A lot’s been going on my way but most of all my WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY!!! I’m totally stoked about this.  In perfect Joi tradition I have started yet another blog about it.  If your interested in the recent happenings of me or curious about my weight loss adventures mosey on down to http://thevanishingmom.blogspot.com/  Just like this blog I’m holding nothing back in my new blog, complete with pictures this time.

I’m 30 now.  Wow 30.  Such a big number but so small  at the same time.
I’m taking new classes because the classes I took back when I was writing in this never panned out.  I am now going to school to be a Medical Transcriptionist.
My son is now 8!
I am happy to announce my partner and I are still together!
We just moved and I LOVE our new place.

However, I haven’t had a pap in almost 2 years.  Oh GOSH I know I should be ashamed.  I know it’s horrible and terribly irresponsible.   Honestly, I’ve been scared.  I know this blog may make me seem soo brave.  But I’m terrified of having to go through this again.  I guess that might make me a bit selfish being that I have a family that I need to worry about too.

So I’m calling.  I am making this vow to call first thing tomorrow morning and make my appointment.  I will not run, I will face this head on.

In other news I’ve been catching up on approving comments that I didn’t realize I had.  When I stopped writing I pretty much decided to fall off the face of the blogging world because…. well, life happened more than anything.  but these comments are amazing!  I’m so glad that I was able to help more than just the one I intended to help!

I think I will pick back up posting.  See, HPV doesn’t just stop when you get the clear from your OB.  It lives on you like a badge.  I’ve helped many women both with this blog and in daily life that I’ve been able to help.  There is life after HPV.  Maybe it’s not what I’m going to talk about everyday.  maybe you won’t here those three letters out of my mouth for a whole week.  But it’s time that the women of the HPV world get to see that there is more to life than just test results and tears.  You will smile again one day I promise.  And I’m going to help show you everything you have to look forward to.

I will post news articles, medical findings and anything else helpful for the women that are currently going through this.

And now with my nifty Droid I’ll be able to post as soon as I’m thinking of something!  :)

Updates though….

I started college!  WHOO HOO for me and my partner!  We are taking online colleges.  If you are interested or know someone who is, let me know I’ll give you the number of an AWESOME guy who can walk  you through everything.  We call him our favorite straight man

I went for my pap this week.  I’m a little scared.  I’ve been spotting since the 4th and so I’m worried about the results.  So cross your fingers for me.  As long as this one and the next ones are clear I get to go back to my regularly scheduled program of yearly paps.  Also they are sending me for an ultrasound because of the spotting, she thinks it might be my cysts acting up again.

I’m going to the doctors tomorrow for a whole list of unrelated things.  I have a ganglion cyst on my hand that needs to be removed.  I lost 25 lbs since February and I’ve been eating like a pig, so somethings not right.  I’m also peeing like I’m pregnant and I’m always thirsty.  And for the past two months my foot has been in sooooo much pain it’s unbearable.  So we’ll see what happens there.

I miss writing in here and have contemplated using this for more than an HPV blog.  I’m still thinking about it.

Thats all for now, I’ll talk to everyone later.  Hope all is well!

I had almost given in.  But then I started getting these comments.  These amazing comments of women who I’ve inadvertantly helped.  Not many, just a few.  But women, those comments help SOOOO much.

As much as reading a blog of a woman who lives somewhere out in cyber space, who blogs about some of the most ridicoulus things, who’s spelling is sometimes unbearable, who’s life can sometimes be soo uneventful, can help you, even if that blog for the day is simply “fuck HPV”.

Those comments, even if it’s just one, helps ME soo much.  Sometimes I feel alone too.  Even though I have an awesome family.  Even if I have some of the best support I could ask for.  Even though my life partner is, to me anyway, the enxt best thing since sliced bread.  Even though I have an amazing son.  I still feel lonely.  I feel alone in this horrible HPV world.

Noone I know understands HPV.  They don’t understand how you feel.  They
can’t describe the painful periods after a LEEP.  They can’t understand how
terrified you are about the fact that there is a VERY real chance that you may have trouble concieving and if you do, you may need help carrying to full term.  Noone else can understand the emotional scars and how even with them always at the forefront of your brain, you have to push them back and think POSITIVE.

But you do.  Yes you, the woman who is reading this now.  I bet youfound me
because youdid a search on HPV or a LEEP or maybe even a PAP smear.  And

somehow or another you found me.  You found a person who you can understand.  I understand the need to be quiet and just lurk.  I do it on soo  many other blogs.  But then I’ll get someone send me a comment on how much I’ve helped them.  And I cry.  I share the comment with my partner because she is amazed at the responses.  And I tear up.  And shhh, but so
does she.  I don’t know what I would of done without this blog.

