What I Wish Someone Told Me When I Had My First Abnormal Pap
The mantra I didn’t know I needed.
The day I got my first abnormal Pap results is in the top 10 worst days of my life. I was at work sitting at my desk at work when I got a call from an unknown number. I answered and was told I had atypical squamous cells and was positive for HPV.
I knew zero about what this meant, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I immediately walked back to my desk, told my boss I was leaving, drove home, and cried. I called my mom after some google searches proclaiming, “I think I have cancer”.
Growing up female, we all learn the dreaded pap smears will come. They are scary at first but become routine. What we don’t do though is educate young females what it will be like if they are abnormal.
Because here is a scary statistic according to Dr Hugh DePaulo, “as many as one in 10 pap smears come back abnormal nationwide”.
I repeat — one in ten.
That is a lot of abnormal pap smears daily in a population of over 328 million people. This also means there is a lot of fear if we don’t start talking about what an abnormal pap is and what it means and does not mean about you.
