Went to my cousin's son's 1year birthday party a week ago.

If you know anything about Korean culture, you know that the one year birthday (along with the 100 day birthday and the 60 year birthday marks) is considered quite a milestone. People get dressed up, the baby wears a colorful hanbok (traditional Korean gear). It's a big whoop and everyone in the family gathers to wish the youngun well with loads of food and presents. 

I’m sitting there having a fairly mild time sitting at the table with my 16 and 23 year old cousins, my non-English speaking 89 year old grandfather and my sort of step grandma.

 Well, you can very well understand when I was shocked slackjawed when my cousin, a nurse, came up to me and asked me about my abnormal test results in the middle of her son's big party.

“So- I heard you had some abnormal test results….?”

Hmmm.

Apparently, even my aunt in California, also a nurse, knows about the state of my cervix.

The one thing that I've learned growing up in a Korean family is this- there are no secrets among family.

 You can very well forget about THAT, Sister.

Well. Anyway…

Stop yer grinnin' and drop yer linen.

I finally got my results back from the biopsy I had a few weeks ago.

Apparently, my innocent cervix has been harboring pre-cancerous cells that COULD have become cancerous had it not been caught as early as it had been. In a few weeks, I'll be undergoing a fairly minor surgical procedure to scrape those nasty lil' sons-a-bitches out.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not really.

Ahem.

Anyway,the doctor described the fascinating instrument that she would be using.

This is what it sounded like she was describing:

They'll be using something like cheese slicer on my cervix.

What joy.

The good part of this is that it won't affect my ability to have kids, which is what I was worried about.

The even better part is that because I feel a little bit anxious about the whole thing, they've prescribed anti-anxiety meds- Lorazepam-for me to take before the procedure.

Hopefully, I'll be really nice and loopy during the whole thing and I won't even notice the fact that they are slivering off pieces of me.

So anyway, this is kind of good news, but the kind of good news that is in actuality more like a backhanded compliment- it kind of sounds nice but it actually isn’t.

I left the doctor’s office feeling a little light headed and nervous. I was more than a little freaked out about the idea that I have potentially dangerous cells waiting to fester in my womb.

Anyway, on my way home to fill up my prescription of dope (ha!), my cell phone starts ringing. Of course, it's my mom wanting to know all about my test results.

One of the funniest things about my mom is that she still thinks that you have to yell really loudly into phones. I don’t know if it’s because she thinks phone technology hasn’t advanced past tin cans or what, so of course she's shouting all this extremely private stuff as I'm standing in a very public space.

I whispered something to the effect of “Uhhh…can we talk about this later?”  hung up the phone, and called her back later.

After spending about an hour trying to convince her that I was going to be all right, answering the same questions asked several different ways (she’s the master of this!) I finally got her off the phone.

An hour later, my cousin calls me.

"So...I just spoke to your mother and...."

Urgh.

There is no such thing as privacy in my Korean family- even if it has to do with my cervix.