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    My Cancerous Hoo-Hah: A Story of Cervical Cancer
    My Cancerous Hoo-Hah: A Story of Cervical Cancer
    My Cancerous Hoo-Hah: A Story of Cervical Cancer
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    My Cancerous Hoo-Hah: A Story of Cervical Cancer

    By Carla Joy

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    About this ebook

    Do you know what it’s like to go step-by-step through cervical cancer treatment? The only way to get through it is with laughter, good friends, and an occasional glass of wine. The blog, diary and social media posts in this collection detail every horrible, humiliating and humorous aspect of seeking medical treatment for a woman’s issue in an industry filled mainly by men.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJan 10, 2014
    ISBN9781483517643
    My Cancerous Hoo-Hah: A Story of Cervical Cancer

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      Very well written, absolutely loved it. I read it in a sitting.

    Book preview

    My Cancerous Hoo-Hah - Carla Joy

    Learned?

    Introduction

    Everyone will die. We all know it. We spend the first half of our lives ignoring that fact and the second half trying to change our fate. Our understanding of our own demise is surrounded by a multitude of fears, from the terror of non-existence to the myriad, frightening paths to get there and what they might do to us. Will we be in pain? Will we not know our loved ones? Will we die alone? Or worst of all, will we be a horrible lesson to others and a headline in a national paper?

    I've never been one to fear death too greatly, as I figured out early in life that death was an absolute we would all face at some point. But when I found out I had cervical cancer, I realized I wasn't quite as prepared for that concept as I had thought, mentally or physically. I had already dealt with an incident of basil cell carcinoma on my face, right above my lip, and the humiliation of trying to wear a big bandage on my face without anyone noticing, while hoping my brush with anything cancerous was thus complete. (If that ever happens to you, forget the extra eye makeup. Everyone still looks at the bandage.) But it wasn't done with me. I was to be thrust full-force into You will die if you don't have treatment! and all the fear that comes with such a pronouncement. I got through it, so far, with a good sense of humor and the fact that I wrote down what I went through, both privately in my own journal and publicly in a blog and on Facebook. I found plenty of other people going through the same thing on the Internet, but what I never found was a complete story. You already know, if you've ever looked up anything medical on the Internet, that a forum for concerns about a particular illness quickly degenerates into a litany of I'm bleeding from the anus and I swear I don't smoke but now my left arm has been completely numb for five days. Rather than being buoyed by people with like concerns, you often end up more afraid than before, checking your own backside for a previously unknown bleeding issue and thinking that your left arm did suddenly feel a little tingly. Perhaps it's just me, and I'm just not the type to find solace from the fact that many, many other people are just as scared and uninformed as I was. I did find good information on professional medical sites. But I really wanted to hear a complete story from someone; what they went through, what procedures they ended up having, what they were told. So here is my story as I recorded it, from start to what I hope is at least the beginning of the end. I've included some of my posts about my hopes and dreams and life changes along the way, as there were decisions I made based on what I was going through and what was yet to come. I hope it can help anyone else who might have to face this fear.

    October 2011

    October 11 – A Spot of Bother

    I've been having an issue with my female parts for a few months now. I took a wonderful vacation to Scotland with some pals at the end of May, and while on vacation my little friend came to visit, even though I had already experienced the joy of a cycle a couple of weeks before. It only lasted a few days, but before the vacation was over, I was spotting again. When I got home, the whole Surprise! You're bleeding! kept happening, every week to two weeks. And it happened every time I masturbated. Gross, right? Don't touch yourself or you'll bleed! Worse than hairy palms, I figure. I knew something was not quite right and I knew I would need to have it checked out, but you know how insurance is…you have to wait a year and a day for your next pap smear, or the insurance won't cover it. I have my regular pap every single year, and except for one single pap in my late 20's that initially came back with abnormal cells that apparently cleared up by the second visit, I've cleared that hurdle with flying colors every year. My year and a day was at the end of September, so I just waited the three months and then went to my regular doctor. No matter what the symptoms, I wasn't going to do anything about it until the insurance covered it. My pap came back normal (YEA!), but my doctor wants me to see a regular gynecologist for a follow-up on those irregular bleeding symptoms. (BOO!) I have to go in to see the gynecologist in another week. After extensive research on the Internet, and perusing some truly horrible pictures of STDs, I'm thinking it's just the change of life come upon me. The late forties…who knew how fun this would be?

    October 18 – Bring on the Waterworks

    So, I've been to the gynecologist. The specialist. The one who can tell me all about my hoo-hah. I've spread my legs for a second time, and I have to say that this time it was a truly horrific experience. All previous pap smears pale in comparison. When I described my symptoms to her, and told her I had a regular pap smear every single year for the past…what…20 to 30 years, she was all, like, Oh, that's so normal for peri-menopausal women! Then she got a good look inside me, as her assistant stood by helpfully holding the instruments of torture. Oh! I do NOT like the look of your cervix!

    What?

    I was a little offended. Was it waving at her? Giving her the finger? Maybe it was wearing its pants down low and sporting a sideways cap. I asked her what, exactly, didn't look right, and she said it wasn't soft enough. Ha. Just like my personality, right? I remember an ex-friend telling me once that I was hard. Didn't know that would apply one day to my woman parts. Not soft enough. So then I get the whole should feel like the end of your nose speech and the question about whether I had ever felt it. Well, of course I've felt it. I've been alone for a while, you know. But I haven't felt it in a whole hey something feels different kind of way. Was she sure? Maybe it was just toughening up because it was the second exam I had been through in the same number of weeks.

    The gynecologist decides an ultrasound is the first step to finding some answers. An ultrasound…no problem, right? Only this ultrasound was both outside AND inside the body. Let me set the scene for you: slightly warmed goop that is designed to cool off in T-minus-one minute is smeared on your abdomen and rubbed around by an equally not-really-warm round thing, while at the SAME EXACT TIME an ICE-COLD wand is pushed up inside of you and shoved around. It. Was. Not. Pleasant. From the initial exam to the length of time for the ultrasound, it was the equivalent of an hour-long pap. That part was finally and thankfully over and I had to lay back and contemplate how much worse things could possibly get, while the doctor and her assistant discussed me outside of the room.

    It did get worse. She wanted a biopsy. To do this, apparently, she was going to jam some sort of thing up into my cervix, only…it wouldn't go. She would make a valiant effort with plenty of force, I would yell HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD (which, granted, is strange coming from a Pagan), she would apologize, and then she would do it again. She finally got her biopsy, but not without telling me how something was blocking my cervix and that she should've been able to just slide that car antenna

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