It's something that none of us like doing - after all what's to like about having your feet in stirrups while someone sticks a cold instrument up your gooter? But we have to get it done. So I asked Doireann from VivaSlut to give us a little snapshot of her latest experience.
Let’s talk lady parts.
A short while ago I allowed a woman I don’t know to insert a clear plastic phallus into my vagina and swab my cervix with what looked to me like a mascara wand. (TMI?) Yes friends, I had a cervical smear test, or pap smear, if you are American.
I may as well be honest, it was SO uncomfortable, but only for about 30 seconds. A nurse at my GPs office did it, and for some reason I trusted her less than I would have a doctor. (Also when I arrived she was taking out the bins, so when she asked if I had any questions I wanted to say “Are you SURE you’re a real nurse?”)
So what were the results? Abnormal!
I then got a letter inviting me to the Rotunda hospital for a colposcopy. Now I for one amn’t mad on the suffix ‘oscopy’. It makes me skittish to be perfectly frank. A colposcopy is a ten minute test involving dye being painted onto your cervix and a very VERY close look being taken by a doctor using a vagina periscope... or maybe some kind of camera, either way: DYE, DYE on my cervix!
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My appointment was at 8.30am, and I went in SO apprehensive (not to mention pure knackered from a night of very interesting cervix-related nightmares.) All the staff were SO lovely, it almost made up for their use of an elevating chair with stirrups. AND I got to see my own cervix, displayed on a flatscreen TV and magnified to the size of a medium Dominos pizza! Win!
A nurse prepared the (aHEM) area, then a doctor took a biopsy (which was a lot less painful than I had anticipated) and I was back in my knickers before I knew what hit me.
Basically the whole procedure was super fast and really well handled.
I know a lot of women who put off having a smear test, and I’ll offer those ladies the same advice my mam offered me:
'Just do it for God’s sake and get it over and done with and hoover your room it’s a disgrace’.
Wise words!
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How have you found getting a smear test done? Do you put it off for as long as possible? Tell the truth and shame the divil!
