Sinful Sunday: Hair

I like my hair. It's definitely my favourite feature. It does an interesting thing where it goes wavy if I leave it to dry naturally, but if I blow dry it, it goes straight easily. I like both looks. 

But the way I really REALLY like my hair is the way it looks after sex. After I've been on my back, with it being mushed against the bed, or when it's been pulled, hard, whilst being fucked from behind, or when cum's been sprayed into it, congealing and sticking it together in a gluey matted mess. 

Yup, that's how I think it looks best....

This is my first ever Sinful Sunday post, hope you enjoy!

A trip to the colposcopist: Part One "Crossing The Line"

I wrote the below a week ago when it all happened. I've ummed and ahhhhed about publishing this but I've decided to go with it, both on this blog and on Twitter because, well, I get a lot out of just raging/moaning into the void. I've been in a complete funk the last two days and maybe getting things out and off my chest will help. 

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You hear a lot from health care professionals when they "cross the line," when they go from being a doctor, being a nurse into being a patient. It's generally pretty uncomfortable and most describe it as being fairly unpleasant. 


I've just had my own experience. 


Just after Christmas I had some lumps on my genitals looked at, and they were diagnosed as genital warts. Grim. I had them frozen off there and then and they shrank away pretty much immediately. The nurse also performed an internal vaginal exam with a speculum and told me that I also had what looked like a wart on my cervix (the top of the vagina that holds the entrance to the womb), and that she couldn't freeze that one and would have to refer me to the colposcopy clinic. She added that quite often by the time you got to the appointment they would disappear by themselves. 


Colposcopy, for the uninitiated, is a test where you lie on your back with your legs apart, feet in stirrups, a speculum inserted and then the nurse/Dr looks through magnifying glasses at your cervix with a big light to get a better view (it actually being quite dark up there!) 


So about a month later I go to my colposcopy appointment expecting it to be fairly routine and they would freeze the wart off and that would be that. So there I am, legs akimbo, staring up at the ceiling whilst in goes the speculum, in goes the acid stain etc etc 


Nurse says, "I don't think there's a wart there. Would you like to see?" I say yes and they turn the TV screen round so I can see it. There's a (my) cervix, something which I've seen before, having done speculum examinations myself. There's my mirena coil wires. But there's also a white rim around the os (opening to the womb), which I'm pretty sure isn't usual. 


I ask what it is.


"It looks like it could be high grade CIN." (They know I'm a doctor). "I'm going to take some biopsies, ok?"


It didn't quite hit, right then.


She put in some local anaesthetic then took the biopsies. It wasn't until they lowered the table and I was clambouring off the bench that I think I actually took it in.


High grade CIN. High grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. One of those things that I learnt about at medical school in histology. All those stupid pink cells looked at under a microscope. Squamous cells of the uterus transforming into epithelial cells of the vagina. CIN 1, low grade, 1/3 of the cervix affected. CIN 2, middle grade, 2/3 affected. CIN 3, high grade, whole thickness of th cervix affects. Pre-cancerous. Next step: cervical cancer if left untreated. 



I got dressed and came back into the room. Sat down. Tried to form some kind of coherent thought. Fuck. What does this mean? Have I got cancer? Fuck I've got cancer. No, I don't have cancer.  But I could have cancer. CANCER CANCER CANCER CANCER. It filled my mind like a klaxon, flooding out everything else, rendering me incapable of thinking of....well anything. The only thing I could manage to actually ask was - 


"So what happens next?"


"The results will take around four weeks to come back. We don't know for sure what it is until it's been looked at under the microscope. It could be low grade and if it is then we go to watchful waiting. (i.e. more regular smear tests). If it's high grade then I'd offer you a loop excision." (A procedure to completely remove the segment of cervix that has abnormal cells in it. Makes you more likely to miscarry any future pregnancies). 


She didn't mention what would happen if it came back as cancer.  I didn't ask.  


At around this point I couldn't hold it in and started weeping. It was just such a shock. I'd gone in thinking I had a wart! It wasn't even like I'd had an abnormal smear and they wanted to investigate it more and so I'd had some time to mentally prepare, this was from nothing to BOOM -potentially pre cancerous cells. 


"Did anyone come with you today?"

Well no! I'd thought it was just a wart!


"Do you want to talk about it? Take some time out?"
I started to say no, but it came out as a crack and more tears, and the wonderful nurse just said, 

"Yes. You can go into a quiet room and have a cup of tea." 


The lovely HCA (seriously I can't praise those women enough they were just wonderful) took me round and made me a cup of tea and brought me some biscuits and sat and had a chat with me. Whilst she was gone I instantly got my phone out to start googling things - why do we do that? God I did it even as a doctor being fairly well informed on the topic and knowing very well this is an awful thing to do. I cannot imagine how even more shit scared a member of the public must be having received this kind of news. 


So now I wait. Four weeks to get the results. And I absolutely have to put it to the back of my mind until then. Much much harder said than done. It *could* be low grade. But I really suspect not. The whole reason I went to the gum clinic in the first place was because I was having a bit of lower abdominal pain, AND I've had some bleeding twice since December as well. At the time I thought it was my body trying to have a period - I've not really had them since my mirena was out in over two years ago - but both times it only really lasted a day. Maybe it's innocent and I'm catastrophising but... They are symptoms nonetheless.


What's terrifying is - what if I hadn't gone to the gum clinic? My last smear was pretty much a year ago and was normal. If I hadn't gone to the gum clinic I wouldn't have had another smear for 2 more years! The sensible part of my brain is saying "This has been caught early. This is good. You will be ok."
But there is another side of my brain wanting to prepare for the worst. To mentally steel myself for a potential life changing diagnosis. Because if it's not cancer, everything else is better than that. So if I get used to that idea, being told it's just CIN will be a plus! I guess that's kind of perverted but that is the way my brain is working right now.

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Luckily, the day after this I went straight into a weekend of three busy 12 hours shifts where I had no time to think of anything that wasn't immediately work related. This was very helpful in taking my mind off it, and probably the only good thing to be said about a weekend on-call - least it helps you forget about your potential cancer scare!!

A week later, on reflection, and after talking to my mum, some other medical friends, and a few select others, the initial shock and numbness has subsided. Right now, there's nothing I can do. I'm carrying on regardless, like nothing's changed. This is a reminder that I AM MORTAL, as is everyone else. Chances are it'll be fine. I'll be fine. Worse things happen. 

When I get that letter through in 3 weeks time it may be a very different story. But let's leave those feelings and that story for three weeks in the future eh??