![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaThis is a little more personal than I usually get, but it's important this time:
This morning I'm going in for my pelvic exam. I would like to urge you to do the same or the equivalent with your own bits: get a Pap smear, learn to do breast self-exams or testicular self-exams, keep an eye on yourself in whatever configuration you have. Please. Someone I love has been diagnosed with Stage II cervical cancer this fall, and we don't yet know whether it's spread into another system. She's younger than I am. It's not an age thing. It's about taking care of yourself.
It will not be the most fun I have ever had with my clothes off. But neither is untreated cervical cancer, and neither are the other things that can turn up in a routine exam. Go. Get poked at. Take it like a grown-up or bawl through the whole thing -- I don't care. Bribe yourself with ice cream or a paperback novel or hugs from your grateful loved ones. Just go.
I'm not feeling like talking about this in public right now. E-mail is fine.
This morning I'm going in for my pelvic exam. I would like to urge you to do the same or the equivalent with your own bits: get a Pap smear, learn to do breast self-exams or testicular self-exams, keep an eye on yourself in whatever configuration you have. Please. Someone I love has been diagnosed with Stage II cervical cancer this fall, and we don't yet know whether it's spread into another system. She's younger than I am. It's not an age thing. It's about taking care of yourself.
It will not be the most fun I have ever had with my clothes off. But neither is untreated cervical cancer, and neither are the other things that can turn up in a routine exam. Go. Get poked at. Take it like a grown-up or bawl through the whole thing -- I don't care. Bribe yourself with ice cream or a paperback novel or hugs from your grateful loved ones. Just go.
I'm not feeling like talking about this in public right now. E-mail is fine.
