MY VIEW
Commentary and observation by Maggie Schwartz, covering health from a personal point of view.

TWO WEEKS OF CANCER

WEEK 1: I’ll miss Nikki’s party tonight.

Funny, but those are the words that kept running through my mind as I listened to my doctor tell me I have cervical cancer. You see, my friend Nikki gives the best dinner parties and she was having one that evening. She gets really pissed off if people miss her parties. But I figured she’d cut me some slack. It’s not every day that someone calls and says, “Hey, sorry I can’t come to your party. I’ve got cancer.”

I called Nikki and told her the news. She, of course, wanted to hear everything. So I told her about going to my doctor for my annual exam a month ago, and how I got a Pap smear as part of the exam, as usual. Then, two weeks ago, the afternoon of her party, the doctor called to tell me that my Pap smear came back showing that I had a high number of abnormal cells present, and he thinks I have cervical cancer. The good news, he said, is that he thinks we caught the cancer early. He won’t know for certain until after he has run a couple of more tests, he said.

I was surprised at how calm I was when I was talking to him on the phone. “Okay,” I said. “When do you want me to come in for the additional tests?” “The sooner, the better,” he said. So I’m going in on Thursday to get the tests run.

I hate waiting, but that’s about all I can do at this point. Well, that and be consumed by the question of “how did this happen to me?” I take care of myself. Eat right, exercise, and I’m religious about going in every year for my annual exam. And with my current boyfriend, I even waited until I knew I really cared about this guy before I agreed to have sex. How could I get cervical cancer?

The doctor said my cancer was probably caused by HPV, a sexually transmitted disease. He said that HPV is the major cause of cervical cancer. But how could I have gotten HPV? My boyfriend and I use condoms. Every time. No exceptions.

The doctor sent me this pamphlet on HPV and cervical cancer. It says that condoms help, but you can still get HPV when you use them because condoms cover some, but not all, of the areas where skin-to-skin contact occurs during sex. And HPV is spread through skin-to-skin contact, and it’s highly contagious. Great. Just great. Here I am going along thinking I’m being soooo responsible. And what has it got me??? Cancer!

The pamphlet also said that there’s a vaccine against HPV that I could have gotten. I remember hearing about the vaccine, but I figured that if it was relevant to me, my doctor would have told me about it. I mean, I see this doctor regularly, and he knows I’m sexually active. Why didn’t he tell me about the vaccine earlier?

WEEK 2: The news is bad

This morning, just as I was going into a staff meeting at work, the doctor called with my test results. “The news is not as good as I expected,” he said, “but it could be worse.” I shut the door to my office. “Okay,” I said, trying desperately to sound calm, “What’s the report?” The doctor then told me I have stage II cervical cancer. That means the cancer has spread outside of my cervix, but it’s still in the pelvic area. With treatment, he said, my five-year chances of survival are around 75%.

I feel numb. How did I end up in this mess? That’s what I keep asking myself. I’m only 24. How could I have cervical cancer? I know, I know, that pamphlet said that wearing condoms isn’t enough. But why didn’t anyone ever tell us? Why isn’t the government shouting it from the rooftops? In the United States, our government, our education, and our health professionals are supposed to be the best in the world, and we’re supposed to be able to get any information we need from our media. Why didn’t I know about this if it’s such a big deal? Our government is so powerful. Why don’t they do something positive for us rather than constantly telling us not to have sex? They failed me; I should have been told about HPV and given an opportunity to protect myself.

I even had health classes all through high school, and I know no teacher ever mentioned that STDs can give you cancer. I know I would have listened if the teachers had been talking about cancer and sex. And they preached and preached to us that we needed to be sure that our partners wore condoms. They said condoms would protect us against getting pregnant, and against AIDS. Why didn’t they tell us that it wouldn’t protect us against HPV, which, oh by the way, can lead to cervical cancer?

I read a lot of magazines and such, and I don’t remember ever seeing a story about HPV and cervical cancer. Even the media are screwing up with this one.

I really feel like the system has failed me. With all that information out there, why aren’t the government, the medical community, and the media saying anything? I try so hard to do the right thing, to be on top of things with my sexual health. But I can’t do it alone. I need the information. I need to know how to protect myself.