Thursday, May 6, 2010

Journey Thru Cancer Thursday 5/6/10

I have come to realize I no longer need a clock. My body tells me when 4 hours is up and 12 hours. My body wakes me way before the alarm is set to go off. I told my husband yesterday I am officially a pill popper now. If I don't take my medication consistantly my body screams in pain.

No woman should ever be told she has cervical cancer if she has received pap smears on a regular basis. Amazing isn't it. You can tell I have done some homework. If I am going to be given a diagnosis of course I am going to research it. When we go for our annual exam it is one of the most dreaded things we do, but when we do take our time to go and to go thru such an exam we "EXPECT" the person doing our pap to get it right! We as a patient should not have to go in and say, okay, make sure you get enough sampling and by the way make sure you sample my endocervix area - the transitional zone. Could you imagine if we walked in and made those demands while having our paps. Well guess what, that is exactly what we should be doing. My cancer is endocervical it started up in the transitional zone. Regular paps missed it. Back in 2004 I was pregnant and I had my first ob appt and you know they have to get the pap in. I had a miscarriage, that weekend (of course on a Saturday) I rec'd a letter in the mail (not certified and no phone call) stating I must contact the office immediately I had an abnormal pap. Well needless to say within 2 weeks I had a colpo done and the doctor said this can't be right your cervix does not match the pap so he had to take 2 different biopsys. They came back normal. So I of course changed doctors, because I felt the pap was not mine they made a mistake and somebody was walking around with a class 4 pap and they did not know it. I had 3 paps after that they all came back normal. So I must have been right it was not mine to begin with, now right at 6 years later I have endocervical cancer. I am angry!!!!! Why? Now when I read that pap (yes I have requested all my paps from over the years) it states endocervical cells were present. This meant nothing to me years ago, but to a medical provider it should have meant something. All my other paps did not ever mention endocervical cells, never again until 2 - 3 weeks ago did someone decide to take a sampling from the endocervical area. So you see, I could have had a hysterectomy probably years ago and been cancer free. Now I am a stage 3 and have had to go thru so much pain and so many doctors to get diagnosised. Oh yea do you know how many times I was told oh it is perimenopause. Yes I was going thru menopause so I just needed to get thru it. I tell you this listen to your body, if you know something is not right you are probably right get a second third forth opinion. I know I was beginning to think I was a hypochondriac because every day I had new symptoms.

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