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Today, I’m scared.  not sure why though.  Just all day I’ve had this scared feeling.  I don’t even know if it has anything to do with HPV.

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But today is still an AWESOME day.  I lost 10 lbs!!!!  I had a check up at my primary doctors and I lost 10 lbs since I’ve been there last.  I actually think it’s 15 because I know I put on weight after I saw them last.  But who cares 10 lbs is a big deal!  I’m soo amped about losing more wieght.  I’ve gone down 2 jean sizes too.  I’m now down to a 24 and I know from the way they fit, I might just be able to squeeze into a 22 by the end of May.  You know what that means?  CLOTHES SHOPPING!  I should start a fund lol!  I know I’ve beenmore active.  I COMPLETLY hand my weight loss to HPV.  Stress makes me eat less.  And then findnig out just how close I was to cancer made me appreciate the small things more so I’ve been more active and play with my son more.  Plus we’ve been eating better because I need to keep my body in better shape so it can fight the HPV.

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Well gals, have a good night.  It’s time for me to go to sleep.  I’m tired.
Good night!

I am also starting a blog with stricly links, I want to organize them and eventually start my own website.  So if you have any ideas, let me know.  Also if you know of any cheap hosts let me know too.

Here goe’s feel free to add to it:

knit
read
research
find a new computer game
shop!
clean
go to the movies
have a girls night, and make sure your the one who plans it
start a new project and make sure you finish it
join a cooking class, most Shoprites and other grocers have them
join a book club
look for support groups online, a great place is meetup.com
(for local support groups) and groups.yahoo.com (for online support)
join secondlife.com (trust me this will consume you)
read some blogs
start a blog (invite me to read :) )

and all through the house, it was calm, and it was quiet and everything seems normal.

but the anxiety, oh god the anxiety.   maybe it was because before the leep I was CIN II with moderate cervical dysplasia and then when I went for my leep results it was in CINIII and it magically turned into severe cervical dysplasia.  Maybe it was because when my OB read me my leep results he made sure he let us know that it was more serious than anyone had thought.  Maybe it’s becuase even with a simple leep the future of me carrying a child full term can possibly be difficult.  Maybe because things were soo silent and ok before that dreaded pap smear.  Maybe it’s because I always seem to be in that 5% of people that this goes soo much worse in.  I don’t know.  All I do know is I’m scared and I’m still 4 months away from my follow up pap.  I’m scared of how scared I’m going to be the closer it gets.  My partner though keeps me in check.  She lets me know it’ll be ok.  And thats one thing I have learned if NOTHING else.  If you worry and think it’s going to be bad then it will.  But if you keep your spirits up and think the best it will turn out ok.  Is it unfair of me to put that kind of pressure on her?  I have a hard time keeping my spirits up about this.  So she keeps them up for me. I hate to put that kind of pressure on her but I need to sooo bad.  Withough her constantly telling me “baby we’ll be ok and you’ll be fine” I would lose it.

Anyway, I have easter eggs to go and hide before our son wakes up.
Ahh what it would be like to be able to turn the hand back and be a kid again.
I’m jealous.

So today while talking to an old friend, I found out that someone who by chance found out about it has been telling everyone we
both know.

I feel hurt, like I’ve been violated.  And I’m left wondering if I should feel this way.   I tell peole about it because I want women to be informed and to possibly lend a caring shoulder.  I also tell people so that the women who haven’t gotten a pap recently can and will have a reason too.  But I think it’s fair for ME to be able to choose who I want to tell that I have it.  Am I wrong?

Today is my 3 year anniversary with my partner.

