Brian.....thanks, as always, for your generosity in sharing your knowledge. Several clarifications: My doctor knew all about HPV, of course, but he did not know about the advisory from his lab that he would need to send in a separate vaginal sample besides the one for the PAP test. They used to do the two tests from the same sample. So he had to collect a second sample.
Also.....I didn't mean that I didn't understand how people get HPV.....I just felt that since my husband and I are and have been totally monogamous all our lives, ( a little Puritan, perhaps) that I couldn't see where I would get it. My husband is a physician, so I suppose that he could have come into contact with it somehow. I guess we'll wait and see if I actually have it. I asked to be tested mostly out of curiousity, since there is nothing to do with the information at this time. But I do not have a clear causative factor for my SCC either, so I am trying to do some detective work in case I have any sort of recurrence. I do not think that smoking 37 years ago is the cause, though my surgeon says that it is.

I'll read what's already in the archives before I ask more questions, but thanks for getting me started. Thanks.