diagnosis: a retrospective

It's been a little over a year since I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and I'm reflecting for a few reasons. Obviously, the timing. But then there's my darling friend who is now stage 4, still fighting strong. I've had the pleasure to connect with a young woman just beginning her journey. A lovely friend passed away from this God awful disease a few weeks ago. It's all made me think.

At the beginning of April 2014, I had a routine Pap smear. I was long overdue. I'm not sure what I hate more, the gynecologist or the dentist. Either way, I wasn't keen on going. But I had been having strange symptoms (TMI alert): irregular bleeding, heavy periods, increased and foul smelling discharge. Since I didn't know anything about cervical cancer or it's symptoms, I chalked it all up to normal.

I saw a million doctors. I even had two colonoscopies and an endoscopy. And everything came back normal. So I went for the dreaded Pap smear as a last result.

The Pap went fine, or at least as fine as those things go. My gynecologist didn't say anything of any significance, and I went on my merry way.

The following week, I started getting calls from her office. No messages were left, so I assumed it was just the typical follow up call to say all was well. I finally answered the third call, and it was my gynecologist herself. She said to me "You have adenocarcinoma. Cervical cancer. You need to see an oncologist immediately."

I went into shock. There was no way. She told me to come by her office to pick up the lab paperwork so I could take it to the oncologist. I drove there in a daze. I looked over the paperwork, and there it was: adenocarcinoma in situ.

I was terrified. I had no idea what this meant for me. How sick was I? What kind of treatment would I need? And (yes, vain, I know), would I lose all my hair?

Finding a gyn-oncologist was difficult, but I found a fantastic one. His name is Jeffrey Lin, and he works at Sibley Memorial Hospital (a Johns Hopkins hospital) in DC. When he examined me, he said that I was either pre-cancerous, or stage 1a1. The next step was to do a cone biopsy. This would involve removing a portion of my cervix to determine how deep the cancer was. If they got clean margins (basically removing all the cancer), I would need no further treatment. But if there weren't clean margins, I would need additional treatment.

The margins were not clear. I was restaged as 1b1 - still extremely low. My options were radiation or a radical hysterectomy. I chose the hysterectomy, as I have 3 amazing boys, and no plans to have any other children. He also advised that radiation could result in a "short, stiff vagina," which didn't sound like fun at all. So we scheduled the surgery. I had to wait for the biopsy to heal first, so my appointment for my hysterectomy was scheduled for 6/16/2014. Would I need additional treatment after that? We wouldn't know until the surgeries and biopsies that would come along with it.

Cancer is a waiting game. You take one step to determine what the next step will be. You don't know how bad things really are until you take that step. And that is TERRIFYING. But the antidote to the terror is hope and faith. I sought out other women who had been where I was, or were going through it themselves. I found support, love, advice, laughter, and tears.

I educated myself as best I could about what to expect. Then I settled in to wait.