Cervical Cancer awareness month - Looking back at my first ever blog post after my tumour removal.
(This is a slightly edited repeat post, I’m re-sharing my story in honour of Cervical Cancer awareness month. This disease can strike anyone, DON”T put off your smear tests, catching this fast is the difference between life and death for many people. If you have have a mild symptom, a little bleed, painful sex, anything, please get yourself checked. It is nowhere near as bad as you’d think to have that smear test, and if the alternative is potential Cancer, it just makes sense to ‘woman up’ and get that test done! My whole life has been changed by this illness, but I am still alive, and thats the main point here.... I’m also open to chat about my experiences if anyone needs reassuring or just to talk.)
You never think it will happen to you…
I’ll have these few moments burned into my memory in agonising detail for the rest of my life…
The doctor lent forwards, looking down at the chart on the desk with a grave expression before looking up and shifting back in his chair. I knew it was bad news, I’d known from the moment a solemn looking woman I’d never seen before had been sent out to fetch me from the waiting room. I’d known in my heart of hearts even since before I had visited the doctor that first time that something wasn’t quite right.
The doctor glanced at his co-worker, and then looked me in the eyes and told me with obvious discomfort at having to break the news…
‘I’m sorry, but you do have cancer.’
Suddenly I was a thousand degrees, my heart beating so hard in my chest that it felt like it would burst, hot tears prickled at my eyes and I felt myself begin to tremble despite the sudden rush of heat as panic began to rise. The blood thundered in my ears so loudly that I barely heard what he said to me next… my mind was filled with that one word. Cancer. Burning its way deeper and deeper into my stunned brain, erasing the rest of the world momentarily with its magnitude.
I hardly noticed my boyfriends stunned expression, the slackness to his jaw at the shock… or the sheen to his eyes as he fought back the tears I was too stunned to produce myself. I hardly saw my mother’s face pale, but I felt her hand on my arm and her mood darken.
We’d been here before as a family more than once, I should have almost expected it, but I didn’t. The other times had been different in subtle ways… it had affected different body parts and older family members. I should have known, I should have been ready… but I wasn’t.
I was only 25.
I was only 25 and it had been picked up after something so routine, so normal.
My first smear test. They start them at 25 for a reason…
Truth be told I’d been putting it off for months, the indignity was off putting, the idea of being examined with one of those horrid little medieval looking devices… I didn’t much fancy it and so I left it for while, convinced I was too young for it to make a difference.
I was wrong.
When I look back there were so many obvious warning signs… bleeding, discomfort, I was tired all the time, and my immune system was appallingly inefficient. I went from one cold to another to another with barely a days break for months, and I healed very slowly.
I should have known.
I should have paid attention.
So there I found myself sat in the hospital exam room, flanked by my mother and my boyfriend with two doctors staring at me in silence. I tried to gather myself and did my best to ask sensible questions, telling myself there was no point in getting upset, that it wouldn’t change anything… but none of what I was told sunk in, the shock was too much and my mind was darting back to the moments that lead up to that point in time. Thank God for my mum and my boyfriend and all the leaflets they gave me.
I sat there with everything but the word 'cancer’ going over my head and saw flashes of the past few appointments…
The first smear which the nurse was adamant seemed normal, but which bled for days afterwards… Then the letter telling me I had abnormal cell growth and had to go for a further exam….
The first colposcopy (a test designed to check for cell changes more effectively) Where a small biopsy was taken… Then the next appointment being issued.
Then another colposcopy, this time it was obvious that something had changed and all was not well. Two biopsies were taken and there was a slightly uncomfortable injection into the cervix beforehand… Then another appointment, this time rushed through faster than initially promised.
I knew then that it was bad news.
All this happened within the space of a couple of months. From grade two abnormal cells to a grade 1b1 tumour. All of a sudden it was there, and do you know what, if I hadn’t gone for that test I’d never have known it. The vast majority of the time there was no pain, and there was no feeling of being unwell as you might think. I felt normal.
Visions of a future I might never have flashed across my mind as I sat there in the hospital. Suddenly I was filled with dread that I might never have a family, that I might have to go through the menopause in my 20’s… that I might die. I was terrified. There are no words to accurately describe just how much so.
I left that day feeling shocked and numb, but I was lucky.
My cancer was caught early. I was rushed through a lot of tests, MRI’s and colposcopies, and lymph node removal in the abdomen. It was contained to my cervix, they managed to get it all out and left me with my womb.
There is no way to describe the relief at knowing that the tumour is gone, and that on top of that I can still have a family. If I’d left it longer, that may well not have been the case.
The operations themselves were not all that painful, and the recovery has been smooth, though there are a lot of life changes which I have to adhere to. No more crossing my legs, no more hot showers and a more extensive moisturising routine to name but a few. They’re all small things really, a small price to pay for my life and my fertility. Sometimes it get irritating being a bit more restricted but better that than the alternative!
My points are that cancer doesn’t discriminate; it doesn’t pay heed to age or class or culture… It can happen to anyone, at any time.
Don’t assume it won’t happen to you because you are young, or fit, or for any other reason. Don’t put of basic tests which can help to find it or ignore signs that point to it. Ignoring the possibility won’t change the outcome for the better if you wait to find out.
Please, all of you women out there, don’t put off smear tests out of embarrassment even if just for a couple of months. Don’t try and convince yourself that that little bleed is just your pill, or a little wound (or any one of a thousand reasons I tried to con myself into believing.) Get it checked to be safe. It can’t hurt to be cautious when things can progress so quickly. In the few brief months my tumour was there it bumped up through the grades pretty rapidly, these things can happen fast, its better not to wait.
I was very lucky to be treated so fast and at a well renowned cancer specific hospital, and I will always be incredibly grateful to the team who helped to get me back on the road to recovery, doctors and surgeons are the closest things we have to modern heroes in my opinion. They gave me my life and my future back.
I’m not out of the woods yet, in fact its barely been over a month since my operation.. But I feel positive and I’m not going to be beaten by this. I’ve been given a chance, and I’m going to take it and live life happy from now on. All the little things that used to upset me now seem trivial, and though I have moments of feeling sorry for myself they pass pretty quickly because at the end of the day… I survived. I’m beating this.
Once I’m back to full fitness again I’ll be running the race for life to help raise money for the brilliant minds who are helping to find cures and treatments for cancer… I just need to get back to being able to run first!
This blog is going to be dedicated to life after cancer. To my future and to loving and living life to the full, I’ve never felt more inclined to seize every moment. Expect lots of random stuff in the future… I’ve got a lot of living to do!
Over and out amigo’s.
;)
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Looking back at all this is eye opening. I thought my life was ending, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I discovered many things about myself thanks to this disease... That I’m stubborn and won’t be beaten, that I’m strong and determined, and most importantly that my own happiness if important.
Before Cancer I lived to work, I was stressed al the time over next to nothing, and I was leading a generally unhappy life clouded by anxiety and depression. Now I live for ME, I do things that make me happy, and am more at peace with my mental baggage.
Most importantly, in the face of all that has happened, I’ve achieved a lifelong dream and become a published horror author... Because now nothings seems scary any more!
