About a month ago I was officially diagnosed with HPV, or Human Papillomavirus. (This is a fact that all of maybe five people knew about, and now anyone who reads my blog will know too.) I guess part of me just wanted to finally share this because of all the unease I've been having about it lately. Something like 1 out of every 2 sexually active females have it. And for most it will clear up on it's own. And then there's me. Not only do I have HPV, but I have a high-risk strand, which means my risk for cervical cancer is greatly increased. I told myself that I wouldn't write about my sex life on my blog anymore, but this has crossed far over just that portion of my life. When I went to my gynecologist in the middle of May, I was given my test results from the biopsies taken during my previous visit. The high-risk strand was confirmed, nothing new. However I received some other news, I had an infection in my cervix. The thing about HPV is that it creates abnormal cell growth and it's the cell growth that eventually leads to cancer if allowed to continue to grow.
I was given 3 options for treatment:
1. Do nothing and wait. Come back in 3 months for another pap smear and see if there are any changes. Positive or negative.
2. Have the abnormal cell growths frozen off and removed. However, this might not get the infection in my cervix.
3. Have a procedure called LEEP done, which involves a laser and unfortunately due to my age it can impact my ability to carry a baby to term or even conceive when I'm older.
Given those options what was I to do, but take option one. This choice could impact my life for negative, so why not air on the side of caution. It's been maybe 3 weeks since I made that decision. My partner at the time was relieved to hear that I was okay and was okay with everything as long as I was happy with the choice I made. I was and still am, however, I guess now more then before I've started to realize how I've slightly changed since learning that I had this. I strongly know now that I do want to carry my own child, and the thought that I may not be able to have a say in that due to this is a little saddening. However, it's still very early and things can change for the positive, but I also have to acknowledge that things can still change for the worse. Besides having the idea that my choice to carry my own child could be ripped out of my hands at any time, I've also come to realize that since I was told I have this at the beginning of May that sex just hasn't been the same. I've had two sexual encounters since learning of my diagnosis and I faked (for the most part) enjoyment because I was so worried that part of me was broken. Even now I haven't wanted to have sex in weeks. I know part of that is due to my falling out with my partner, but a large part of that is because I feel like how could anyone want to be with me? I am broken in a sense. What man wants to marry a woman who can't keep his family name alive? Or what's sexy about the girl at the bar with no desire to have sex? It's fucked up, but I always turn to my partner in my head for help, but he's gone. He has a new object of affection, so why would he want to deal with his old, broken one? And maybe that's one of the things that scares me so much is no matter how much he said, "This isn't going to make me run away. I'm not gonna run away from you because of this." On some level in my mind it still feels like that's why he left. Why should he have to deal with my issues, not like they affect him. And here I am sitting in my room, writing this blog and crying because even now I can't work up the courage to just talk to him. Even though I'm upset and we said we'd always be there for each other no matter what, I'd rather write this blog for the entire world to see. To share my story, and maybe, just maybe some other girl out there with a similar story to me will know that she's not alone...
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