As Shannon Shelton Miller said
September is the monthly gynecological cancer awareness.
I was at work in February 2019 when my OB-GYN called me and asked if I could go away for a moment.
“I would rather not do that by phone, but it’s pretty serious,” she said. “You have endometrium cancer, stage 1, and I will refer you to an oncologist.”
I was shocked. I was only 24 years old, and although I had problems in my teenage and young adults for most years, I would never have imagined that I diagnosed cancer.
I had always had irregular periods since the high school, sometimes it took 10-12 days. In college I started to experience excessive weight gain, acne and face hair. After seeing a campus doctor and my family doctor, I still received the standard advice to lose weight and change my diet. I tried to explain that my eating habits had not changed, but I still increased to weight and didn’t know what to do.
Finally I saw a new OB-Gyn near my house in Richmond, Virginia, and asked further questions about my symptoms. She told me that this was frequent signs of polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS. I was happy to have an answer, but wondered why someone hadn’t suggested that two to three years earlier.
I remember that she told me PCOS could not be healed, so there was no reason to research a lot about it. I suspected that I should simply cope with it, but I did not give any measures to lose weight or tackle symptoms, except for considering birth control. I already had birth control and didn’t like my body, so I decided against it.
A year later, my symptoms became more serious. I was bloated for months and the heavy bleeding started again. At the end of December 2018, I wanted to return to the provider who diagnosed me with PCOS, but she was not in the office for the holidays. I saw another doctor for about five minutes, a white man. I had the feeling that I was glossing out everything I said and did neither the ultrasound nor other tests that I had requested.
“There is no way to have cancer,” he said. “There is nothing going on.”
But I knew something was wrong. The bloating never went away and I looked as if I was pregnant. I called the office again in January and got an appointment with my OB-GYN, which ordered an ultrasound and other tests. When the pictures came back, she said she was concerned about what she saw and ordered a D&C.
When she called me five days after this date, I was at work as a teacher before the K at a primary school and went to the teacher lounge to speak. The doctor told me that I had endometrium cancer, a form of uterine cancer, and she wanted to see if I could see an oncologist that day. I told her that I could and called my family. My mother, my father and brother appeared to get me to my appointment.
My real frustration began here. Obviously I was frustrated by the entire experience, but when the oncologist asked if I had ever met for my PCOS, he told me that I had to develop the cancer. If I had known that, I would have taken this step, and I also wish I had known that I had PCOS earlier so that I could have more time to take measures.
2025 (photo/Keith Nixon)
Instead, I was thrown in conversations about the survival rate for endometrium cancer, my fertility preserved and prepared for medical surveillance for the rest of my life. It was difficult for me to suddenly think about having children or hearing that I need a full hysterectomy when I treated and returned cancer. My mother also had cancer at the same time after he was diagnosed six months earlier, so that we all had very real conversations about mortality.
The oncologist said I don’t have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation because I was so young and my cancer was not at an advanced stage. We carried out hormone therapy that consisted of two pills in the morning and two at night. They were very hard in my body – I gained 25 pounds and ate all the time and still hungry. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin.
After my treatment, I saw my oncologists to monitor every three months to ensure that the cancer had not returned. I often had to visit because I was so young with this specific type of cancer that is usually diagnosed in women in menopause.
I was determined not to have all my dreams destroyed. The month after my diagnosis I traveled to Cuba and later went to the Joshua Tree National Park. My medical team helped me to develop a plan for my life for cancer, from monitoring to maintaining fertility when I am ready to have children. In 2020 I frozen my eggs if I have to use them later. To be thoughtful about how I wanted to move forward gave me soothing.
Last year I founded the Uterine Care Collaborative, an initiative to clarify black women about uterine cancer, fibroids, endometriosis and PCOS. It is an online community hub in which women can learn about these conditions how to manage them and how to have conversations with the women in their family about their family disease history. I hope that the collaboration of the Uterine Care becomes a platform on which women can learn these potentially life -saving conversations and feel comfortable.
As a communicator of public health, my news is that self -harm is of crucial importance, especially for black women, since we are against a system that does not always hear us, involves us or us in research and clinical studies. It is important to tell the women: “Hey, if you have these symptoms, if you have this experience in the doctor’s office, you don’t just have to accept it. If the answer does not fit well with you, you will receive a second opinion.
I come from a background of faith and have always been a very happy person. I can’t afford to spend the rest of my life to worry about whether my cancer comes back or whether I will bleed again for eight months or whatever. Last month it was really exciting when my oncologist completed me every three months to every six months from surveillance, but I accept that I only have control over what I can control.
I’m now 31 and I know that my story is not over yet. Ultimately, everything is in God’s hands.
This educational resource was created with the support of Merck.
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Our real women, real stories are the authentic experiences of women in real life. The views, opinions and experiences that are shared in these stories are not supported by healthwomen and do not necessarily reflect the official politics or position of healthwomen.
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