EPITHELIAL CELL ABNORMALITY, SQUAMOUS.
High grade squamous intraepithelial lesion.
Uhhh, ok doctor. Thanks for releasing my pap smear results to me, but what the hell does that mean?
More tests.
Ok. Cool. I can handle more tests. People get abnormal pap smear results all the time. (I'm a little worried at this point, but not too much.)
Schedule the follow-up tests for the next week. Doctor says it should be no big deal, 5 minute procedure, maybe a biopsy, and then I'm back to normal life.
20 minutes later my legs are still spread wide open, she's taken 4 samples from my cervix and 2 from my vaginal canal wall. I don't think this is "normal" anymore.
Test results come back stupidly fast when cancer is involved, as it turns out.
A: Cervix, 12 o'clock, biopsy:
High-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2) involving
transformation zone mucosa.
No invasive carcinoma identified.
B: Cervix, 6 o'clock, biopsy:
High-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2-3) involving
transformation zone mucosa.
No invasive carcinoma identified.
C: Cervix, 9 o'clock, biopsy:
High-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2-3) involving
transformation zone mucosa.
No invasive carcinoma identified.
D: Endocervix, curettage:
Rare fragments of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2-3).
Endocervical tissue with reactive changes.
As it was explained to me CIN 2-3 is still considered pre-cancerous by most doctors, although some of the spots could be Stage 0 cancer. The plan at this point is to do a LEEP procedure, where the problematic parts of my cervix are removed using a super-hot electrical wire. Sounds fun, right?
I'm still kind of in a stage of shock. I'm glad they caught it early. But also mad, angry, confused. Everything you read about Cervical Cancer tells you that it's caused by HPV. Never until this year have I ever tested positive for HPV. So not only did I contract it, but I also got one of the strains that causes cervical cancer. Cool.
So, for now, I wait.