Crap Day

So in addition to the sad kids making me feel guilty in the morning and the pile o' work crap and my appointment with the boobsmasher...

I got a call around lunchtime from my OB/GYN's office to tell me that my pap smear came back abnormal.

Which is about a 99% certainty that I've got the HPV virus. It's an STD, but something like 70% of adults have it because it tends to lay dormant -- but still be transmittable -- for years. And even when it wakes up, it has no external symptoms. Sometimes (maybe even usually?) it clears up on its own, and sometimes it has to be treated. If left untreated, it can (but does not always) give rise to cervical cancer. Which is why it's important for women to have their pap smear every year. (The 1% chance this isn't HPV is that it's already developed into cancer. Since I do get my smear every year, this is pretty incredibly unlikely.)

In any case, this isn't a panic item at the moment. What it is, right now, is mostly an annoyance -- I have to go back to the doctor in a couple of weeks so he can stick a special microscope up my hoo-hoo and look around ("colposcopy") and extract a sample of the abnormal cells to do a biopsy, just to be on the safe side. Then, depending on the severity and the precise location of the flare-up, he'll decide how to treat it. (The options are typically either surgical removal or cryogenic cauterization. Sounds like fun. Either way, they'd better line me up with the good drugs.) No telling when that will happen, but I'm willing to bet that Murphy will line it up with something incredibly inconvenient, like while my parents are in Mexico and unable to help babysit.

So I had all that on my mind to process while I was getting my boobs smashed. (Not fun, but at least it went quick -- I don't think I was at the Women's Imaging Center for more than 15 minutes, including the time I was sitting in the waiting room.)

Then I came back to the office for the afternoon's run-around-and-be-crazy, and was handed work to take home. (I was told that I could leave it until this morning, but it was in that "sure, you can drown puppies and kittens if you WANT to" tone. I thought about leaving it until today anyway, then thought of the amount of work I need to get done, and that I really, really need to get to the gym today, and decided I'd go ahead and work it anyway. Because I'm a team player. Aheh.)

Today is going to be better. It had damn well better.

It started off better, anyway. Alex started to cry when I dropped him off, but he was diverted by the promise of a book from the teacher he doesn't much care for. Maybe he'll warm up to her, yet.

Penny said, "Mommy, don't make me cry today."

I said, "How did I make you cry?"

"I wanted another hug and a kiss!"

"Okay, tell you what. You tell me, right now, while we're still in the car, how many hugs and kisses you want today."

"Um... Four. No, five."

"Five hugs and kisses?"

"Yes."

"And that will be enough so you don't cry?"

"I think so."

"...Okay. Sure."

And it was. When the bell rang, we went a few steps down her hall (to get out of the way of the other kids) and she carefully counted each hug and kiss, and even giggled a little when I was doing her "special" kisses, and she walked off down the hall without any nudging and in reasonably cheerful spirits.

It's a compromise I can live with.