During one of Bethany Hart’s first checkups while pregnant, she had a routine Pap test and was told the results were abnormal. At the time, the then 30-something was around 10 weeks old, and the nurse reassured Hart that she was probably fine.
“I remember hanging up the phone and having this nagging feeling, like, ‘Well, that’s weird. This had never happened to me before,'” recalled Hart, now 36, of Noblesville , Indiana, to TODAY.com. “I called a couple of my girlfriends, and I think two of the first three I spoke to all said, ‘We’ve had this before too, and this doesn’t was nothing.”
When Hart was 16 weeks pregnant, her doctor performed a colposcopy, a test that takes a closer look at cervical cells. After that, her doctor recommended that she see an oncologist. She soon learned that she had rare and aggressive cervical cancer.
“The oncologist looked at me and said, ‘It’s cancer,'” Hart said. “This is where our whole world was turned upside down out of nowhere.”
Cervical cancer and pregnancy
Prior to her abnormal Pap test, Hart had always had normal results from the test, which tracks changes in cells in the cervix. At first it looked like she would be able to carry her pregnancy, her first, to term, but when she learned that her cervical cancer was small cell, a rare and aggressive type, everything became uncertain. .
Hart did not experience any symptoms or warning signs, like many patients with this type of cancer. Her doctor described the disease to her as “explosive tumors”, which perfectly reflects her own story, she says. Hart visited the OB-GYN regularly during the first weeks of her pregnancy, and “there was never any sign of trouble,” she recalls. But at week 16, “they could see this tumor very clearly and know it was dangerous. It came out of nowhere.”
Hart’s cancer was stage 1. As doctors tried to plan her treatment, which had to be aggressive to overcome the intensity of the cancer, Hart tragically lost her pregnancy at 19 weeks.
“There was just no ability to process what was going on,” Hart says. “You are so grounded in the fight for your life and dealing with the physical side effects of treatment.”
The treatment was intense and included a radical hysterectomy, 28 cycles of external radiation therapy along with five cycles of chemotherapy and a final three cycles of internal radiation therapy.
Hart recalls being told by his doctor that the treatment strategy was to “throw the kitchen sink at him.” “I knew going into it that I was almost going to the brink of death to be saved from cancer,” she says.
Small or large cell cervical cancer
According to the MD Anderson Cancer Center, small or large cell cervical cancer is rare, accounting for about 100 of the nearly 11,000 cases of cervical cancer per year, or less than 1%. It is aggressive and has few, if any, symptoms.
“Most cervical cancers have no symptoms,” Dr. Meera Ravindranathan, medical director of OncoHealth, a group that supports people with cancer, told TODAY.com. “A lot of times when you have symptoms, it’s more advanced cancer.”
Symptoms of cervical cancer can include:
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Bleeding between periods
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Bleeding after sex
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An unusual discharge
People often experience these symptoms for other reasons, making it difficult to know when to speak to a doctor. But Ravindranathan says it’s important to tell your doctor about bleeding and spotting so they can rule out cervical cancer.
“There is shame and embarrassment in talking about women’s bodies,” Ravindranathan says. “It’s very important for women to have a relationship with their doctor where they feel comfortable and have the confidence to talk about their bodies, especially young women.”
Screening can lead to earlier diagnosis of cervical cancer. The American Cancer Society recommends cervical cancer screening between ages 25 and 65 with one of three options: a primary human papillomavirus (HPV) test every five years, a Pap test only every 3 years or a combined HPV and Pap test every five years. , TODAY.com previously reported.
HPV is a “ubiquitous virus,” responsible for most cases of cervical cancer, says Ravindranathan. Most people contract it through bodily fluids, Dr. Marshall Posner, co-lead of the clinical cancer investigation program at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, previously told TODAY.com. For most people, the body is able to eliminate HPV, so the virus is no longer active in their system. But for a small part of the population, the virus is reactivated and can cause cancer; We do not know why.
“Some people get a lingering infection in those cells in the cervix, and then the virus stays there long enough to make those cells precancerous,” says Ravindranathan. “If we don’t detect these pre-cancerous cells or the HPV infection with a Pap test, then the pre-cancerous cells turn into cancer. The one thing to remember, though, is that the process takes about 10-15 years.
HPV causes more than 95% of cervical cancers, according to the World Health Organization, but the type of cancer Hart suffered from – small cell cervical cancer – has no definite link to HPV. “The cause is not fully understood,” noted MD Anderson.
These types of cancer have “a natural propensity to grow quickly and spread, and no matter how quickly we catch it, we always use chemotherapy and radiation because we know it’s very aggressive”, explains Ravindranathan, adding that surgery can also precede chemo. .
Create a legacy
After treatment ended, Hart dealt with the grief of losing his daughter, Hallie. She and her husband had just bought a house and set up a nursery, which became a constant reminder of their loss.
“Every time I walk past his room, it’s just that reminder,” she says. “Losing your daughter, having to deal with cancer, having to deal with the fact that we will never have a biological family at the same time – those are three very important life events in themselves. But all three happening together were extraordinary. .
In 2018, Hart established the Hallie Strong Foundation to honor the daughter she lost. She sends fun and comfy socks to cancer patients.
“Socks are just a very real need. Hospitals are horrible. They’re so sterile, and often when you’re in the hospital, socks are the only thing you can wear,” she says. “We do purposely something to create that constant reminder that every time they’re worn, that you’re not alone, and there’s that legacy of a little girl who lost her life to a cancer diagnosis. “
Hart is cancer free, but due to the aggressiveness of this cancer, she is still worried about a recurrence.
“There is always this little (fear) forever in my mind,” she says. “As a cancer survivor, it’s hard to tell when it’s a cough because you have a sinus infection or it’s a cough because it’s lung cancer? I think I will always look at life through this lens.
Through adoption, she and her husband now have two boys, ages 3 and 1, who are her “saving grace.” She serves as a peer mentor with Iris by OncoHealth, an oncology-focused app, and shares her experiences to help others feel less alone.
“No matter what your diagnosis is, no matter what type of cancer it is, it’s incredibly difficult,” Hart says. “Sharing your story just opens the door for someone to walk through it now to say, ‘Hey, what you’re feeling…it’s completely normal. We all understand. And the more you open up and let people in, the better you will be able to survive.
This article originally appeared on TODAY.com