{"id":5192,"date":"2021-07-15T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/witanddelight.com\/?p=91007"},"modified":"2021-07-15T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T15:00:00","slug":"the-powerful-act-of-sharing-our-stories-about-womens-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ozapp.com.au\/?p=5192","title":{"rendered":"The Powerful Act of Sharing Our Stories About Women\u2019s Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was another Thursday. And I was getting weighed by a nurse with a saccharine tongue, while simultaneously looking above the number on the scale, hoping I was giving off an \u201cI\u2019m totally cool with my weight\u201d vibe fighting through a listless gaze.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it too early for you to try to give us a urine sample?\u201d is definitely an odd question to ask a stranger at nine in the morning. But, the nurse hummed the sentence like a perfect bird while she led me to the bathroom. And I, angry to be there with a happy stranger and my dumb vagina, said, \u201cI haven\u2019t had any coffee, but I\u2019ll give it an old college try.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012, I had my first abnormal pap smear. The entire ordeal was harrowing and awful. I got the call from my doctor while I was at work, cried in the stairwell, and left early. I thought I was going to die. From there, I got my first colposcopy and tried to to see myself as brave beyond the disgusting. I blamed myself for everything and wondered deeply about the human condition. Bad news is just part of living. And it\u2019s a reminder you\u2019re alive.<\/em> The test results came back negative. And the next year I came back and went through the process all over again. I didn\u2019t cry in a stairwell again but I\u2019ve felt this leathery, stubborn growth in my chest get bigger every year since.<\/p>\n

Every February since 2012, I\u2019ve had an abnormal pap smear.<\/strong> I think there\u2019s been a year in there somewhere that I went clear but the abnormal cells keep popping back up. Most have ended with a colposcopy and a negative test. But, while I\u2019m always grateful my body fights, I can\u2019t help but feel weak when the cells keep coming back. I want to remove them, but surgery would put me at risk for having children in the future. <\/p>\n

Bad news is just part of living. And it\u2019s a reminder you\u2019re alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bad news is just part of living. And it\u2019s a reminder you\u2019re alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bad news is just part of living. And it\u2019s a reminder you\u2019re alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

I try to tell myself this mantra every time. But, the unknown can be so discouraging. Even if the only thing we are promised is life and death. I\u2019m not sorry for being so blunt. It\u2019s the truth. And the truth is hard.<\/p>\n

This year, however, the pap smears, colposcopies, and doctor visits took an odd twist.<\/strong> The cells became a little more threatening. I think my doctor called the cells a \u201cLevel 3\u201d but I can\u2019t entirely remember. If you\u2019re talking about my vagina like a video game, I\u2019m worried. My body just wasn\u2019t healing the enemy cells. And they were getting worse. My doctor told me on the phone, \u201cI know you\u2019re frustrated. But this is why we watch every year. In women, especially your age, cells can turn into something cancerous when we aren\u2019t aware; and we want to make sure we\u2019re catching the bad ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, I instantly scheduled a LEEP. LEEP is short for Loop electrosurgical excision procedure<\/strong> and, to put it scientifically, the process uses a wire loop heated by electric current to remove cells and tissue in a woman\u2019s lower genital tract. While it sounds awful, indeed it is. But when I walked into the doctor the morning of the procedure, I didn\u2019t know that yet.<\/p>\n

A machine that looked like a backup generator, made in the eighties, welcomed me. The nurse and the nurse in training gave me a quick intro to the procedure while checking my blood pressure. They told me the machine sounded a lot like a vacuum. And that I might feel the electric wave in my legs. And, like a restaurant would tell me they\u2019re out of the special, that the \u201cshot of adrenaline is honestly the worst part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Excuse me? A shot of adrenaline? In my\u2026.vagina?<\/p>\n

I instantly panicked. They had to get me crackers and apple juice. And let me tell you, eating crackers quickly before someone shoots your cervix with numbing medicine and adrenaline is not an easy task. The sound of the machine made me feel like I was in a dentist\u2019s office and the shot of adrenaline was<\/em> the worst. I felt like I was about to give a million presentations in my gut and then my chest. My nerves tumbled out of my fingertips and I imagined my purple toes under the bare fluorescent lights.<\/p>\n

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I am so frustrated by the lack of power and transparency around women\u2019s health and the quiet stories that surround them. Why do we have to feel so alone?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While I sat there dealing with my sudden adrenaline rush, a wire loop\u2014one that looks a lot like something you\u2019d blow balloons out of on a beach\u2014sliced out the abnormal tissue from my cervix, enough to cover the size of a fingertip. From there, my cervix was burned<\/em> to stop any bleeding. Burned!! How did I not know this happens regularly to women?! And now to me!? AND WE GET NOTHING BUT A TYLENOL AND A DIAPER TO WEAR OUT OF THE HOSPITAL?<\/p>\n

