Pap Rally

I've been on the pill for eight years, since I was seventeen and my mother finally took pity on me for spending two days of every month lying on the bathroom floor writhing in agony and vomiting when I had my period. She took me to our family doctor who prescribed me Yasmin, and I have been happily popping the pill since. When I moved to Toronto, I presented my prescription at the pharmacy and was told I would need to have it signed by a Canadian doctor, so off I went to find a one. I first tried a downtown walk-in clinic which had it all -ugly waiting room, rude secretary behind the counter, and a fifty dollar fee to see the MD. I left and turned to Google, which pointed me in the direction of the Bay Centre for Birth Control, part of the Women's College Hospital.

Here the waiting room is painted a pleasant shade of purple, the administrators are friendly and droll and the doctors and nurses are like the cool aunts and older sisters you always wanted. And it's all free, even to non citizens -I was impressed.

When asked how long it had been since my last pap test I sheepishly admitted 'never' and winced inside. I was told I would have to get one before I could be prescribed the pill, and was penciled in for an appointment. I hate doctors and hospitals and all that stuff. I didn't think I would like them any better with my pants off, and for the next week I asked friends about what to expect, and was told time and again that it was 'No big deal.'

And of course, they were right, and I'd like to describe it for those of you who haven't had one, and also don't know what to expect. In a room I undressed and slipped into medical gown, folding my clothes on the chair, but carefully hiding my underwear in my bag, as if forgetting that the doctor was about to be gazing into my vulva in five minutes time. She came in, listened to my heart beat, checked my blood pressure and gave me a breast exam, while explaining how to do it myself at home. Then feet up on the stirrups, I spread 'em and lay back. The doctor [a Tina Fey lookalike] tried to show me the speculum but I shut my eyes and told her to just work away. Yeah so maybe it's immature and unhip, but I was nervous and self conscious as only one can be when they are showing their vagina to the third person ever, and that person is wearing latex gloves.

Anyway, it was all over in a minute [that's what she said] -she inserted the speculum, took a swab, then lubed up her gloves and took a little feel-around and that was it. I was told to get another the following year, then I got dressed and bought myself an ice cream sundae for my troubles. No big deal is right.

Except the next year I was back in Ireland, and when I went to the doctor and asked for a breast exam and pap test, I was charged sixty euros for the breast exam and told that I couldn't get a pap because "the government will call you when you're due one". Yeah, really.

Confused, I again turned to the internet to find out what the deal was there, and sure enough, in Ireland, the National Cervical Screening Programme is in charge of scheduling your smear test. You are summoned by a letter for your pap, like jury duty, and on the bright side, it IS free. However, you're not added to this register until you turn twentyfive, and they then have three years to get around to issuing your invitation. In Canada, on the other hand, it is recommended you get tested every year for the first three years after you start engaging in sexual activity [an average of age 17 I would guess] and you HAVE to get one before you can be prescribed the pill. Now, I'm not slamming the NCSP, and I think it's great they are working to screen as many women as they can, and free of charge! It's a great programme but I dooo think the age limit needs to be lowered, or at least that younger women should be encouraged to get screened too even if not through this programme. I know far too many women my age who aren't even sure what a pap test consists of, or what it is for, and that's something that really does need to change, considering cervical cancer can be quite treatable if caught early enough. Even if you take into account that it could take a couple of years for a woman's cells to show up as abnormal after contracting the cancer-causing strains of HPV, by age 25 most women have been engaging in sexual activity for the best part of a decade, and many will have been on the pill for years at that stage too.

Currently the Cervical Check screening programme adds women to the register based on information from the Department of Social and Family Affairs, but you can now actively opt-in here, so do yourself a favour today and get on it!