Posts Tagged ‘cervical cancer’
I’ve gone for my (first jab of the) cervical cancer vaccination. Have you?
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010I hate to admit this but one of my biggest fear is needles.
I really absolutely hate needles and I freak out like mad when it comes to injections/drawing blood/drips and what nots.
Needless to say, you’ll never see me going for a tattoo. NEVER!
So when I called my girlfriends down to go for the vaccination at Karri Family Clinic (run by the very charismatic Ieatishootipost), I was having butterflies in my stomach, anxiety attacks and basically freaking out like mad.
I refused to be the first well because… I was damn scared lah. Barffie gamely went first. Painless she said.
The rest then persuaded me to go next as they said going last would be really painful (to wait) for me.
Looking really apprehensive. And yes, I have a stuffed hippo in my hands to squeeze.
He is so evurl! He knew I had a fear of needles and he stuck two of them right infront of me and asked me to choose!
See! Evurl!
It wasn’t that painful after all. To be honest, it was over in a heartbeat. But…. I’m going for my 2nd jab this Saturday and i think I’ll probably freak out again. I HATE NEEDLES!
Joelle can even tweese while having her jab done. Power lah she!
Cheyenne looking way too happy about an injection. I feel like a pathetic dork now.
No pain for hot mama Ting.
Go on for your vaccination. Who knows Doctor Leslie may even give you a souvenir or two?
Barffie scores a balloon dog!
And I got a phallic looking injection needle. LOL
We’ve all went for our vaccination. Have you? If miss afraid of needles here can go for it, I don’t see why you can’t! Do go for it!
As I said during my speech at the POCC party: The main cause of death by cervical cancer is not the HPV virus. It is actually ignorance.
Don’t be ignorant no more.
Now lie back and open wide.
Friday, July 9th, 2010As mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to sign up for a pap smear and my HPV vaccine and I did!
Here’s my account of the pap smear that I did.
I have never had a regular gynae before or even seen a gynae before so this experience was a bit of an eye-opener for me.
I went to a family clinic which was near my driving centre. (been walking past it so much that the clinic was the first I remembered after deciding to go for a pap smear.)
When I first found out that the doctor was a male, I was a bit concerned. Afterall in my opinion, if there is going to be a doc poking around my bits, shouldn’t it be a female?
I however did not want to search for any other clinics and quickly asked my girlfriends about their thoughts on a male doc and almost all came back positive! That made me feel better and I decided to go through it.
Basically I was asked to lie down on the table and to remove my underwear. A female nurse was there with me throughout. I was asked to lie back and be in the “giving birth” position and well… basically open wide. The doctor was very professional and “matter of fact” like which made it really less embarrassing.
A speculum after being applied with liberal amounts of KY Jelly (to ease insertion) was inserted into me. Truth to be told, it was a bit painful for me. I guess I was pretty tensed up. The nurse kept asking me to breathe in and to relax. There was a slight discomfort but the speculum had to be inserted deep to allow the doctor to obtain samples from the cervix.
After the speculum is inserted properly, a spatula (which reminds me of a plastic ice cream stick) and a brush (which reminded me of a mascara brush) was used to obtain samples. Gathering of samples did not hurt at all in this case. After everything was done, I noticed that there was blood on the brush. Weirdly there wasn’t any pain.
I did have a bit of light spotting after the whole pap smear but there was no discomfort after that. In fact, the whole pap smear happened so fast and the slight pain was really nothing at all.
The pap smear plus consultation costs about $40ish for me and I think it’s money well spent. All you need to do is go for a pap smear once every three years. If you ask me if I would do it again, I would. Why not?
If you can’t prevent (by going for a HPV vaccination), at least be aware. Going for regular pap smears can help reduce your risk of developing cervical cancer.
Do it! I’ll be going for my HPV Vaccination soon. (despite being super duper afraid of injections).
Feel free to ask questions here! Or share stories about your pap smears or hpv vaccinations. I would love to hear more from you guys!
Women! Let’s protect ourselves!
Monday, June 7th, 2010Recently I attended a POCC blogger event. What is POCC?
POCC stands for Power Over Cervical Cancer. Do any of you girls know anything about cervical cancer? According to Wikipedia, Cervical cancer is malignant neoplasm of the cervix uteri or cervical area. It may present with vaginal bleeding but symptoms may be absent until the cancer is in its advanced stages. Treatment consists of surgery (including local excision) in early stages and chemotherapy and radiotherapy in advanced stages of the disease. Did you know that cervical cancer is the second most common cancer affecting women? Did you also know that a woman dies from cervical cancer every 2 minutes?
Did you know that cervical cancer is the most preventable and only preventable women’s cancer?
I learnt all these during the blogger engagement event.
Here’s what you can do to reduce your risk of being infected.
1) A pap smear.
A pap smear can help detect any abnormality. This is really important as detection in the early stages can help prevent cancer.
2) A HPV vaccination
A HPV vaccination helps stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies that protect against HPV types which causes cancer.
Help protect someone you care for. Spread the word. Let’s work together to protect our loved ones.
Some other bloggers and I have volunteered to be a POCC Ambassador as we would want to share and spread this information to all women. Let’s voice out and make a difference.
I will sign up for my pap smear and HPV vaccination soon. Will you?
