doctor had even given 800 mg of Motrin (Ibuprofin) before the biopsy.. the likelihood that my problem would've been allowed to develop into cancer is much much smaller.

Please physicians.. we ladies aren't asking for major pain meds.. just enough to make the biopsy tolerable. I'm still a bit angry over the mistreatment..but in a way it was also a blessing. If I had continued to see that doctor and cancer raised its head anyway... I wonder how callous she would've been treating the cancer??

Save a life.. get your pap smears done.

I try to have mine around the time of my birthday.. easy to remember. Pin it to a date that is significant for you. Anniversary, Graduation, Fourth of July, Halloween (you can go in disguise..lol).. just GET IT DONE.

:::stepping down off my soapbox::::

Anniversary

Today a year ago I got my diagnosis of Hyperplasia with atypia.

I remember sitting in the exam room with two ob/gyns and my husband and all 3 of them were planning my surgery for 3 days later.. and I was going noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I felt like I was being hit from 3 sides. This is too quick.. you're not even sure I have cancer.... I have a house torn apart by a painter....I have a ds and dd getting ready for college.....

I did eventually have surgery, but on my schedule and with a gyn/oncologist.

Just a little sad today remembering the horrid summer it was last year and hoping hoping hoping that the cycle will begin to turn. I will have my first post-op pap smear in August or September.. we'll know more then.

Things I don't usually talk about that made the last year so hard.. A friends sister died on my birthday in 2006, from a gyn cancer. And I was 49 at the time of my diagnosis.. the same age as my father when he died.