Long rambling post; I type to work out my thoughts.
Yesterday I found out that my PAPS came back abnormal and my gyno told me that it is cervical dysplasia from HPV. Today I went in to see what stage I have, either mild, moderate or severe. The procedure wasn't awful or anything but I have to wait seven days to find out for sure. My gyno feels that it is probably mild, although she couldn't say for sure because she had difficulty viewing the abnormal cells within my cervix because my opening is very small-sorry, that is a little graphic-maybe TMI? She had a difficult time just getting the abnormal tissue samples she needed to send to the lab.
Now I am halfway between numb and freaked out, and pretty sure in the beginning of a mild mania stage. I just got a dx of BPII about 16 days ago after 20 years of being dx as unipolar atypical depression. It's been a lot to take in, a change in meds, and some very, very dark days. I do not have a good support system IRL mostly because I have major trust issues and am mostly unable to talk about myself. I managed to tell one friend today about the dysplasia and the history of depression and he was so supportive (thank God!). Unfortunately he's in the military and is away for the next three weeks doing some training. He did tell me when the results come back if I need additional treatment and he is back in town he wants to take me and will even take a couple days off to take care of me if I need recovery time. I am so grateful to have a friend who would do this for me, but I cannot stop crying. Realistically I recognize that it will probably be mild and I will just have to have PAPS every six months, but emotionally I can't stop thinking the absolute worst. Somehow I have to go to my very professional job tomorrow and act my way through another day. Crap! How sucky is that?
Hate to use it as an excuse, but my illness has resulted in some high-risk behavior in the past. I've 'mostly' gotten past those behaviors, but now I am feeling like I am going to be paying for the mistakes I made 10-15-20 years ago for the rest of my life. HPV? I realize that this often doesn't have symptoms if you do not have the accompaning genital warts, which I don't, and it is a lot more common than I ever dreamed, but I cannot believe that I have this, and could possibly be responsible for giving it to someone else. I just read an article (okay, too much research, must stop googling!) that said that condoms do not always prevent spreading HPV because you can also but rarely get it from oral sex and hand to genital contact. Holy cow! Where was this information 10 years ago. My gyno said I've probably had it for years and years and it has been dormant in my system until this abnormal PAPS. Seven days is a long time to wait to find out what stage I have, and to figure out what the next step is . If you made it through this long and rambling post, thanks for listening. I feel better already. Get your annual PAPS, everyone! Otherwise you may never know you have something like this. (okay, stepping off soapbox now).