My name was called, I strolled into consultation room 1 and
was greeted by what turned out to be a very talkative doctor. I’d spent most of
the week obsessing, nervous and planning a list of questions to figure out what
was going on. I didn’t get a chance to ask anything as the doctor dived
headfirst into an in-depth look at cervical cancer.
Apparently, having a ‘colpos’ or colposcopy is used more
commonly for those who are at risk of cervical cancer. I’d describe it as
vagina-scope because I’m not the one with the doctor learning. They look at
your insides to check the area, see what’s going on and all that good stuff. As
I mentioned earlier, my pap smear results had not yet come back so I had no
idea if I was at risk. All I knew was that my cervix had a little friend that
needed seeing to.
So, back I was on the table. Only this time it wasn’t just a
table and it wasn’t just any old hospital type bed. There were little gliding
footpads on the end of the bed. Between the doctor and nurse, we had a quick
chat about my tattoos. He asked me about my job and we talked about that as O
shuffled myself down the bed to set myself up and brace for the speculum.
But this time it wasn’t put in any old how – the doctor
encouraged breathing, relaxing and pacing everything so by the time it was in
there was no pain. I kept counting my breathing out of fear of any resurgence
in pain but I probably didn’t have anything to worry about.
Throughout the exam, we talked about my work.
“So, what do you do?”
“I work for a women’s media NGO. So, I… um. I write a lot.
Mostly about women.”
“Why?”
We discuss gender imbalances in the media in Fiji and
globally.
“So you should write about this, then.”
“Mhm.”
“People don’t get their pap smears done. When they do, they
don’t come back for their results. It’s important.”
“Yeah. I’ll try.”
We also talked about how small my friend living in my cervix
was – apparently only 1mm tall. The doctor looked around, asked me if I wanted
it out.
I said yes.
“You sure?”
“Um. Yes? You’re the doctor – should it come out?”
“I’ll take it out.”
“Okay.”
Out it came, I was plugged up and it was done. The little
polyp apparently looked benign, my insides were a-okay and I left ready to put
everything behind me.
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