pap smear scare

Johanna is 38 and has had regular annual pap smear tests since she married at 18. With three children, a twenty year marriage and a healthy lifestyle she never expected the bad news she received from her gynaecologist.

"My gynaecologist told me that my last pap smear test was positive," says Johanna, "and I needed to go to hospital for a cone biopsy."

"He didn't say that I had cervical cancer," explains Johanna, "but what else could it have been?"

"I went from the gynaecologist's rooms to meet my fourteen year old daughter at the shops, and I was in a terrible state of shock when I got there."

"Dee-dee was terrified when I told her my bad news,” says Johanna, “but the worst reaction of all came from my husband,".

"His reaction was so chillingly unsympathetic that I decided I didn't want to go into hospital to have further tests without a second opinion about the positive pap smear test."

"I had a follow-up pap smear test and it was negative," laughs Johanna. "What a relief!"

"All that agony and angst for nothing," sighs Johanna, "but from that terrifying experience I did learn something to my advantage about the reliability of my husband. I lost all respect for him."

"Pap smear tests are really not as infallible as some doctors say they are and if my gynaecologist had been any good he would have scheduled a second test before scaring me to death with a cone biopsy in hospital."

"It was obviously time for me to find another gynaecologist," says Johanna, “and it was also time for me to reconsider marriage to a man who behaved so badly towards me in my hour of need."

"My cervix wasn't cancerous but my marriage most certainly was," says Johanna. "I determined that if I ever did have the misfortune of becoming seriously ill in the future my chances of survival were going to be much better without that man in my life." 

 Read more of Johanna's story:

unsupportive and insensitive husband