I don't really know how to start this story. I haven't told many people about this. It's a very personal, awful story and only my very close friends know every single detail of it. I am leaving some parts of it out, though. This is the Internet and I don't want my story turned into some god-awful soap opera.

About two years ago, I was dating a drug dealer. We met on campus at my college and he basically moved into my dorm room. It was the perfect stoner relationship: get high, have loud raunchy unprotected sex, play Super Smash Brothers, eat, and sleep. It was lovely for 19 year old me.

I thought I was going to move to California with him, but complications arose and I broke up with him and moved to live with my aunt in Chicago.

At the tender age of 19, I had never been to a gynocologist. My mother is Catholic, and any time I brought it up to her she would rage at me and tell me that I was too young to go for an exam. When I turned 16, I asked her if I could see a gyno. She said I was too young. When I turned 17 (and became sexually active), I asked her again to take me to a gyno and she said, "Why? Are you having SEX??" My mother has told me multiple times that if she ever found out I was having premarital sex that I would be "in huge trouble". So, as a minor, I did not tell her. I never went when I turned 18 because I had nobody to recommend me for to a gyno, and I did not want to go by myself.

19 years rolled around, with me having multiple partners (and always getting checked after drunken one night stands) and I met the drug dealer. Like I said, after we broke up I moved in with my aunt. I mentioned I had wanted birth control so she took me to her gynecologist and I had my first exam.

The PAP smear came back abnormal. Both the doctor and my aunt told me that this happened all the time, and to just come back in a week or so to try the test again. I was tested again and they took some samples of tissue from my cervix.

The doctor calls me about a week later, informing me that I had HPV and the tissue taken from my cervix was cancerous. All in one day I found out I had an STD (from my ex-boyfriend) and cancer.

Because they caught the cancer early, I was able to undergo minor surgery to scrape off the few cancer cells they found. The doctor told me that because I was relatively young compared to most women who got cervical cancer, there was a chance that after this surgery my body would fight back against the cancer. He gave me birth control, told me to be healthy, and sent me on my way.

That was a little over a year ago. Two months ago, I went back for my yearly exam/coloscopy. The cancer was still there, and my doctor is giving it three to five months time. If the cancer is not going into remission by then, "treatment" options will be discussed.

"Treatment" is either radiology, major surgery (possibly a hysterectomy), or chemo.

I will be 21 in two weeks and (worst case scenario) I'm facing the possibility of chemotherapy or never being able to have children.

XX, please, please remember to give yourself and your daughters the best treatment possible when it comes to vaginas. I don't blame my mother for this, but it could have been prevented if she would have allowed me to get the HPV prevention shot or taken me to a gyno at the proper age.

I hope dearly that you or your daughter never have to go through this.