It was over almost as quickly as it started, but I had to lie there while the adrenaline rush subsided. And, like usual, the doctor handed me a jumbo pad packed tightly in a cardboard box and said she\u2019d call me when she got the results. I went home fifteen minutes later with strict instructions not to have sex, work out, or douche my vagina for two weeks. Perfect, since my general stress level and hygiene rules would not allow me to do those things anyway.<\/p>\n

Since my LEEP procedure, a dozen realizations started lighting up for me.<\/strong> They were real and difficult. I\u2019ve been dealing with abnormal paps, and the procedures that come after them, privately for nine years now. I wrote about the stigma behind talking about women\u2019s health in an article for Wit & Delight<\/em> a few years ago called \u201cThe Abnormal Stories of Loud, Beautiful Women.\u2019<\/a>\u2018 And I want this to be my even louder response. A feisty follow-up, if you will. That\u2019s why I shared my story above. I am so frustrated by the lack of power and transparency around women\u2019s health and the quiet stories that surround them. Why do we have to feel so alone? Why aren\u2019t doctors talking to us about our health differently? Why is it costing us so much money? The women\u2019s health experience needs to be heard loud and clear. (Writer\u2019s Note:<\/em> I realize my lifestyle and experience do not account for many more women who have harder and less privileged stories than me.) But, for now, this is mine.<\/p>\n

For one, abnormal pap smears are extremely common in women. According to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center<\/a>, of the three million<\/em> women who get an abnormal pap smear a year, less than one percent will be diagnosed with cervical cancer. Even more, for something so common, yearly colposcopies cost me anywhere from $600 \u2013 $900 out of pocket every spring. If I didn\u2019t have insurance, each one would cost me thousands. Doctors always recommend monitoring for cervical cancer and I haven\u2019t missed a colposcopy since. When this started in 2012, I wasn\u2019t making a lot of money and had to start a payment plan. It took me a year to pay the bill off\u2014just in time for the next one.<\/p>\n

I also recently started talking to my doctor about having children.<\/strong> It\u2019s something I felt was proper to start discussing, even though I\u2019d been sitting in a room with her head between my legs with a cotton swab every year anyway. We discussed when I\u2019d prefer to go off birth control and she mentioned she was proud I didn\u2019t smoke cigarettes. \u201cAdditionally, if you want to get pregnant faster, you could always lose 5-10 pounds.\u201d She said this pretty quickly, and swung into the blood testing topic next, but I sat there with my tongue showing, counting my rolls under my paper robe like counting sheep before bed. <\/p>\n

She handed me a few brochures that looked like they were printed in the early nineties, even though the publish date read 2002. One of them said \u201cCystic Fibrosis Screening and Diagnosis\u201d and the only thing I could think of was yet another \u201cfault\u201d I could be responsible for, finding out I was a CF carrier. Among everything else.<\/p>\n

The thought of getting pregnant instantly made me feel like everything could go wrong. And I found guilt everywhere in pregnancy. You\u2019re too fat. You drink too much. You smoke. Do you wear your seatbelt? Your genes could pass disease. Something could be wrong with your blood. Don\u2019t get those abnormal cells removed. Do get those abnormal cells removed. Monitor, monitor, monitor. Money, money, money. <\/em><\/p>\n

Bad news is just part of living. And it\u2019s a reminder you\u2019re alive.<\/em><\/p>\n

I do strongly believe that. And if we know each other\u2019s stories about women\u2019s health, we can be so much better. Bad news is a part of living and if we can\u2019t hear the bad news that surrounds our health, what are we doing? If I would have known the details of a LEEP procedure, I would have been better. If I could have known before about the commonalities of abnormal pap smears, I would have been better. If I would have known that my weight isn\u2019t the reason I may not be able to have children, that building a family isn\u2019t entirely on my midsection, I would have been better. We can still be frustrated by the lack of empathy pouring through women\u2019s health. But, we can be better to change it.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t know how to change the polite, quiet hum of women\u2019s health right now. But, I hope my story and this moment you\u2019re reading through it can start a conversation strong enough to make us louder within our many stories.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a big order and I don\u2019t know how to change the polite, quiet hum of women\u2019s health right now. But, I hope my story and this moment you\u2019re reading through it can start a conversation strong enough to make us louder within our many stories. They aren\u2019t the same stories but we deserve to hear them because they aren\u2019t the same. I have written this in some capacity so many times, but stories keep us alive. <\/p>\n

You are not alone in your health journey.<\/strong> You are not alone on that crinkly doctor\u2019s clinic paper, sticking to your sweaty butt cheeks. You are not alone when you slap a strip of tape on your thigh so an electric current can ripple through your ankles and knees. You are not alone when your doctor says the results came back showing mild dysplasia and clear margins; when you wonder what that means and where that will take you next year. Or the next. You are not alone when the doctor tells you that you can get pregnant faster if you lose some weight. And, most importantly, you are not alone when you feel like you are.<\/p>\n

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