Cervical Smears

Now you may be wondering why I am writing about cervical smears on an ostomy related blog but you might be surprised to hear that ostomies more often than the others; urostomies can be formed due to radiation damage from having cancer treatment. For instance cervical cancer can be treated by both external and internal radiation in the pelvic area.

Last year I had a long over due smear test and they found high grade pre cancerous cells which if were left over time (up to 15 years) could have turned into cervical cancer which is a terrifying thought. It was pretty hard on my dad as he lost his sister when she was 17 to cancer and his dad to pancreatic cancer, he thought I also had cancer and he was looking up survival rates. This was heartbreaking to think he thought he had a chance of losing me too especially after giving both my parents lots of scares from being really poorly with ulcerative colitis. Around this time last year I had laser treatment to remove the cells and was due to go back in 6 months well that 6 months turned into nearly a year and I finally pulled my finger out and had it done. Thankfully they had removed all of the cells and I am now back to 3 yearly smears.

Most women obviously don’t like the idea of having a smear test because they think it will be embarrassing. It is over in short  amount of time and is usually preformed by a female who will know exactly how you are feeling since they should have also experienced it.  If you haven’t had a smear test then I will give you a quick overview of what it entails:

1. you will be asked to undress from the waist down
2. you will lay on the bed and place a bit of tissue over your front
3. you put your legs together, then open your legs and lay them down keeping the soles of your feet together
4. the nurse will insert the speculum covered in a lubricant into your vagina
5. then they will take a swab of your cervix
6. then the speculum will be removed
7. you get dressed

That is it! It really doesn’t take long and could detect any abnormal cells which can then be treated before they turned into something nasty.