Fighting Tiger

While both frustrating and expensive, there’s something to be said for pretravel medical checkups. You know what they say: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure…

I’ve spent over $80 on non-prescription medicines and don’t even want to know how much I’ve invested in “just in case” prescriptions for antibiotics and the morning after pill. I’ve been jabbed with vaccinations for typhoid, tetanus and rabies, had my teeth checked and had two fillings. I’m carrying two months worth of St John’s Wort and Vitamin B and multivitamins for fear of anxiety, depression, exhaustion and getting just plain old run-down.

Remember, apart from the St John’s Wort, all this preparation is not just for me. Whilst wary of getting sick whilst on the road, I also live in fear of Dan catching even a cold and turning into the biggest sook who ever shouldered a backpack.

So, it was in the spirit of “getting a checkup” that I headed off to my GP to get a pap smear done. Towards the end of last year, conveniently occuring at exactly the same time as my work related breakdown, I found out that my previous pap smear had been flagged for abnormal cells. At the time that news just added to a general feeling of ohmygodtheworldisgoingtoend, but I did remember to have another pap smear done about 3 weeks ago. And that came back with another notification of abnormal cells.

Now, because I’m leaving the country this Saturday I needed to get a whole bunch of “examinations” over and done with as soon as possible, you know, just in case. Referrals were made and the ObGyn’s office gave me an appointment for a colposcopy the day I rang up. Which was lucky, because I needed a biopsy on the abnormal cells, and, you guessed it, last Friday I rang up for the results and they showed Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN) II cell changes. And they’re the kind of cells you need to get removed before they potentially turn cancerous.

Since Friday, when I found out I needed to have the surgery, I’ve spent way too much time online looking at information about the procedure and getting distressed by forum responses. Should I, or shouldn’t I postpone my departure for Shanghai? Would I be in terrible pain or depressed? Would it affect my potential to have children a number of years in the future?

Oh, it was a tough weekend. I was moving house. And it was a long weekend so I couldn’t speak to my gynaecologist or my travel agent for three days for reassurance about the procedure and the flexibility of my ticket. I rang up on Monday and was reassured.

Then, I packed and moved stuff. Vacuumed and drove backwards and forwards across town. Went to Womadelaide for a day and visited my grandmother who is almost 99.

Today I had the LLETZ procedure to remove the area surrounding the abnormal cells away from my cervix. It meant that I was knocked out by a sedative and was in hospital for half a day. I’m going to have post operative bleeding or “loss” for a couple of days, and can’t have sex for about a month. I also have to be careful about picking up heavy objects, so I’m going to cart my pack around on a granny cart for the first week or two.

I was freaked out. So scared. But nowhere near as scared as I’d have been if it was cancer, and I’m so glad I found the changed cells when I did.

I feel a little tired and woozy and I have about a million things to do tomorrow, but damnit, I’m getting on that plane on Saturday morning.

For more information about pap smears and cervical cancer screening visit http://www.cervicalscreen.health.gov.au.