I tried to advocate for myself….
I just left my gyno appointment, and I just kind of feel more confused . I’m 30 years old. My last pap was in 2024, my results came back normal but they did say that I tested positive for HPV. The test said it didn’t test for specific strains, but I never got any calls from that doctors office about any abnormalities.
Fast forward 2 years and I was bleeding for 4 months straight, and it was pretty heavy. This has never happened to me before. From dec-may I was bleeding non stop. When I researched online, a LOT of people were saying those were early symptoms of cervical cancer and that it’s best to get tested. So I scheduled an appointment the first week of march and they couldn’t see me until today, almost mid May. When I saw the nurse I told her my concern and she was like “oh, so this isn’t a pap appt then, it’s just a gyno appt” I was like ok cool. She was super sweet.
When the doctor comes in I tell her about the months of bleeding and a dull consistent pain I feel in my lower back that I think is coming from my ovaries. She says okay we will schedule you an appt for an ultra sound and to test your hormones. That’s when I said I would also like to be tested for cervical cancer, just in case. I don’t know how to describe it, but the energy shifted and she seemed a tad bit annoyed like it was unnecessary. Then she was like “ok fine, then we WILL be doing a pap smear today to check for that”, and i’m sitting butt ass naked from the waist down on a chair feeling like a nuisance. Trust me lady, I don’t want to be naked and spread eagle in stirrups just as much as you probably don’t want to be looking down the barrel of my coochie. Her energy shifted to “we don’t really need to be doing this”. But like i’m genuinely concerned about my health and I want to rule out cancer.
my period is ending, this is the last day, and she also didn’t seem to be happy that I was bleeding when she did the check. She said that’s probably going to mess up the pap results. 1) I can’t control that 2) it took me almost two months just to get in and see you, I wish I wasn’t bleeding, but I can’t reschedule and wait 2 more months?
So they set me up for an ultrasound and hormone testing in a few weeks. Which is very expensive as i’m paying cash for all of this.
I don’t go to the doctors that often, I truly dont, this is the first time in my adult life I think I’ve gone to the doctor for a concern about my body acting weird. So I was a little thrown off about it. Was long heavy bleeding a symptom for anybody with cervical cancer? and is it normal to feel like you’re annoying the doctor?