Lisa

In late July 2001, after 11 years of marriage, at the age of 34, I got pregnant by accident. I say "by accident" because we were "waiting to be financially secure". In hindsight I now realize unless you hit the lottery most normal folks are never really financially secure!

Okay, so here I am, newly pregnant, planning my future and the future of my baby. I go in for my first OBGYN visit, where they do the blood work to make sure you are pregnant, do a pap and all the other fun stuff they subject you to, at the end of August. I don't have a care in the world. I have no clue what HPV is let alone that my life is about to change.

I get a call a few days later that the doctor would like to see me. So I go in and we sit in her office and she tells me my Pap came back abnormal (ASCUS) and that they need to do another test but that they need to find a doctor who will do it on a pregnant woman due to the risk of miscarriage associated with it. She says "Oh and by the way you have an STD, it's called HPV and 80% of woman today are walking around with it." Well, I think my jaw was on the floor and I was mortified beyond words. Me? An STD? WHAT?

I left the office in shock. I drove home trying to compose myself so that I could figure out how to tell my husband. Mind you, I still had no idea I had cancer...

Mid September the doctor called and gave me two names and numbers of doctors who would perform the colposcopy (ah! it had a name now) on a pregnant woman. I called the one that was closest to my home, left a message with his office and waited. This scenario played itself out a few more times - me calling and leaving a message and getting no response. Don't forget, I am not in a rush because the word cancer has never been mentioned. Finally, I give up trying to get in touch with him and I try the other doctor who is not near my house. At this point it is mid November. I get the first available appointment which is December 12, 2001.

The day arrives for the colposcopy and I am armed with the words my OBGYN said - "It is just a test to see your cervix, there won't be a biopsy, you are fine, don't worry." I walk in and fill out all the paperwork and listen repeatedly to the staff ask in amazement why I was there if my Pap only had ASCUS as the result, especially if I was pregnant. Why take the risk just for ASCUS? I must have heard that 6 times that morning. By the time I got into the exam room I was trying to figure out why everyone was asking me over and over and laughing like "What is wrong with her OB/GYN sending her here for ASCUS?"

The doctor came in with a nurse and explained the procedure and the after effects and what to watch for as far as complications since I was pregnant. She also joked that I shouldn't be there just for ASCUS and said since I looked like a deer trapped in headlights that the nurse could stand up by my shoulders and hold my hand to calm me down if that would help. I said yes and the doctor began the colposcopy. As soon as she got the speculum in and swabbed the acid solution around she looked at the nurse and said to both of us at the same time that she needed the nurse down with her. I got a bit panicked. The nurse went down with the doctor and the doctor asked if the nurse could see what she was looking at and the nurse said yes. The next thing I know the doctor has done a biopsy and I knew right then and there I had cancer. She didn't say anything one way or another. She just said the results would be back in about a week and her office would call me.

The nurse and the doctor left the office and I got dressed and went out to my husband who was in the waiting room the whole time and I burst into tears. I told him the whole thing from start to finish making sure not to leave out the part of everyone being so surprised I was there only for ASCUS.

On December 26, 2001 I get a call while I am at work from the doctor who did the colposcopy. She says she needs me and my husband to come in that day. I tell her we can't, he is traveling and won't be back for two days. She says it is urgent. I say "I have cancer don't I?" She says yes and again tells me she wants to see me as soon as possible. I say "Just tell me if I am going to see my child get married." She tells me that my husband and I need to get in as soon as possible. I get off the phone after telling her we can get there in two days when he gets back.

When we go see her she paints a horrible picture. I have the rarer of the two kinds of cervical cancer you can have. She wants to deliver the baby at 28 weeks. She tells us we might lose the baby. She says if she had done the test sooner she would have made me abort the pregnancy. She goes on and on with all the horrible things and I tune out. I remember my husband retelling it all later - delivery at 28 weeks, cone biopsy 3 weeks later, hysterectomy 3 weeks after that, 3 surgeries in a month and a half. We thank her very much for her time and we leave. We call EVERYONE we know and we network for a doctor who can do a second opinion.

We get the name of a guy from 3 people who don't know one another. This guy is the 2nd top dog at Memorial Sloan Kettering they tell us. So we call. It is amazing the way people move mountains for you when you tell them you are pregnant and you have cancer. They see us the next day. The doctor could not have been nicer. He examined me, did another colposcopy and asked if he could bring some people in because pregnant women with cervical cancer were so rare. I told him he could bring in the entire hospital if he wanted to but he had to save me and my baby. We had so many people in there at one point looking at me in all my glory, and my husband is on the other side of the curtain on a stool listening to it all. I heard him suck in his breath when the doctor asked everyone around him if they could see the two tumors. Apparently they were big enough to be seen without the colposcope.

So after his little show and tell, I get dressed and he lets my husband come around the curtain. He tells us that as much as he would love to help us he can't because they cannot deliver the baby there. He does tell us however that his ex colleague is now the head guy of women's oncology at New York University Medical Center. He calls him right then and there and we have an appointment the next day.

We go to the NYU guy and he does ANOTHER colposcopy and tells us that the pregnancy saved my life. He says the cancer is so far imbedded in my cervix that by the time they would have found it I would have been stage 4. He explains that when you are pregnant your cervix opens like a flower and that is the only reason my pap came back abnormal and it is the only reason they can see the tumors with the naked eye. He says he will try to get me to 34 weeks, he will have the perinatolgist do a c-section and he will immediately follow the c-section with a radical hysterectomy. He says since they can't do any of the normal staging tests since I am pregnant and they will most likely kill the baby that he can only do an MRI to try and see if any of my other organs or lymph nodes are affected.

The MRI comes back not showing anything abnormal but he says there is no guarantee and that he will biopsy everything once he is in there on the day of my surgery. He says he will make a decision about my ovaries on the spot while I am open on the table since I am only 34 years old.

I have an amnio right before my son is born to see if his lungs can handle being born early. My son grabs the needle as it goes into my stomach. The doctor cannot believe her eyes as she watches him do it on the sonogram. My husband watches him do it and shakes his head. The fluid they take out says his lungs can handle it. They keep me on a fetal monitor for 12 hours because I can miscarry from an amnio that late in my pregnancy.

March 13, 2002 - Dday or should I say Cday? 9:36 am my beautiful, miracle baby, redheaded son is delivered by c-section and my radical hysterectomy begins. I am awake for it all. 5 hours of surgery under an epidural only. I am laughing , they are cutting, "I want to see my uterus" I say. The doctor tells me it is already at the pathology lab. I laugh some more. "Can you do tummy tuck while you are down there?" I ask. They laugh. I say "ow, I feel like I have period cramps." They give me more drugs. I wake up in the recovery room. I still have my ovaries.

I can't see my son for 3 days. He has gone into respiratory distress on the way to the nursery so they take him to the NICU instead - so much for the amnio!

Fast forward 9 days. My son and I are home. My mom is with us. I am in the rocker breastfeeding and the phone rings. She answers it. Biopsy results. Vaginal margins clear. Lymph nodes clear. Cancer free. No further treatment. See you in a week. I cry silent tears of joy and I shake. Oprah calls it "the ugly cry". My mother tells the nurse she needs to hang up because her grandson is now having a milkshake because I am crying and shaking so hard.

In May 2007 I got the results from my 5 year check up. I am fine. We named him "Matthew" - it means "Gift from God" - yes indeed!