Finding Strength During Life After Cervical Cancer

As I turn 43 this summer, I’ve spent much of the past few weeks resting and pressing pause. You see, I work as a school counselor, and summer is generally my time to recover. This year, however, self-reflection has been pressed upon me and my empty schedule. My two teenage children have been on their first solo adventures, and the house has been very quiet.

Over the past several years, as we’ve moved around for my husband’s job, I’ve learned to be a hyper-independent person. But in my case, that independence is also sometimes just part of being a young cancer survivor. Solitude can be comforting, but I usually keep myself very busy because I’ve discovered that quiet times are when I start to remember.

I remember being 30 years old when I was diagnosed with stage 2B cervical cancer. No one understood how it had advanced so quickly. I was simply plucked out of my life as a wife, mother of two very small children, and art teacher. I had just started my first year at a new school with wonderful, caring people. Although I had been pushing through anemia, pain, and exhaustion, I was grateful to be there. Fortunately, after a coworker recommended her OB/Gyn, I was able to quickly seek care at the Cleveland Clinic, where the tumor was discovered.

The treatment plan meant I would lose my fertility, and I struggled with that. “You already have a girl and a boy. You are so lucky!” And I *am* very lucky. I adore my children and am thankful to still be here with them every day. But for 13 years, I’ve looked at large families with envy. I still have baby names I daydream about. I never express this grief out loud—it feels ungrateful. Nevertheless, it remains.

My oncologist performed an ovarian transposition to preserve my hormone function, and then I began a brutal six weeks of daily external beam radiation, weekly eight-hour Cisplatin infusions, and finally, a three-day inpatient stay for brachytherapy. I also learned to dissociate very well. I spent hours staring at ceilings, pretending to be somewhere else. My sense of the future was altered for years.

During treatment, my husband was my rock. He and my mom took turns staying with me at an American Cancer Society Hope Lodge during the week. On weekends, we drove home to see our small children, who were in the care of other family members. Their little hands would cling to me when we returned. I just wanted to protect them from seeing me in such bad shape—but I’m not sure if that was the right decision. I still see the effects of that time on both of them, even now.

They’ve grown up going to cancer centers with me, watching me struggle with the long-term effects of treatment. I know they carry worries they protect me from, the same way I carry sadness that no one else can understand. We’ve become a tight-knit family, and that definitely makes it harder for us to find a sense of community.

Anxieties over abnormal tests, surgeries, scans, and long-term side effects from chemotherapy and radiation are quiet ghosts that linger in our family. When someone we know dies from cancer, the emotions are too complex to explain to others. My father died from cancer a few years ago, and several other beloved family members have passed since my own diagnosis. It makes it hard to stay optimistic about my own future. Survivor’s guilt is very real. They deserved to still be here just as much as I do.

Thirteen years later, I’ve seen milestones I once desperately prayed for. I’m blessed to be working in a profession where I’ve been able to help many children and families through difficult times. My experience has gifted me with compassion and the ability to see the pain others hide—and for that, I am grateful.

When cancer patients are in immediate crisis, people show up and surround them while they fight for their lives. But what happens after you survive? I’ve found that it’s often in the quiet moments—even years later—when the lonely "cancer" feelings return.

Although I’m writing this essay alone in my bedroom tonight, my hope is that someone reading it will find something here that helps them feel a little more connected—and a little less alone. That would make writing this an excellent new coping skill, and a great use of the quiet time I keep trying to avoid.