Cervical Cancer

[Melena]

Never thought i'd be making a BG Medical thread, but here goes. So my wife had her first pap smear done 2 weeks ago (yay for not having medical till we were married then actually being able to get a job that let her have time off to go to said appointment) and the results were not good. HPV + cancerous cells were found. We have a biopsy set up to confirm and see how advanced it is, but the doctor told her at her age, the chances of a false positive are incredibly low. She is doing a consultation over the phone with her doctor today before work to get more info, but i'm wondering if anyone here has or knows someone who has gone through this, and what the potential treatments are. We know a full and partial hysterectomy are potentials, but since that would pretty much mean not having a family of our own we are not keen on that unless it's an only way to save my wife kind of thing.

We also know radiation is a possible treatment but we have no idea how that may affect her being able to have a child so were sitting here playing a waiting game.

[solanis]

I'm sorry to hear this my family just closed another chapter of cancer treatment (breast cancer) and for her, it was surgery to remove the tumors -> more surgery to get the edges clean -> chemo -> radiation -> post-treatment therapy for the next several years (lots of pills, diet, things like acupuncture)

I messaged an oncologist friend and he says if the tumor is benign it can be removed with surgery, but if it's more complicated then you can probably expect a similar course of treatment to the one I described above and the removal of the whole uterus + parts of the vagina, and the lymph nodes if the cancer's advanced. however, I know there are some modern surgeries that are less extreme and can preserve fertility. aside from that, can you freeze her eggs, or is it important to you that she carries your children physically? above all, listen to your doctors and don't get pulled into the alternative treatments bullshit.

[Melena]

Surrogate is a possibility though obviously an emotional choice. The funny thing is we knew she has fertility issues which is why we went in to confirm her PCOS and got this tossed in along with it. Thankfully she already has a built in cancer support group as her maid of honor is battling a bone cancer that 99% of the time targets women in there 50's or later, and she's in her mid 20's, so none of the treatments out there work for her. The really shitty part is her doctor can't do the biopsy till the 31st and since my wife hates doctors, only wants her doing it so we are hoping for a cancellation so she can get in sooner so we are not sitting and playing the waiting game.

[solanis]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you guys, can definitely empathize with the terrible stress of waiting for available surgery times, then the results, so on and so forth. if your wife has issues with doctors it's probably something that she will have to force herself to get over if this turns out to be cancer, since she'll suddenly have a whole team of doctors, second opinions, blah blah, and cervical cancer treatment is pretty invasive... it sounds like she's in good hands for emotional support between you and her friends/family, though. it seems like lots of cancer gets caught while doing other unrelated tests, thank god for small blessings right :/

[Kerberoz]

above all, listen to your doctors and don't get pulled into the alternative treatments bullshit.

x100000000000000

If you so much as hear the words "laetrile" "holistic" "complementary" "homeopathic" etc, get the fuck out of there.

http://quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRela...cs/cancer.html
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/medicine/cancer/

[Melena]

Thankfully we are not hippies lol. While we agree second and third opinions are good, fuck that whole if you eat this weed your cancer will go away man bullshit. Luckily Kaiser stays away from that bullshit. Yea i know lol kaiser but outside of a quack who got fired when he misdiagnosed my hip problem when I was a toddler they've been pretty good to us.

As for the trust, a lot of it comes from doctors not listening to her when she was younger and I can sympathize with that. Nothing pissed me off more when I tried to tell my doctor (non kaiser) that I really did seperate my shoulder when playing baseball and that the shoulder popping every time I swing is not a good thing and he pretty much told me to walk it off since I had a full range of motion.

[archibaldcrane]

Whoa whoa whoa - "cancerous" or "pre-cancerous"?

Pap smears come back with "pre-cancerous" HPV+ results ALL THE TIME. I've dated a couple different girls who have had this result.

They may just need to excise or freeze the problematic areas off, will cause some discomfort and bleeding but nothing long-term.

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/wom...lpapsmear.html

If she does have 100% dead-ringer cervical cancer, I'm sorry - but catching it via a pap smear is WAY better than when real symptoms start to appear.

[Melena]

Yea, were just glad we caught this now instead of who knows when. The only kicker is we don't know how long it's been dormant. From what I've read it is a very slow growing cancer so odds are well in our favor. It's more of what are we looking at having to get done to kill the fucker. Last night was obviously emotional, but today is back to work. Can't let this shit dictate our lives. Still have our disneyland trip in december and can't let a little cancer get in the way of our fun

[archibaldcrane]

But seriously, 1 in 10 pap smears come back "abnormal".

