Do you know what HPV actually is? I didn't when I was diagnosed - Metro.co.uk

A month before, I’d been told I had human papillomavirus (HPV) and abnormal cells after my first cervical cancer screening aged 25.

I didn’t know who to talk about it with and hid the result from friends and family, worried about what this all might mean.

HPV is often spread through sexual contact, is generally symptomless, and isn’t picked up in standard sexual health screenings so many people have it and are none the wiser as the body can clear it on its own.

Even with the reassurance that because I’m young and don’t smoke my odds of clearing the HPV and dodgy cells are high, I often think about what might be happening to my cervix at a given moment – whether the cells are mutating, if the HPV has gone, and how I can’t know or control any of that until I’m next invited to an appointment.

Why there wasn’t a standard diagram for patients to see, I have no clue, but I got lucky; my practitioner was kind enough to go over our allotted time to explain it all because without that, I’d have left completely uneducated on what was happening to my own body – which, I now know, is how many people leave a colposcopy and HPV diagnosis.

It’s one thing to feel betrayed by your own body, and it’s another to feel this way about the healthcare system that’s supposed to help you get better.

Trans men aren’t invited to screenings; it’s seen as a women’s issue – even though men are getting HPV derived cancers; women are being told they can’t be helped when they have abnormal bleeding; and some experts don’t believe the current cervical cancer screening process is up to scratch.

While it’s saved lives and been a major gamechanger, it’s not the be-all and end-all – though public health officials often speak about the vaccine as though it is.

It isn't tested for in a standard sexual health screening, so it's near impossible to know when or where a person might have contracted it or who they might have passed it onto.

For more health information, please visit Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust, The Eve Appeal, the No Man campaign and The Anal Cancer Foundation?