"Girly Tests", Anaemia and Health Issues

I originally conceived of today's post as an encouragement to my fellow women to go and have regular pap tests after having a Twitter conversation with several other women who were thinking about the same issue.  So my apologies to all my male readers who are squirming right now (but you should really remind your wife or girlfriend to have her regular tests too.)

As someone who had a grandmother who was diagnosed with and successfully treated for cervical cancer because of regular pap tests, this is something close to my heart.  But, more than that, with a wonderfully wide-thinking general practitioner (GP) like mine, my regular pap test was also a chance for my GP to send me for blood tests to check up on my general health.

And when you think about it, if you're going to put up with the mild discomfort of a pap test, what's a blood test or two to make sure that all of you is healthy?  And I am very thankful that my GP sent me for those blood tests because, as it turns out, all the tiredness I had been experiencing last year was not due to old age and the Cheeky Monkeys having too many after school activities (though that didn't help), but was due to the fact that I am very anaemic.

Of course, I am now being treated for my anaemia and am hopeful that my energy levels will be back to what I used to enjoy.  And in the mean time, I am also undergoing a few other tests to determine exactly why I am anaemic, a health issue I have never experienced in my life.  So while I wait for more test results and answers, I can't help but think of this event as how a pap test showed me that I had other health issues!