This is a new blog series about a chapter of my life that I’m on the other side of. If you missed the introduction post, start here.
I thought I was dying for months.
I was stuck in a cycle of fear where days felt like years.
I felt like a tree uprooted and replanted in an unfamiliar climate, as if my leaves had withered away and I had no roots to anchor me to the ground.
After a year of big life changes, my body was screaming for equilibrium, whatever that meant (and had I ever really experienced that?).
I felt like my body was telling me to rest, like really, truly, figure out what it meant to rest.
But I was a stranger to rest, having lived in ‘on-mode’ for so long. Even when it felt like I was doing nothing, I was in my head. There was no off switch for my brain.
So instead of resting, I imploded.
I began fearing the most mundane things. I experienced fear from the moment I woke up to the moment I laid my head down to sleep. Every minor symptom, every sleepless night, and every unexpected pain became a terrifying confirmation that something was wrong with and within me.
The dread felt sudden and all-consuming, but it had been slowly growing after a routine procedure where the first seed of fear was planted.
The fear begins
The fear started with a diagnosis that I never could have anticipated.
After my sister made an off-handed comment about getting a pap smear, I figured I should schedule one for myself. I’d had a year of intense change, and prioritizing my health seemed like a solid move.
I expected the appointment to go as any pap smear would, with the usual discomfort and feelings of being overly exposed. At the doctor’s office, I stepped on the scale for the first time in a year and realized I’d unintentionally lost a significant amount of weight. I felt my stomach drop.
Once in the exam room, my mind started oscillating between concerns of my weight unexpectedly dropping and wondering if the doctor was going to find the underwear I’d discreetly hidden under my neatly folded clothes on the chair.
Then I found myself wondering why I was concerned about her seeing my underwear since my private area was about to be displayed inches from her face.
I sat nervously on the exam chair, my palms sweating, when the doctor entered the room and said, “You look so excited to be here.”
After some routine questions and a lot of uncomfortable poking, I left the appointment feeling glad it was over and ready to go home and ruminate about my weight.
I tried to forget about the experience until a few days later, when I woke up to a notification on my phone. The test results were in.
I opened the message and prepared to text my sister about my normal results.
The HPV diagnosis
My heart sank when I read the word ABNORMAL.
My eyes flickered back and forth between the words HPV…high risk…abnormal. There had to be a mistake.
How could this be happening? Where did this come from? How long had this been there? Was my last partner faithful? Where had I gone wrong?
The worst part was that there were abnormal cells on my cervix. The doctor’s note said I’d need a colposcopy to determine if I had cervical cancer.
My mind latched onto the word cancer. A wave of nausea came over me.
My fingers typed frantically as I scoured Reddit threads trying to understand what HPV was, how bad it could be, and how likely it was to turn into cancer.
I learned about how common an HPV diagnosis is, despite never hearing anyone in my personal life talk about it. I read story after story of cervical biopsies in an attempt to prepare myself and calm my racing mind. Was it going to feel like just a pinch, or was I going to be doubled over in pain? Everyone online seemed to have had a different experience.
The descent
From then on, my mind was running on overload. My search history was filled with results related to HPV, cervical biopsies, and unexpected weight loss. There was so much conflicting information online, and one rabbit hole led to another.
To make matters worse, I’d felt a pop on the right side of my pelvis while exercising a few days after the pap smear. It wasn’t agonizing, but it freaked me out enough for me to stop the workout early.
The next day, it felt like someone was digging their thumb into the crease where my thigh meets my pelvis. I felt defeated that another source of pain had joined the chronic back pain I’d been dealing with for three years. How was I going to handle this on top of the fact that it already hurt to sit or bend over?
I began to dread getting up in the morning.
Despite all of the work I’d done on my mindset (and blogging about the topic for over a decade), every attempt to focus on the positive proved futile. I told myself I’d be fine, cancer or not, but the words felt hollow. Every hopeful thought kept rerouting to the worst-case scenario.
Little did I know, this was only the beginning of the descent into a fear spiral that would last for months.
Disclaimer: This post documents my personal journey with HPV and health anxiety and should not be taken as medical advice.