When pa­tient CC was di­ag­nosed with stage III cer­vi­cal can­cer, say­ing she felt un­rav­elled was un­der­stat­ing it.

“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.”

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 had can­cer. She felt over­loaded, dis­or­gan­ised, and lost.

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. She al­ways had reg­u­lar med­ical check­ups, in­clud­ing gy­nae­col­o­gy ex­ams. 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 vis­it­ed her doc­tor. 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 nine, 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 were 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 tu­mour made all those op­tions even more com­pli­cat­ed.

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

“It’s one of the biggest bat­tles…one I have chal­lenge 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.’”

Feel­ing like Won­der Woman

Three months af­ter pa­tient CC fin­ished treat­ment, tests showed her tu­mour 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 three months for at least the next two years to en­sure the can­cer does not resur­face. If every­thing con­tin­ues to be okay, the num­ber of fol­low-up check-ups af­ter that will go down to once a year.

Three years lat­er, 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 reins 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). She has gone back to work and the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic didn’t turn her whole world up­side down. “That can­not hap­pen twice.”

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, even if it re­turns, I have a plan.”

Share your jour­ney

On Feb­ru­ary 4th, 2022, Health Plus joins the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty in recog­nis­ing WORLD CAN­CER DAY.

We know that every sin­gle one of us has the abil­i­ty to make a dif­fer­ence, large or small, and that to­geth­er we can make re­al progress in re­duc­ing the glob­al im­pact of can­cer. On Feb­ru­ary 4th, we call on you, who­ev­er and wher­ev­er you are, to play your part in cre­at­ing a can­cer-free world and #Clos­ethe­Care­Gap.

We en­cour­age you to share your sur­vivor sto­ry as we put the spot­light on the var­i­ous can­cers im­pact­ing our pop­u­la­tion. Your sto­ry may give some­one the courage they need to take that cru­cial next step and #Clos­ethe­Care­Gap.

Email sto­ries to: Guardian­health­plus2021@gmail.com