It actually wasn’t that bad. I was so nervous I think I was kinda shaky in the stirrups. The doctor was great. He came in the room like a big ball of sunshine and explained right away that this is preventative care (like I’d been telling myself), that “we’re not looking for cancer, we’re trying to figure out how to keep this woman from getting cancer in the distant future.” He viewed my innards with his microscope and said, “I can already see right now that this is not anything remotely serious.” Whew! His nurse and I chatted away while the doctor was examining, and it was more nervous chatter on my end and I explained that my brain does this self-sabotaging thing imagining something as way more horrid than it actually is. The doctor said that’s absolutely common and normal and asked if I’d like an anesthetic spray on the spot he’s going to biopsy. Despite the fact that I’d swallowed 3 extra-strength Tylenols half an hour before the procedure (I was advised to by the nurse on the phone) when I normally would have to be writhing and foaming at the mouth on the floor from pain for me to take any over-the-counter medication, I agreed to the spray. “It’s the same stuff the dentist puts on your gums before he gives you the shot,” the doctor said as he sprayed, and told me to expect a little fizzle and maybe a little stinging sensation. I felt nothing. We chatted as he gave the stuff a minute to work, and then went in for the biopsy. “You’re going to feel a little pinch at the most,” he said. I cringed. “Here comes the pinch,” he warned as I felt a little “clip” motion and heard the click. No pinch. He looked up at me. “Or not,” he said. “Here comes another one.” CLICK!
“Nothing!” I said in delight.
I told the doctor and the nurse about Flat Coke’s recent colposcopy where the inept nurse stupidly put both her biopsies in the same cup, making Flat Coke fear she’d have to re-suffer another biopsy to make up for the nurse’s idiocy. My doctor’s nurse lifted up two little purple-lidded containers and I got to see little pink flaps dance in the swirling liquid. “Two cups,” she told me and we laughed.
The doctor stayed behind and answered my questions, and then told me that he doesn’t think I have anything to worry about. He said he’d get the lab results to me in about a week and he’ll tell me one of three things: 1) it’s nothing and should clear itself up, we’ll just schedule for a regular pap smear in 6 months; 2) it’s something non-cancerous but we’ll just keep an eye on it to make sure it clears up, so come back for a pap smear in 6 months; or on the very unlikely small off-chance, 3) it’s pre-cancerous and we want to remove it so come back and we’ll do a procedure that’ll be even less painful than the one you just endured today.
Again, whew!
When I got home, I called my mom like she asked and it turned out that while I was at my appointment, she’d already called my (turned-off) cell phone multiple times in a panic and called my house and was disturbed at the lack of answer, and was about to email me at work, wanting to know how the procedure went.
Oh, and I never really got cramping from it. Just some bleeding (which the doctor told me to expect for 2-3 days, which is incidentally the same amount of time he told me to refrain from sex). I even hit the gym with Mr. W after the procedure.