Stage 0

I can remember when she told me. The sweet nursing student sat across from me closely and said the words 'the test showed abnormal cells..'.  I heard nothing else as I wrestled my lively little three months old to keep her in my arms and away from the plastic models of IUDs and vaginas. Abnormal. The words rang in my ears and worked down every nerve like a wave hitting my body as I stood in the sand seeing a storm approach on the horizon. "So I have cancer?" She said no, but my head couldn't ignore what I know about how cancer starts. "It's not technically cancer." But there are little demon cells that are lying in masses trying desperately to convert as many as they can to their occult until my T cells come to kill them off for good.
The next step was to come back and have them put liquid nitrogen on the parts of my cervix that looked like elephant man. It melts off the bad cells so the happy cells can come and be a cervix again. Then I waited. January came and went and I missed the assigned time I was going to go back and have another pap done. No biggie, since the cryo froze off all the bad cells, right? After going back again in February I have been trying not to hold my breath, but I have been hoping against hope that it went perfectly. How then when we are just doing our routine nursing school stuff does my abdomen have searing pain when pressed down for my lab partner to do something pretty routine? Past few days I have spent playing phone tag with my OBGyn and I finally heard back. The results: Abnormal.
I hope I am worrying for nothing.
I hope that I don't need to make sure my sister can take over legal guardianship of babe.
I hope that I don't need life insurance.
I hope I can be there to see her first day of kindergarten or her first steps.
But I don't KNOW.  And waiting to see what we are going to do about the fifth abnormal pap smear in a row is a very scary place to be.

Driving home I thought of that Tim McGraw song and the bull named Fu Man Chu. I thought of the debates I had with the awful boyfriend I had that told me I didn't appreciate the song, because I didn't know the bull's name. I thought of the loveless sex that got me in this situation. And I thought about my ignorance about HPV. I thought about a graphic that I had seen once that labelled HPV as the cause of cancer, when for a long time I thought I just had this symptom-less problem that would phase itself out. I thought about trying to live like I was dying. If I am dying what should I take care of and how should I spend my time? I thought about my sick baby and how awful it would be if I couldn't be the one to comfort her any more.

Today was a beautiful day. I just need to live every day like it matters, maybe not like I'm dying, just as a good mother, daughter, friend, sister. Encouraging, productive, respectful and loving. That's what I want. I don't know what May holds, but maybe when I go to my next pap smear I can face it bravely knowing that's the person I am comfortable someone else tells anyone I was/am. If there is an if.

*This image does not belong to me. I found it on: http://www.divynenhealthy.com/information-human-papillomavirus/