Surviving Cancer
Essay Preview: Surviving Cancer
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Surviving Cancer
I was thirty-eight years old , a few weeks shy from my 39th birthday when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer.
When my ob-gynecologist told me that I have to be operated on and would be referred to an oncologist, I was really devastated. I never imagined that I would be facing something as frightening as cancer.
I thought I had it all. A fulfilling and challenging career, a loving and devoted boyfriend and a supportive and caring family. And I thought I was going to lose everything when my oncologist told me that I have to undergo hysterectomy to take out the cancer cells.
What are symptoms:
I just came back from India attending a World Intellectual Property seminar on copyright when I noticed that something was wrong with my body. I tried to ignore it and trying to justify the continuous and the profuse bleeding I was experiencing to stress. And hoped that it would eventually stop and I could go on with my normal life.
It was because I was beginning to feel weak that I decided to visit an ob-gynecologist. I asked my sister-in-law Jewel who she knows in Medical Center and she referred me to Dra. Martinez, whom I never met before.
You see, I have not in my entire life visited an ob-gynecologist and have not
even planned to visit one have it not for the abnormal bleeding I was experiencing. My not going to an ob-gynecologist was not because of my fear of doctors but because I thought that being sexually inactive, I thought there was no need for me to have a check-up even a routinary one on my reproductive organs.
I took a day off from work and went to see Dra. Martinez. I was in her office, praying and trying to bargain with God and hoping that I would not be probed down there. I kept sending messages to my boyfriend and asking him to pray for me.
Finally, my name was called and I was interviewed by Dra. Martinez, she then asked me to have an ultra sound and since I was not an active participant in any sexual congress, the ultra sound was done through the anus. Which was a very painful experience for me.
After examining me, Dra. Martinez said that she has to perform a D&C on me so that she will know whats