The circle of life

I went for a long overdue visit to my GP yesterday. She's awesome, and has been my doctor for 20 years now - ever since I graduated from college. She's seen me through a lot, including both referrals to the fertility clinic, and our pregnancy. She also saw me through a very long bout with dysplasia back in the early '90s. I had the great fortune of being in that .1 percentile for whom the laser treatment does not work. The specialist I was seeing for treatment had the bedside manner of a monkey...no, let me take that back....the monkey on ER last night had better bedside manner than he did. I was terrified, alone and being told casually that I had crossed over from latter end severe to the first stage of cervical cancer by a man who was busy running between the four patient rooms he always kept going. He informed me that his preferred method of treatment in cases like mine was hysterectomy. I refused. I was 27 or 28 years old at the time, had not yet been married, and had high hopes that I would be a mother some day. A hysterectomy was not high on my to-do list at that time.

After three laser treatments and one cone biopsy that didn't work, I finally had a cervix strip which has kept me mostly cell free, except for one teeny scare about six years ago. I have usually been regimental about having pap tests - it's the best form of detection, and given that I was on an increasing schedule for having them for five years, they became standard fare for me at the doctor's office. I'd just drop my drawers out of habit when I would see her ... which was somewhat embarrassing the day we ran into each other the mall....hehe.

I got thinking that it had been a while since I'd had a pap - and sure enough, when I went to see her yesterday, she informed me that it had been two years since my last one. We assumed the position, but holy cow, it was the most painful exam I've ever had! She informed me that my cervix was hiding and hard to get at, and that from what she could see, my uterus looked tipped. What's with that???

We decided to do the whole enchilada while I was there, plus have a chat. I had a breast exam, internal, blood pressure check (which is always totally fine, even with my family history of high bp), bloodwork for cholesterol (uh oh), liver, thyroid, diabetes....you get the picture.

In short, I had an old lady check up yesterday.

Followed by a whole conversation about when we might want to start having a conversation about when HB and I will start working to prevent pregnancy. She had the letter from my June visit to the clinic which basically said there was nothing more that they could do to assist us.

She said that given my health, there's no reason to start thinking about it now. That it's reasonable to keep trying until I'm 45 ... which is just over two more years.

Amazing. I spent my younger years preventing pregnancy ... my middle years attempting to get pregnant ... and apparently I will spend more years preventing pregnancy.