Posted on 04/19/2014 5:16:28 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Doctors first told Jessica Bradford she was too young to have cervical cancer but she went home and identified the symptoms on the internet
A brave teenager battling cancer has told how doctors wrongly suspected her of having a sexually transmitted disease.
Doctors initially believed Jessica Bradford was too young to have cervical cancer and believed her symptoms could be linked to unsafe sex.
But numerous tests, scans and biopsies confirmed the 18-year-old trainee hairdresser's worst fears.
Now the brave teenager is juggling a college hairdressing course with her treatment and wants to speak out to raise awareness.
It was after displaying symptoms of bleeding and discharge in December last year, Jessica, of the Rhymney Valley, south Wales, went to see a doctor straight away.
“At first doctors thought it was thrush and gave antibiotics,” said Jessica’s mum Julie, who is also a hairdresser.
“Then thought it was bacteria infection, then they thought it was a sexually transmitted disease.
“I think she went back to the doctors about five times. They thought it couldn’t be cervical cancer because of her age.”
Screenings for cervical cancer are only available on the NHS for women over the age of 20, but Jessica looked up her symptoms online and was sure she had cervical cancer.
Internal scans then revealed that Jessica had a growth on her cervix which a further biopsy revealed was cancerous.
But the biggest shock of all came last week when Jessica was told that she could never have children because the radiotherapy treatment would leave her infertile.
“She has been so upset about that because she loves children,” mum-of-three Julie, 42, said. “When we thought Jess was just having chemotherapy, she might have been able to have children by caesarean.
“But having radiotherapy too would destroy the womb so it completely destroy her chances of having children.”
However, Jessica is determined not to “sit around and mope” but to continue going to college every day during her five-week course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Now Jessica and her mum Julie are doing all they can to raise awareness about the importance of spotting symptoms and going to see a doctor early.
“Just go to see a doctor soon as you get the symptoms and don’t stop until they give you a definite answer,” Jessica said.
“I also think they should reduce the age for smear tests to 18.”
Her mum added: “At the first sign of symptoms Jessica went to a doctor. But the scans showed that the growth was already pretty big. If she had left it any longer it would have been too late.”
Jessica hopes to make a full recovery and plans one day to open her own hair salon.
And this is what Ostupidcare is modeled after; to all the young ladies who voted for the communist organizer once or perhaps even twice, this is one of your most probable futures.
Are the saying that this young lady did NOT develop cervical cancer secondary to HPV infection?
How does that square with telling women who have received Gardasil vaccination that they got a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer? If there are other etiologies for the disease, shouldn’t the public be informed?
What's wrong with this picture?
I never heard that HPV was the only cause of cervical cancer. Is that true?
Does this young lady have to tell her sex life to the whole world? If she were to admit she hadn’t had sex, she’d probably be opening herself up to ridicule?
99.7 % of cervical cancers, which may mean she is one of 3 in a thousand not , right? But the article is incomplete and ambiguous.
From 2000 to 2004, the United States age-adjusted incidence of cervical cancer in girls under age 20 was 0.1 per 100,000, rising to 1.5 per 100,000 in women age 20 to 24 years, and then ranging from 11.0 to 15.8 per 100,000 for women age 30 to over 85 years.
Obama probably wants to raise the age for pap smears
Nothing in the story says it couldn’t have been an STD
I had cervical cancer in 1981 and it was not Hpv. My doctor said less than 5 % of cervical cancer was the type I had. It was so rare that I was used as a teaching example to the interns in training.
I had radiation therapy but thankfully I had my family already. I am now 78. Thankful mine was found in time to be treated with radiation. My heart goes out to this young girl who can’t have a family. She seems to have a good attitude though.
I’m interested in the fact that our government is pushing Gardasil as “a vaccine that prevents cervical cancer.” One can easily see them adding, “... and therefore, you don’t need Pap tests.”
How many more deaths will result?
In the US we start doing Paps once a woman becomes sexually active since Almost all cervical cancer is due to HPV. Now for example, if this woman had become sexually active at say 12, and he been exposed to HPV she would have had time to develop cervical cancer. Or she could be one of the rare couple of percent who develop it without HPV.
At issue is the government’s denial of the diagnostic test. We’ll be seeing more of that here - more than we’re already seeing. People who are diagnosed with cancer late in its progression die more quickly, for a lower total cost to “the system.”
agreed
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