Mar­lene

Lo­ca­tion: Cal­i­for­nia, USA

Age at di­ag­no­sis: 33

Di­ag­no­sis: Squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma

Stage of can­cer: IB2

How my sto­ry be­gins: It all start­ed with a pap done in May (2024). Af­ter com­ing back ab­nor­mal, I had to go in for a col­poscopy (a med­ical ex­am where a health­care provider close­ly looks at the cervix (the open­ing of the uterus), and some­times the vagi­na and vul­va, us­ing a spe­cial mag­ni­fy­ing de­vice called a col­po­scope). The doc­tor as­sured me I had noth­ing to wor­ry about be­cause I was young and had no symp­toms. But I was a ner­vous wreck; look­ing back, I don’t know if it’s be­cause deep down I knew or be­cause six years pri­or I had lost a sis­ter to cer­vi­cal can­cer.

The day of the col­poscopy was the ini­tial day of this night­mare I was about to spi­ral down in­to. There were two doc­tors in the room. I was bleed­ing out of nowhere, and they end­ed up tak­ing five dif­fer­ent biop­sies from my cervix. I left the of­fice that day cry­ing be­cause I could see in their faces it was se­ri­ous.

Life be­fore my di­ag­no­sis: Life be­fore di­ag­no­sis was a dream. I am self-em­ployed, mar­ried with three beau­ti­ful chil­dren ages 17, eight, and six. I had the per­fect bal­ance of work and stay-at-home. I worked out five to six times a week and had been weight train­ing for the past six years. Noth­ing could get in my way. I was where I al­ways dreamed of be­ing with the pic­ture-per­fect fam­i­ly.

How I felt af­ter di­ag­no­sis: Fast for­ward to Ju­ly 11, and I get a call around 7 pm, and it’s one of the doc­tors to con­firm my fear. They found can­cer in my cervix. She ex­plained a lot of things, but to be hon­est, I went blank. I was frozen. The air was sucked out of me. I walked down­stairs to my hus­band to let him know. We were both in dis­be­lief. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t do any­thing but think about my kids and whether they were go­ing to be raised with­out a ma­ma. Caus­ing them pain and heart­break is all I thought about. I had failed them as a moth­er.

Telling my fam­i­ly and friends: It took me a while to tell friends and fam­i­ly. I want­ed to wait for the stag­ing and treat­ment de­ci­sion. My fam­i­ly had been through the trau­ma of los­ing my sis­ter to the same can­cer, and a part of me was spar­ing them the pain as long as I could. I fi­nal­ly told them at the be­gin­ning of No­vem­ber, four days be­fore my sched­uled hys­terec­to­my. I am the “strong leader” in my fam­i­ly, so this sit­u­a­tion had me be­yond my com­fort zone. It broke my heart to see them sad.

My treat­ment: I had a rad­i­cal hys­terec­to­my, and my ovaries were left in. I start­ed 25 rounds of ex­ter­nal ra­di­a­tion with one week­ly dose of cis­platin at the end of No­vem­ber. My mar­gins af­ter surgery were clear, but due to the tu­mour be­ing a lit­tle big­ger than four cm, my on­col­o­gist sug­gest­ed I get the rad/chemo ther­a­py to en­sure it doesn’t come back.

How I felt af­ter treat­ment: I am halfway there, and per­son­al­ly the chemo has been the hard­est for me. I am tired all the time, but I get two days where I feel good, and that’s the week­end with my kid­dos.

What was most dif­fi­cult for me: Ac­cept­ing the di­ag­no­sis. No­body wants to ac­cept some­thing like can­cer! Oh, al­so, even say­ing the word. The whole thing was so hard on my heart and my mind; I still strug­gle with it be­cause it’s a scar I will live with for­ev­er.

What I did to help my­self: I con­tin­ued do­ing things I pre­vi­ous­ly en­joyed, like get­ting to­geth­er with friends and go­ing to the gym. Not a sin­gle part of me want­ed to be there, but I’m glad I went af­ter­wards. An­oth­er thing was pray­ing and read­ing the Bible. I have been Catholic my whole life, but that’s all I was, a be­liev­er. Read­ing the Bible, pray­ing, go­ing to mass and join­ing Bible study have helped me tremen­dous­ly. It is be­cause of God I have re­mained so strong even in the dark­est times where I had very ug­ly thoughts.

My life af­ter can­cer: To say I’m scared is an un­der­state­ment. This di­ag­no­sis changed the per­son I used to be for­ev­er. I am a whole new per­son with a new per­spec­tive on life. I don’t take any­thing for grant­ed, and I al­ways look at the cup half full.

Where I am to­day: I feel very blessed to have found this at an ear­ly stage. I want to take my ex­pe­ri­ence and help every woman I can. I pray of­ten to be led to the right path to use this ex­pe­ri­ence in a pos­i­tive way. I live every day like, “What a BLESS­ING it is.” The re­al­i­ty of it is death is in­evitable, but on­ly God knows when that time will come. Not even a can­cer di­ag­no­sis can de­ter­mine that. With the world we live in now, wak­ing up each day and keep­ing your kids safe at school or on the dri­ve home is al­ready a bless­ing, and that is where all my fo­cus is. Every bless­ing that sur­rounds me.

What I want oth­er women to know: You did noth­ing wrong. I felt guilty and blamed my­self and felt like the biggest fail­ure to have to put my kids and fam­i­ly through this. Every­one sur­round­ing you re­acts dif­fer­ent­ly. Don’t fo­cus on them, but fo­cus on your­self and on what you need. If you need the space, take it; if you need the com­pa­ny, al­so take it. And know that kids are so re­silient and can be your biggest mo­ti­va­tion. You are go­ing through some­thing that is hard. Any emo­tions and thoughts are all jus­ti­fied. You have the right to ex­press any form you want.

How I will try to help oth­ers: I have al­ways been a very pri­vate per­son. It’s hard for me to open up and talk about my ex­pe­ri­ences. But this is not some­thing I can stay qui­et about. And even if it helps one sin­gle girl out there to make sure she nev­er miss­es a pap, then that is enough to get my sto­ry out.

The state of cer­vi­cal can­cer in the US

In the Unit­ed States, cer­vi­cal can­cer re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant health con­cern, with 13,360 new cas­es di­ag­nosed an­nu­al­ly, re­sult­ing in 4,320 deaths (ACS). Ac­cord­ing to Med­Page To­day, de­spite the im­por­tance of ear­ly de­tec­tion, cer­vi­cal can­cer screen­ing rates have been de­clin­ing, drop­ping from 46.8 per cent in 2019 to 40.4 per cent in 2021 be­fore slight­ly in­creas­ing to 40.9 per cent in 2023.

There are some promis­ing trends: Among women ages 20 to 24 who were screened from 2008 to2022, cer­vi­cal pre-can­cer rates de­creased by about 80 per cent. HPV vac­ci­na­tion ef­forts are al­so pay­ing off, with 61.4 per cent of ado­les­cents aged 13 to 17 be­ing up-to-date on their vac­ci­na­tions. No­tably, HPV vac­ci­na­tion rates vary sig­nif­i­cant­ly by state, rang­ing from 39 per cent in Mis­sis­sip­pi to 85 per cent in Rhode Is­land. Some states, in­clud­ing Hawaii, Rhode Is­land, Vir­ginia, and DC, have im­ple­ment­ed laws re­quir­ing HPV vac­ci­na­tion for school en­try, while oth­ers, like Cal­i­for­nia, have en­act­ed laws pro­mot­ing vac­cine ed­u­ca­tion and rec­om­men­da­tions. (https://cer­vivor.org)