Hi Linda,

How are you doing? I just now found this group. I was diagnosed at
age 38 with stage IIb also with a history of normal pap smears... my
most recent normal pap smear had been 17 months earlier... at first,
when i asked my oncologist how this could happen, she just told me
that it's rare but can happen. Now that I've come through the other
side of treatment and have energy to do research, I'm seeing the
possibility of misread pap smear slides... Another young 30-something
woman I met who was diagnosed with stage IIIb had a normal pap smear
about 6 months prior to her cancer diagnosis. I recently asked my
oncologist again how this could have happened and she gave me the
same old answer of it being rare but can happen. I asked her for
research journal articles b/c I can't find any, and she was unable to
guide me to any. I then asked if she thought it was possible that
the pap smears were misread and she answered "that's always a
possibility". It is frustrating, and I am just wondering how common
it is that women are being diagnosed with cervical cancer even though
they have had normal pap smears. Did you ever find out any
information?

Hope you are doing well,

Dana in Austin

--- In Cervical-Cancer@yahoogroups.com, "dtsetsa" <dtsetsa@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone,
> I am a 44 yr old mother of 4 (ages 25,23,21 and 2 yrs old). I was
> diagnosed with stage IIIB a year ago. I have undergone chemo
> (Cisplatin), radiation, and Brachy Therapy.I also kad a
> Ureatorecotmy (sp?) - they cut off the ureator from my kidney to to
> bladder and reconnected a small piece from my kidney to the top of
> my bladder to remove the cancerous part. I wish they would do a
> hysterectomy but they say it's out of the question for someone in
my
> stage. I don't understand how I passed all my pap smears, was 6
> months late for my last one and in that time develop cancer to the
> IIIB stage.
> I have a question - I was given a dialator and was told to use it
to
> streach myself back to normal size (it had shrunk inside) and I
> haven't been good about using it. Now, between the opening of my
> vagina and my cervix there is like a wall blocking out like 90% of
> the area and the tissue bleeds very easily. I asked my Doc's nurse
> and she said that it was because I hadn't been using the dialotor.
> (I didn't know about the easy bleeding then.)Have any of you
> experienced this? If I try to use the dialotor it is very painful
> and bleeds all day afterwards. Is this normal?
> Thanks for all of you being here. - Linda
>