It's Not Denial. Really.

Erika, I thought your question deserved a new entry.

Your question, or rather comment was that the cancer doesn't seem to bother me. The answer is, you're right. I'll get to why in a second.

SebMarley...here's the answer to yours. When they do the first pap in your pregnancy, they scrape your cervix to check for abnormal cells. With my other two boys pregnancies, I had abnormal cells with them too. They called it severe dysplasia, which is the last stage before it actually turns into cancer. They biopsied the hell out of the cervix in my previous pregnancies. Anyways, apparently, with all the other problems I have with having children, my body also produces chemicals that turn my cervix into a playground for cancerous cells during pregnancy. At the first pap in my last pregnancy, Dr. V. discovered 2 tumors which came back from the lab as being cancer.

As far as symptoms go, I don't really know. I mean, I was puking my guts out on a constant, continuous basis, I was tired, I was moody, and I was crampy. But...those are all symptoms of pregnancy itself. So, if there were any other symptoms, I either a) didn't realize it, or b) thought it was just another side effect of manufacturing a human within your body.

I don't know about whether it's linked to the ovarian cyst problems or not. Though, I should note that my mom had what you have too. She ended up doing a hysterectomy too. I can't really remember what all problems she had with it, but I do know that irregular cycle was one of them. I remember her bitching a lot about the cramps. Apparently, when those little cysts burst, it can cause some hella pain.

As for why all of this doesn't really bother me...I'll tell you it did. I came home from those Dr. appts bawling my little head off. I thought it was the end of the world. I mean, I have problems enough with delivering children (I have a bi-cornuate uterus, which is heart shaped and only provides about half of the space of a normal uterus in which to grow babies), I figured that it was a pretty cruel deal to inflict yet another degree of difficulty to my last pregnancy. BUT...

It's going away. I won't have to worry about it anymore. I will go through the initial pain of surgery in December, and then, I will never, ever have to deal with it again. Since I know it's going away, I figure that the energy that I could use to get all freaked out by that would be better served in my work.

So, most of the time, I don't even think about it.

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