When Samantha was 27 years old, she discovered that she had cervical cancer. HPV causes almost all cases of cervical cancer. Samantha decided to share her story to encourage parents to protect their children from HPV by getting them vaccinated.
Samantha tells her story when she began to feel symptoms that she did not take seriously at first. She says, “After a year of a love affair, I started suffering from severe pelvic pain. I would wake up almost every day in pain, so I had to take an aspirin before I could continue my day. I also started bleeding.” “A little after sex, I still waited about a year before consulting a doctor. I’m one of those people who doesn’t go to the doctor unless things are really bad.”
“I was putting off my regular cervical screening because, as a young woman in my twenties, I didn’t think I needed to go to those regular appointments,” she admits.
Finally, Samantha went to the doctor, in her opinion that “the examination would not take long, but I felt that the examination took an unusual amount of time, for the doctor to confirm that he saw something that was not reassuring.”
At first glance, Samantha thought she might have a bad infection, but when the doctor called to make sure there was a specialist to test her, she realized her condition was worse than she thought. She began asking herself the following questions: “Why didn’t I consult a doctor earlier? Why didn’t I take care of myself enough? What did I do?”
Samantha explains, “I did not receive the HPV vaccine at the age of 11 or 12 because it was simply not available. I got both doses when I turned 18, but it seems that I was infected with the virus before I got the dose. This is why it is important to get vaccinated at an early age.”
I was completely helpless
Her fears began to grow since she visited the doctor and had a biopsy, after she received a call from the doctor informing her of the results of the tests and that she was suffering from cervical cancer. She describes that moment, saying: “I was really shocked. I couldn’t speak or do anything. I was completely helpless.”
Samantha underwent intensive radiation and chemotherapy, and during her treatment journey she points out, “I was very miserable, very sad, and I was in a depression. I was vomiting all the time and I was eating only a little food. I sank into my illness, completely surrendering. But laughter heals everything.” “I was unable to even laugh. I was lucky because my mother was by my side all the time, to take care of me and lift me out of that depression every day.”
Samantha seeks to increase awareness and highlight the importance of vaccination against the papillomavirus, conducting periodic examinations, and not neglecting any symptom. “Today, I am deprived of motherhood. When my illness was diagnosed, I only wanted to be healthy. Today, I feel great regret every day, and that part of my being a woman has been stolen from me. Therefore, vaccination and periodic examination are considered effective weapons in prevention.”
The big battle
Every two minutes a woman dies from #preventablecervicalcancer. We know full well that the battle against cancer is great, and preventing it must be our primary goal.
The reality today is different from what we aspire to, as the call to strengthen early detection is met with a low percentage of vaginal swab tests that did not exceed 32 percent in Lebanon. Based on this reality, the American University Medical Center and the Ministry of Health launched an awareness and vaccination campaign against cervical cancer extending from 2024 to 2027.
In this regard, Minister of Health Firas Al-Abyad referred to the Ministry’s efforts to include the vaccine within the national immunization calendar so that it becomes part of primary care and is available in the Ministry’s centers, especially since scientific studies have shown that countries that have adopted this vaccine have recorded a decrease in the incidence of cervical cancer. .
The Minister confirmed that work is focused with the World Health Organization to show Lebanon’s need for this vaccine in numbers, and with officials at Gavi (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) during meetings held with them in New York and Geneva. In addition to the visit of the CEO of Gavi to Lebanon in April, where the topic of the vaccine against cervical cancer will be on the priority list.
The goal today is to emphasize prevention and primary health care instead of limiting the health sector’s interest to treatment only, especially in light of the economic crisis in Lebanon. In Al-Abyad’s opinion, “We are fighting a great battle against cancer, and this battle is not limited to Lebanon, but rather in all countries of the world, as the numbers revealed that the number of cancer patients is increasing as a result of many factors.
But due to the chaos in Lebanon, whether in environmental matters and materials entering Lebanon or the lack of awareness among people, it constitutes an obstacle to reducing the incidence of cervical cancer. It is necessary to continue campaigns to stimulate prevention, because citizen awareness and awareness of the importance of the opportunities available for prevention will prevent them from contracting the disease.”
Lack of prevention
In 2013, the director of the National Cancer Foundation gave a speech describing how much more difficult the war on cancer had become: “There is a contradiction that must be confronted, despite the tremendous progress we have made in understanding the flaws and errors in cancer cells. We have not yet succeeded in controlling cancer as a human scourge to limit “What we believe is possible is because we focus so much on treatment and not on prevention.”
WISH Program Director, Dr. Faisal Al-Qaq, starts from this statement to highlight the importance of increasing awareness about methods of prevention and regular periodic examination, and considered that “a woman should not lose her life to cervical cancer, and we all cooperate to remove the risk of this cancer that can be avoided through prevention, vaccination, and ensuring health protection.” Women and society.”
Al-Qaq knows well that a prevention policy can protect people and save lives to a greater extent than treatment and surgery. Therefore, the biggest cause of death is not cancer, but rather the lack of prevention. About 300,000 women die annually from this disease, while the relevant departments record 600,000 new cases annually, making cervical cancer the fourth most common cancer among women in the world.
“One hand does not clap”
In turn, Dr. Fadlo Khoury stressed the importance of cancer prevention, emphasizing the importance of cooperation and working hand in hand with the Ministry of Public Health and other official government institutions to achieve results that benefit society. He believed that confronting cancer is a battle that requires a lot of collaborative efforts.
There were also speeches by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Raymond Sawaya, the Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Anwar Nassar, and the two doctors, Marianne Majdalani and Soha Sharara, in which it was emphasized that reliable scientific studies show the feasibility of the vaccine against cervical cancer, which ranks fourth among the most common cancers in the world. However, it is possible to avoid it through prevention and vaccination.
2024-02-23 16:46:00
#cancer #avoid…so #shouldnt
