Cervical cancer: Suffering the sins of an abuser?

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2002 by Myers-Spiers, Rebecca

women and disability

suffering the sins of an abuser?

The clock reads twelve-thirty am. I am crying myself to sleep, worried. Wondering if the doctors are going to put a time limit on how long I have to live, if I still have the choice whether or not to have children. I am crying because two days ago I was diagnosed with cervical cancer, and I have never been more afraid.

"It's okay. You don't have to cry. Everything's going to be all right," my husband repeats over and over again, trying to comfort me.

"All fight? Cervical cancer is the reason why I never got to know my grandmother. It's the reason why several women in my family don't have children." I scream about not being able to afford adoption, about full hysterectomies and anything else I can yell about to vent my frustration.

I know it's not his fault that a toxic substance has decided to make my cervix its home. But I don't feel it's mine either. I'm twenty-one years old. I eat healthy, mostly organic, and no pork or red meat. I rarely drink caffeine and I never smoke nor do hard drugs. I don't have a history of extremely risky sexual behavior or sexually transmitted diseases. For Christ's sake, I even stopped using tampons a number of years ago because they contain dioxins which are cancer causing.

It's probably going to be just fine, the first stages of cancer and they're probably going to be able to remove it. But I still can't seem to stop crying.

I try to look at the situation from somewhat of a sociological perspective, a feminist point of view. At least enough attention has been paid to women's health that young women, like me, are getting yearly gynecological exams. And women are being educated enough to know what cervical cancer is, the causes of the cancer as well as treatments and the side effects of those treatments. And thanks to our feminist foremother Elizabeth Blackwell, there are women doctors, like mine, who are much more understanding and sensitive as well as informative.

When my doctor called to give me the test results indicating that I had cervical cancer, I was in the library. I hovered into a corner on the third floor, right by a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, crying as she gave me the news over my cell phone. I felt as though the brave young woman I had become had disappeared, replaced in a matter of minutes by a scared little girl. Realizing that I knew nothing about cancer, especially cervical cancer, I went to the section on women's health and checked out the new Our Bodies, Ourselves. At home, I read the section on cervical dysplaysia to my husband. Most of it was medically informative, meant to explain technical terms to women that their doctors may use. Finally, I got to the section on the causes of abnormal and cancerous cell growth.

Not five paragraphs later, I found the answer I was seeking. "If you began intercourse at an early age, your risks may be greater..." It's not as if I chose to "begin intercourse at an early age." I was molested at the early age of four and sexual abuse seemed to be a recurring theme throughout my childhood and teenage years. I have suffered from other medical problems because of the abuse such as recurring irritation and tearing in my younger years, and endometriosis, which causes painful menstruation and ovulation. But cancer and cancerous cells? It just doesn't seem fair to be paying for the sins of an abuser.

I stop reading to think about the children I may or may not have. No matter how hard I try to protect my little girl from abuse it might still happen. Will I have to hold my daughter's hand in thirty years when she receives the news that she too has cervical cancer? I surely hope not. I know the feminist movement can't entirely stop abusers, but the hope in me will never die that we will manage to effectively reverse the abusive cycle through education and counseling and to stop further abuse by enacting harsher laws for sexual crimes.

It's been almost three weeks since I underwent the procedure to freeze the cancerous growth. The discharge is all but gone as is the pain and the cramping. I feel healthier now that my body is rid of the cancer and I am glad that I had the cancer removed. Whatever it was that caused me to have the cancerous cells on my cervix, whether it was genetics or my past sexual history of abuse, I have dealt with it. As I hope all survivors do, I know that it wasn't my fault and that I have to continue to do what is healthy for me and what will widen my chances of survival in this world. I now feel not like a scared little girl, but like a brick wall. Strong, impenetrable, and able to take anything that comes its way.