By Michelle Smith 

I recently attended a dinner with eight of my closest girlfriends; collectively in the past two years we have endured sixty four Brazilian waxes, twelve IPL treatments, 360 spray on tans, fifty-four eyebrow waxes and fifty-two Saturday nights suffering excruciating pain in six-inch high platforms.

In this time we have experimented in performing yoga in 40 degree heat; drinking nothing but cranberry juice for two weeks in a vain attempt to lose weight; cooking using only organic ingredients and ingested 2, 920 oral contraceptive pills.

I can hear the intellectually exclusive thirty-somethings dismissing this as simply a group of 20 something materialistic yuppies conforming to the Gen Y stereotype of ‘airhead’ and ‘bimbo’.

The fact of the matter is that all of these things are transferable to the lives of every woman.

Whether it is changing dirty nappies day in day out, or turning up to work every day at a workplace you fundamentally despise, or simply attending a weekly scolding session at your mother-in-law’s, disguised as a family dinner.

 ALL women, everyday, everywhere, endure the most tedious, exasperatingly annoying, painful, embarrassing and extraordinary tasks, yet, less than 50% of us will take the time, ONCE every two years, to visit our GP for our biennial pap smear.

Come on. Less than 50%? Girls, let’s get real.

And what is worse, from the eight girls present at our dinner, only two were up to date with their pap smear, two had previously had a pap smear test but not within the past four years and the remaining four had never had one.

Using my dinner as a clinical trial on the knowledge of cervical cancer within young Australian women, believe me, I was shocked at the results.

Cervical cancer is probably the most misconceived cancer in the western world; often confused with ovarian cancer or underrated compared to breast, cervical cancer is often forgotten about.

Cervical cancer is cancer of the cervix which is caused by HPVs that are transferrable through sexual contact, including but not exclusively intercourse.

One girlfriend said, ‘but I’ve been with John for four years so I know I am safe’. It is irrelevant if you have only had one sexual partner; HPVs have the ability to lie latent without indicating any signs of its presence.

Cervical cancer is a slow acting cancer; theoretically if you keep up to date with regular pap smears, cancer and pre cancers will be found at an early stage of development that can usually be treated efficiently, effectively and successfully.

Another girlfriend said, ‘I don’t believe in pap smears; last time I had a pap smear it came back with abnormal results but I didn’t have cervical cancer. Pap smears are just an excuse for hysterical doctors to create fear in young women’.

Wrong. While abnormal cells can be identified in pap smears that are not considered cancerous, it is vital that these cells are monitored to ensure they do not evolve into cancerous cells. Cervical cancer can be invasive, ruthless and deadly. However, if it is identified in its early stages, the severity of its effects are usually treatable.

I want every woman who is reading this blog to ask themselves; when was the last time I had a pap smear? If it was over two years ago, next time you visit your GP for a general check up ask them for a pap smear test.

It may be a little awkward, but on the bright side it will never be as awkward as:

1. Waking up the next morning to a guy whose name you can’t even remember
2. Calling your boss by the wrong name in an important business meeting
3. Getting food stuck in your teeth on a first date

We are women. We jump through a thousand hoops every single day and get ourselves into situations not even Houdini would think he could get out of. But some way, somehow, we manage to get ourselves through. A pap smear test should be the our top priority but the least of our worries.