It’s been three years since we met and in August it will be 2 years since we’ve been ”married”.  I can’t believe it’s been 3 years.  3 whole years of ups and downs and highs and lows.  Each and every one of them (including the HPV) I would do over again.  Even through the worst of times there were lessons to be taught and new coping and communication skills we both needed so despratly.  We’ve both been in soo many bad and shot relationships that we lacked the skills to effectivly have a close knit long relationship.  So together we hav learned the skills we need tobe happy for the rest of our life.  I couldn’t of picked a better person to do that with.  HPV is such a good example.  We were on the verge of no coming back.  In all aspects we were over.  But then this nasty thing called HPV and her having horrible stomach problems happened.   And we were forced to be there for each other.  We didn’t have a choice. How could I let her go thru such pain and not be there for her when I’ve been there for her for almost 3 years now.  And vice versa.  I was about to go thru such a trying difficult time and she couldn’t leave me to suffer by myself. So the universe forced us to deal and cope and when all was said and done, the timing couldn’t of been perfect.  Our whole relationship has been that way.  The univerese has just been soo awesome to us.  The time line is just crazy.  I met her when I was 20 and she was 16.  She worked as a DJ in a local bowling alley for midnight cosmic bowling, which I attended faithfully with a few friends.  Pedophile as it might sound I really had a thing for her.  But I didn’t tell her.  She had a thing for me and showed it, although I didn’t catch on.  We had exchanged a kiss but at that point in my life I didn’t see a kiss as being much more, but I was scared of the feelings I had for someone soo young.  I didn’t find out until years later.  We had a bad argument and we stopped talking,  I had asked her to take me to my ”sperm donors” house, not knowing she planned on spending time with me and my friends.  I didn’t know she liked me.  And even if I did the age difference was too much then.  So we went our seprateways and a few years later when my son was 2 1/2 i ran into her at KFC.  She was working the drive thru, something she never did.  I was going thru the drive through, a place I NEVER ate.  and from behind I could tell it was her, just by her arm.  We exchanged numbers and caught up.  And it was amazing!  My baby daddy drama was over because he had disapeared (and up until this day we have only heard from him about 4 times, he hasn’t seen my son in 4 years this April).  I was single and I had let go of men because I had never been “comfortable” with them.  And I knew it was woman I liked but I couldn’t put my finger on the kind.  She had followed the Lesbian life, something my friend and I had introduced her to at the bowling alley (she had never seen women kiss before we kissed), and became a BUTCH.  I had stayed girly and by all aspect are a FEMME.  But I never knew there was such a thing until then.  But it was in her eyes that I saw what I finally wanted.  I liked men for their exterior qualities, mostly the machoism, but the buck stopped there.  They could leave the rest at the door.  underneath I wanted a woman.  And thats what she was.  She looked like the biggest tomboy I had ever seen and it was such a turn on.  Plus it was HER.  Someone I had wanted so long ago and now she was legal.  We hooked up, but our scheduales were soo different, plus I was terrified.  She was all I wanted, she was a woman.  How could I explain this to my family, was it ok to kiss her in public like that. I broke up with herafter about a month.  I wanted to her to ask me why and talk abotu it and make it ok, but she wasn’t ready for that.  so we broke up, I would drive thru her job just to see if I could talk to her, she wouldn’t return my phone calls so I
thought that was it, it was over for good and she would never talk to me again.  Two months later she called me and we talked for hours.  And the rest is three year history.  It was like the universe introduced us 7 years ago.  Just so we would know who each other were.  I had a baby not by choice and baby daddy disapeared off the face of the earth.  And then when the timing was right boom we meet again.  She was everything I needed and wanted.  Stable, butchy, cute and perfect in every way.  Although I can’t describe what she thought of me, I was single, had a son (which she always had wanted), free of baby daddy drama and I had a good job, not to mention I was a femme.  And my son who is the third piece to the puzzle fell in love just as deep as I had.  I always promised that if he didn’t like who I was with even the slightest I would end the relationship.  But he LOVED her.  Shortly after  she started spendnig more time with us and things became serious, he called her daddy.  He walked into the room and said “your my daddy”, when we tried to explain she wasn’t and he can call her a mulitude of things, he put us in our place, “you take care of me, play with me and love me” and then after we tried to say that she could do those things and be called something else he said ”I already have a mommy so your my daddy” and that was that. counselors and specialist opinions later, this is ok.  as long as she fills the basic daddy functions, it’s his choice. His choice was my final sign that this was the person for me.  Some may say that letting your child pick your life partner is silly, but he is my ulimate responsability.  He is who I live for.  And I can’t put him thru a life of his mommy being a lesbian and a step parent he can’t stand. It’s not fair to him.  Plus he is as much of a part in my relationship as I am.  So why wouldn’t I let him chose? And he chose perfect. Anyway, I won’t bore you with anymore sappy love shit. but I love her.

Besides it’s my anniversary, I’m allowed to hugs and kisses

-Joi

I still have HPV.  I still am scared of what the future brings.  I still feel dirty about it all. I still ponder over who gave it to who and who it could of been passed too.  I am terrified of my pap in August.  I still have soo many questions unanswered.

So when it comes to writing on here I haven’t been sure what would be appropriate and what I could actually get out onto a screen.  Sometimes my feelings and words are so constrewed that I cant even get them out of my mouth let alone type them. Although sometimes typing is easier.  But for these things they’re not. I do have a nice little post about why today is soo special, that will be next.

I just wanted to let yall know I’m alive and well.

Smooches!