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FEATURED MEMBER - MEAGHAN and her battle with Cervical Cancer
December 2006 is when it all began, 28 years old and diagnosed with cervical cancer.I went to an OBGYN in Florida for a yearly checkup. The doctor pulled me into his office and this is how the conversation went:
ME - "What, what does that mean?" Dr - "I think you have pretty advanced cervical cancer" ME - "What...what...could it be anything else, are you sure?" Dr - "If you hear hooves, its probably horses not zebras" ME - "What, what, what I don't follow" Dr - "Have a good holiday I'll call you after the holidays" |
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Needles to say I was SHOCKED! I mean I never imagined I had cancer and if I did this was not how I expected to be told. For the next half hour I sat in my car, alone, confused and scared. There was no way this could be happening to me. So, I started calling family and friends and everyone said, "No way, that can't be the case". What was I suppose to do, think or say. What I did was make an appointment with another OBGYN for a second opinion.
After the first doctors visit I started bleeding heavily and experiencing terrible pain. I had to wait two weeks before I could be seen by the new OBGYN. When I finally got to see the new doctor things had gotten pretty bad. I was passing tennis ball size blog clots, bleeding through my clothes and sleeping maybe 4 hours a night. They conducted all sorts of tests on me. When they attempted to do a PAP I screamed in pain. The Nurse Practitioner tried three times but the pain was too much. She decided to get one of the doctors but he was "too busy" to see me. They scheduled an appointment for an ultra sound and sent me on my way. The next month is a bit of a blur for me but basically this is how it went. After the first visit the pain and blood increased significantly. I called the doctor's office the next day and the day after that. "There's nothing we can do for you" is basically the answer I got. When I got the ultra sound it was horribly painful (it shouldn't have been under normal circumstances). All the tests showed no STDS or PID and the ultra sound showed no cysts. But the pain was getting worse and the bleeding too. Law school had started up again, my second semester of my second year. I had to go to school. The drive was an hour each way and I couldn't make it the entire way without stopping because I was in so much pain. Each day the pain and blood increased. I called the doctor everyday and went into the office several times a day but nothing. I asked if I could have a CT scan but they didn't want to do that. On several occasions I brought someone with me to my visit because I felt like I was going crazy! How could these doctors not be helping me? How could they let me go home when I was bleeding so badly? How can I keep living like this? But even with others in the examining room with me the answers were the same: "There's too much blood I can't see anything". WHAT!?! And if you are saying to yourself, "no way that can't be true" just ask my friend who was sitting by my side holding my hand and she will tell you, "yup that's exactly what they said". This continued for a month. Eventually I stopped sleeping entirely. I would lay in my bed in horrific pain. So many thoughts went through my head, am I dying, should I call the doctor, should I call my parents, what can I do....The only time I felt any kind of relief was when I was in the bathtub so I took, and I am not exaggerating, between 20-30 baths throughout the night. I would wait till 7 or 8 in the morning and then call the emergency line at my doctors. Why you ask, because I didn't want to bother them, I didn't want them to be annoyed with me, I needed them!! The answers I got were never helpful; "maybe you're constipated" was one of my favorites. What's even funnier is I believed them!!! Now you may be asking yourself, what about the first doctor who told you the hooves bit? Well I just thought he was crazy. What a crazy way to tell someone they might be dying of cancer. Insensitive, dangerous and cold are only three of the many ways I could describe that guy. I believed these doctors. I trusted them! Aren't we always told to get a second opinion, well that's what I did and I believed them. I told my new OBGYN about the first doctor and his diagnosis but they said, and I quote "If you were 60 years old I would tell you, you advanced cervical cancer, but you are too young and there is no way-YOU DO NOT HAVE CANCER I CAN ASSURE YOU OF THAT". Thankfully my friend was with me during this visit so she can tell you that yes that is what the doctor said right after he said there was too much blood to see anything. One day my OBGYN returned one of my many calls and left a message, I was in class when he called. That's right folks I was going to ALL my classes, taking notes, getting called on etc....I checked the message and started crying as I listened. He was dropping me as a patient; actually his secretary was doing it!! "The doctor wanted me to tell you there's nothing more we can do for you" How could this be happening? What was I suppose to do now? I'll tell you what I did, I called a new doctor. I also called the OBGYN that was trying to drop me back. What did they say you ask: "No, no, no we aren't dropping you we are just telling you there's nothing more we can do" So I was annoying them, I was "putting them out". Well excuse me I thought you were suppose to call your doctor when you were bleeding, in pain, losing weight. I forgot to tell you, one of the many visit they weighed me and I had lost 10 pounds in less than a week. If you want my opinion I think they thought I was crazy but crazy people don't bleed excessively so how do they explain that?? I went to a GP who told me he thought I was just suffering from shocked. I had told him my entire story and this doctor believed that I was shocked and stressed from the original doctor telling me I might have cancer. I told this doctor that it had been at least a week and a half since I last slept. Not one minute, thirty seconds, nothing. NO SLEEP! He gave me Lunesta and said that I should take two and if I didn't sleep to call him at home the next morning. No sleep! I even took 3 and still didn.t sleep one minute. PAIN, PAIN, PAIN that's all I had. I called the next morning, a Saturday, and the Dr. told me to come to his office immediately. He wasn't working but would meet me there. This time the doctor gave me Seroquel. This is a medication that is giving to people with chemical imbalances. It worked the first night. But the second night it did not and I was back to no sleep. Finally one day I could take no more. I was still with my OBGYN, even though he tried to drop me. Even though my OBGYN told me not to go to the hospital I did. I drove myself to the hospital. That's right I went alone. I was alone through all of this. Besides my friend going to the doctor with me that one day and one of my sisters friends going to the doctor with me I was all alone. That was the worst time of my life. Worse than Chemo, Radiation, Surgery etc. Even thinking about it brings me to a dark place. |
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What Am I Doing Now?Right now I am finishing up law school, being a girlfriend, sister, daughter and friend, oh yea and fighting the secondary affects of cancer. My life has finally started to get back to normal. I am re-entering society. People don't understand how much cancer takes its victims out of society. Re-entry is not easy but I am finding my way.The secondary effects of cancer treatments can be just as bad as the cancer and the treatments themselves. Personally, I suffer from radiation effects. My colon, bladder, digestive system are all burnt and cause many difficulties and pain. I have surgery every three months due to damage my tumor left. And daily I fight against the emotional scars that cancer left. But, every day things get easier. Each day that I decide to take control of my life I get a little more of it back. I came back to law school only 4 months after I stopped treatment and 1 month after I got the news that I was cancer free. It was hard but so worth it! In two months I will be a law school graduate! In February I will sit for the bar and in a year from now, hopefully, I will be a lawyer practicing law! Right now I am also doing everything in my power to raise cervical cancer awareness. I created a blog and post daily, I write into talk shows, papers, radio programs etc. I tell everyone who will listen what happened to me and how I overcame it. You can beat cancer. Cancer only takes from you what you allow it. If I decided not to go back to school, to think of all the things I could never have, cry, scream, pout, become a recluse it would have been my choice. I have learned how to embrace what happened to me. To make it a part of who I am and who I am going to be. Don't get me wrong. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't have moments of sadness, anger and fear. But, I make sure for every moment I feel those things I create other moments. Moments of happiness, desire, laughter, creativity, goals etc. If you are fighting against cancer now, beat cancer or are supporting someone please take the time to figure out the positive of it all. Figure out how to take your life back, how to be happy and fulfilled. Cancer will be more than willing to take everything from you if you let it! Keep fighting. |
