"I was con­front­ed with my mor­tal­i­ty.

Sud­den­ly I was think­ing of pos­si­bly dis­ap­pear­ing from the world. It was a roller­coast­er. And I didn’t know how much time I had left."

When pa­tient CC was di­ag­nosed with stage III cer­vi­cal can­cer, say­ing she felt un­rav­elled was un­der­stat­ing it. She shared her in­ti­mate sto­ry with WE, in the hope of build­ing aware­ness and en­cour­ag­ing women to pri­ori­tise their health.

On di­ag­no­sis, she felt over­loaded, dis­or­gan­ised, and lost. She was get­ting ad­vice and in­for­ma­tion from dif­fer­ent sources. She had vis­it­ed lo­cal doc­tors and con­sult­ed with hos­pi­tals abroad. Friends and fam­i­ly sent her every­thing from sci­en­tif­ic re­search da­ta to per­son­al sto­ries of peo­ple they knew who had can­cer.

It start­ed with low­er back pain

Pa­tient CC has al­ways stayed fit and ac­tive. She en­joys walk­ing, bik­ing, and wa­ter sports in­clud­ing kayak­ing, pad­dle boat­ing, and her favourite, drag­on boat rac­ing. But in Jan­u­ary 2019, just af­ter her 40th birth­day, she be­gan hav­ing back pain. She fig­ured she had hurt her­self dur­ing kayak­ing or drag­on boat train­ing. But the pain was bad and did not go away, so she even­tu­al­ly vis­it­ed her doc­tor, af­ter de­lib­er­a­tion and some de­lays. In fact, she went from doc­tor to doc­tor, who or­dered tests and pre­scribed med­ica­tions, but noth­ing helped. Weeks lat­er, af­ter she first sought treat­ment for the back pain, she vis­it­ed her gy­nae­col­o­gist. A Pap Smear was rec­om­mend­ed in con­junc­tion with a blood HPV test. Re­sults showed she had HPV and ab­nor­mal cells on her cervix.

In­fec­tion with HPV is quite com­mon. In most peo­ple, the body can clear the in­fec­tion on its own. But some­times cer­tain strains of the in­fec­tion are not cleared, and in some cas­es they can cause can­cer over time. There is the HPV vac­cine to pro­tect against HPV that is ap­proved for chil­dren as young as 9, but it was not avail­able when pa­tient CC was at the age when the vac­cine works best.

The ab­nor­mal cells from the cervix meant a biop­sy was nec­es­sary and a pro­ce­dure was per­formed to re­move these ab­nor­mal cer­vi­cal cells which was sent off to his­tol­ogy. One month lat­er, Feb­ru­ary 2019, just af­ter the on­set of the back pain, pa­tient CC got her test re­sults back and learned she had cer­vi­cal can­cer.

In­fer­til­i­ty and ac­cep­tance

At the time pa­tient CC was di­ag­nosed, life be­fore was rel­a­tive­ly pre­dictable. “Every­thing in my life was work­ing out,” she said. “I was re­cent­ly mar­ried, had a good job, lov­ing fam­i­ly and friends, and de­cid­ed to fi­nal­ly try to start a fam­i­ly with my hus­band.”

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, treat­ment for cer­vi­cal can­cer can af­fect a woman’s abil­i­ty to have chil­dren. She dis­cussed op­tions with her doc­tors and with a fer­til­i­ty spe­cial­ist for ways to pro­tect her re­pro­duc­tive or­gans dur­ing treat­ment or to re­move and freeze her eggs be­fore she start­ed treat­ment. But the stage and type of her can­cer and the lo­ca­tion of her tu­mor made all those op­tions even more com­pli­cat­ed.

Pa­tient CC, her hus­band, and the health care team de­cid­ed it was not worth the risk. She has had to ac­cept that she will nev­er be able to be­come preg­nant.

“It’s one of the biggest bat­tles I have chal­lenged with,” she said. “That’s the one thing that has af­fect­ed me a lot. I am do­ing every­thing I can to re­verse the neg­a­tive think­ing and not put so much en­er­gy in­to be­ing dis­ap­point­ed. As my doc­tor told me, ‘There are many op­tions for chil­dren af­ter, adopt­ing, fos­ter­ing, but first you have to be alive.’”

