Hi all! 45 and I have found myself here looking for some advice/support after my recent smear. So a bit of background...Like many, I have had periods that never really have been a regular cycle; heavy bleeding, cramps, prolonged bleeding. I have always been anaemic but I went on to have children with no issues during pregnancy, except with the last one in 2019. I was bleeding pretty much through the pregnancy and after scans, was reassured that the bleed was not in my womb and therefore the baby was fine. They called it a haematoma? and no further investigations were done.
In 2020 I was diagnosed with a condition called FND, which has no relevance to this type of cancer. Symptoms can mimic that of brain tumours, such as seizures and headaches and I think that kind of over took everything else as medical professionals tried to get to the bottom of it as there was no clear reason for these episodes I was having. Thankfully I am managing this as well as I can.I mention this because I feel it's relevant to my periods in the sense that I would always have seizures about a week before my actual period. I had spoken to various hospital, gp, a&e staff about this numerous times. I had been in hospital after bleeding for more than 20 days, had a blood test, CA125 test, scans, transvaginal exam, xrays, nothing wrong.
So I carried on as normal until last year. There was a sudden death of someone extremely close to me and as a knock on effect of the grief I wasn't really taking care of myself eating properly etc...I went to my gp and asked if I could increase my dose of 10mg Amitriptyline to 20mg (I take them for migraines). I mentioned that I had lost a lot of weight, no appetite, getting up to pee more than 6 times in the middle of the night and still bleeding heavily. I was given 6 months supply of deogestral, 200mg of daily iron, folic acid 10mg, tranexamic acid to stop bleeding. I started eating properly, hydrating, making an effort to push on but still felt incredibly tired all the time and just put this down to caring for my younger child who is autistic and adhd, on days she can zap the energy!
I went in for a routine smear 2 days ago and mentioned a nabothian cyst had caused pain previously and was wondering if she could check if it had come back, as I had niggling pain in my pelvis on my right side. It had indeed come back but there were 2 this time, nothing to worry about. Then said she can see a white polyp, which in fairness I wasn't too concerned about. Until she tells me that she is referring me to colposcopy using the urgent cancer pathway. I then get a text from ***** Cancer Centre at the hospital. The referral reason says "Has a lesion suspicious of cancer of cervix on examination". I guess I am just hoping for the best but prepared for the worst. I have lost family to cancer and my younger sister had cervical cancer.
To get through the wait and worry, I was hoping to hear from any of you ladies who might have gone through similar good or bad :) X
Hi Hope1980 and welcome to our group.
I can understand it’s an anxious time when something has been seen and you’re referred for more tests. The same happened to me when I first visited my gp.
It can be worrying to see the words suspected cervical cancer, but this will ensure that you are seen quicker. Waits for colposcopy can otherwise be quite long.
It doesn’t mean that you will definitely have cervical cancer, but it’s best to have the colposcopy to see what’s going on. Until then, you’ll have to sit tight, difficult though the waiting is. When you have the colposcopy it’s possible that they will take one or more biopsies so that the tissue can be sent to the lab for analysis. If this happens, there will be a wait for the results.
I had several of these punch biopsies on a suspicious lesion spotted by both the original gp and the gynaecologist doing the colposcopy. Mine was cancer, but there can be other reasons such as benign polyps as you’ve said in your post.
I hope you don’t have too long to wait for the colposcopy, and that you’ll let us know how you get on. The group is always here for support if you do get a cancer diagnosis, so please feel free to ask any questions if you need to.
Sarah xx
One of the things to remember about posting in a cancer forum is that you might get more replies from people who have actually had a cancer diagnosis than those who haven’t.
Those who are undergoing tests which don’t lead to a diagnosis don’t tend to stick around and they move on with their lives.
I have to confess that I never thought initially I might have cervical cancer, so once I had my biopsies done I was waiting for my results without thinking the worst. So I personally didn’t spend my time worrying. Obviously that changed when I was diagnosed, but that was more than 7 years ago now, and despite a recurrence I have been treated again successfully. Now I would always describe myself as a positive realist!
The worst news would be a cancer diagnosis, but treatment can be very successful for our kind of cancer. We have many people in the group who have been treated successfully, either by surgery or a combination of treatments, so it’s not necessarily all doom and gloom.
Sarah xx