[archibaldcrane]

Also, this is why everyone should get the HPV vaccine (men and women).

[Melena]

Yea, the vaccine wasn't available when she was younger, and I think this last year was her first year of medical coverage in at least ten years. Go USA

[Tyche]

Treatment is going to depend on the stage. There's at least 4 treatments that preserve fertility. Conization, laser, cautery, and cryosurgery. If they have to do radiation, it's about 4-6 weeks and can use external or internal implants. Not sure about chemo. A lot of times, they'll use treatments in combination, it just depends. She may have surgery and radiation, or may just have one.

[solanis]

Also, this is why everyone should get the HPV vaccine (men and women).

preach. the people who argue against it (usually republican crazies) are dangers to society imo

[archibaldcrane]

preach. the people who argue against it (usually republican crazies) are dangers to society imo

They really market it wrong though. Considering it prevents against two types of genital warts, they should be screaming "DO YOU WANT WARTS ON YOUR DICK? NO? GET THIS SHOT YOU DUMB FUCK!"

[Silenka]

Sorry Melena, can I ask how old your wife is? I haven't gotten a pap smear yet either (I am 26) and this is the result I'm fearing for myself since I put it off so long (spotty medical coverage + generally being dumb). Sorry to hear, I hope she is ok and it is manageable for you. I think 25 is the cutoff for getting the vaccine, or so I heard.

[archibaldcrane]

I think 25 is the cutoff for getting the vaccine, or so I heard.

Because generally speaking, most 25-year olds have fucked someone with HPV already, yeah.

[chiyio]

Also, this is why everyone should get the HPV vaccine (men and women).

thirding this. Anybody who doesn't get their kids this vaccine is negligent as fuck and should die in fire. And if anybody here is young enough to get it (I think the cutoff is 25 or so) and hasn't had it, you should go get it right now.

[Melena]

Sorry Melena, can I ask how old your wife is? I haven't gotten a pap smear yet either (I am 26) and this is the result I'm fearing for myself since I put it off so long (spotty medical coverage + generally being dumb). Sorry to hear, I hope she is ok and it is manageable for you. I think 25 is the cutoff for getting the vaccine, or so I heard.

She turned 33 in July

[Sqwunk]

Thankfully we are not hippies lol. While we agree second and third opinions are good, fuck that whole if you eat this weed your cancer will go away man bullshit. Luckily Kaiser stays away from that bullshit.

I don't know the affect on Cervical Cancer, but to say that weed (actually THC) has no affect on cancer cells is pretty ignorant.

Like I said, I don't know about Cervical, but it definitely helps with lung and brain cancer and tumors caused by cancer. My friends dad would probably be dead now if not for THC keeping his lung cancer down. His doctor had him stop smoking for 1 month and then evaluated what the cancer in his lungs was doing, and there was a sudden increase in cell growth. 1 month later (after going back to his usual smoking routine) the doctor had him go in again for another check-up, and the cancer cells had stopped growing and began to shrink.

Besides personal experience there is scientific proof that THC kills cancer cells.

http://scienceblogs.com/scientificac...ls_the_mun.php

A new study by Salazar et al. in The Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrates that THC causes tumor cells to begin to degrade themselves from the inside (a process called autophagy, i.e. "self-eating"). Although autophagy has been shown to promote cell survival in some cases and cell death in others, the authors show that in this case it causes cancer cells to undergo programmed cell death (apoptosis). Thus, THC activates a series of events within cancer cells, inhibiting tumor growth.

Despite the imagery that the title of this post (and maybe even casual experience) may imply, it's not that THC causes cancer cells to ravenously and indiscriminately destroy themselves. Rather, by binding to certain cell-surface receptors, THC activates a cell signaling pathway that leads to cell death. This is a very orderly process, with autophagy just contributing one important step. The authors of this paper work out many of the molecular players in this process, using siRNA and cells derived from knockout mice, although I'll leave it to the interested reader to further explore that aspect by reading the paper if so inclined.

But I don't know if smoking or eating it would cause the THC to go anywhere near cancer cells in the cervix.

[edit] Hope everything turns out for the best though and that you actually have nothing to worry about

[Melena]

I meant weed in a general form as in plants etc, not the mary jane.