Months lat­er, pa­tient CC has now fin­ished treat­ment, tests showed her tu­mor had shrunk so much it dis­ap­peared from the scans. “I felt like I was re­born,” she said. “I felt like Won­der Woman.” She will con­tin­ue to have scans every 3 months for at least the next 2 years to en­sure the can­cer does not resur­face. If every­thing con­tin­ues to be ok, the num­ber of fol­low-up check-ups af­ter that will go down to once a year.

Four years lat­er, in 2023, she feels her con­fi­dence re­turn­ing, al­most back to her new nor­mal and learn­ing how to feel “whole” again. She has worked hard to re­gain her strength, start­ing with 10-minute work­outs, and grad­u­al­ly in­creas­ing the amount. She prac­tices mind­ful­ness, en­sures she main­tains a healthy lifestyle and has now tak­en the reigns of help­ing oth­er women through the process of be­ing di­ag­nosed, all the way to treat­ment, as a Can­cer Pa­tient Nav­i­ga­tor with Caribbean Can­cer Re­search Ini­tia­tive (CCRI). Her new mis­sion is en­sur­ing no oth­er woman en­dures the chal­lenges she did, and she voic­es her sto­ry every op­por­tu­ni­ty she can.

Her ad­vice to new­ly di­ag­nosed pa­tients, “Fear kills you twice be­fore the can­cer can. Con­quer the fears by do­ing your re­search and trust­ing your health­care team. I now feel at peace be­cause I have a plan.”

What Can I Do to Re­duce My Risk of Cer­vi­cal Can­cer?

The most im­por­tant things you can do to help pre­vent cer­vi­cal can­cer are to get vac­ci­nat­ed against HPV, have reg­u­lar screen­ing tests, and go back to the doc­tor if your screen­ing test re­sults are not nor­mal.

Hu­man Pa­pil­lo­mavirus (HPV) Vac­cine

The HPV vac­cine pro­tects against the types of HPV that most of­ten cause cer­vi­cal, vagi­nal, and vul­var can­cers. HPV vac­ci­na­tion pre­vents new HPV in­fec­tions, but does not treat ex­ist­ing in­fec­tions or dis­eases. This is why the HPV vac­cine works best when giv­en be­fore any ex­po­sure to HPV. You should get screened for cer­vi­cal can­cer reg­u­lar­ly, even if you re­ceived an HPV vac­cine.

• HPV vac­ci­na­tion is rec­om­mend­ed for pre­teens aged 11 to 12 years, but can be giv­en start­ing at age 9.

• HPV vac­cine al­so is rec­om­mend­ed for every­one through age 26 years, if they are not vac­ci­nat­ed al­ready.

• HPV vac­ci­na­tion is not rec­om­mend­ed for every­one old­er than age 26 years. How­ev­er, some adults age 27 through 45 years who are not al­ready vac­ci­nat­ed may de­cide to get the HPV vac­cine af­ter speak­ing with their doc­tor about their risk for new HPV in­fec­tions and the pos­si­ble ben­e­fits of vac­ci­na­tion. HPV vac­ci­na­tion in this age range pro­vides less ben­e­fit, as more peo­ple have al­ready been ex­posed to HPV.

• If vac­ci­na­tion is start­ed be­fore age 15, a two-dose sched­ule is rec­om­mend­ed, with the dos­es giv­en 6 to 12 months apart. For peo­ple who start the se­ries af­ter their 15th birth­day, the vac­cine is giv­en in a se­ries of three shots.

Screen­ing Tests

Two screen­ing tests can help find changes that could be­come pre­can­cer or cer­vi­cal can­cer.

Both tests can be done in a doc­tor’s of­fice or clin­ic.

• The Pap test (or Pap smear) looks for pre­can­cers, cell changes on the cervix that might be­come cer­vi­cal can­cer if they are not treat­ed ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.

• The HPV test looks for the virus (hu­man pa­pil­lo­mavirus) that can cause these cell changes.

In­for­ma­tion Source:

https://www.cdc.gov/can­cer/cer­vi­cal/ba­sic_in­fo/pre­ven­tion.htm

Up­dat­ed: Jan 2023