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hysteroscopy photos, San Francisco Women's Healthcare, Inc.

So I called the doctor again and left a plaintive message with the assistant, saying I didn't know if I had cancer and would like to know before the weekend. The doctor called back and said the pathologist was gone on Thursday and so that's why she didn't call me. She found evidence of a uterine polyp that she wants to remove and she found cells in the cervix that were dysplasic. Dysplasia is pre-cancerous, but there are several steps, she said, between dysplasia and cancer. (See http://www.womenshealthchannel.com/cervicaldysplasia/index.shtml) There were just two minute clusters of abnormal cells, she said. The thing to do about dysplasia, she said, is to keep monitoring the cells.

Thus, she will do a Pap smear soon to check out the cervical cells. Then she will go on a mission to find the rest of the polyp, via uterine hysteroscopy . That takes place in the hospital, under sedation, but I will be awake and can watch the procedure on a screen, which is very interesting she said.

Which makes me think we should re-examine the term "navel gazer." I suppose that's as far inward as men could imagine looking at themselves.

(And so it has come to this, toward the end of the first decade of the 21st century, where we write about our dysplasia for all the world to see.)


severe dysplasia, not mine