I found out today that a very good friend of mine has stage one cervical cancer. The doctor is very adament that it should be easily removable and she will be fine, but it is still very scary. She seems to be handling it well. I don't think I am. I'm going to call her mother tomorrow and check on her. My friend's mother had cancer and her grandmother (maternal) died from breast cancer.

Cervical cancer is easily treated these days, especially stage I. Her chances are very very good for a complete recovery.

But I agree, still scary nonetheless.

Sorry to hear about your friend. Cervical Cancer is very aggressive and has a high rate of coming back, even after initial remission. Good luck to her and hope all involved will stay strong.

This is actually one cancer I know quite a bit about. My older sister had several pre-cancerous lesions removed from her cervix about a year ago. Anyway, the doctor said after the surgery she should be fine and that should not affect her ability to have children (which she wants more than anything).

It's just very scary. Lately there seem to be a lot of people "our age" getting cancer, that is, I'm more aware of it now.

A lot of times the person diagnosed actually handles it better than his/her family and friends. A close friend was diagnosed with Lymphoblastic Leukemia last year and things have recently gone for the worse. It's a rather helpless feeling, as you wish there was something you could do to make things better. I'll keep your friend in my prayers, and hopefully all will turn out for the best.

Damn cancer to bloody hell

As early detected as stage one, mortality rate for cervical cancer is less than 10%, one of the lowest amongst cancers these days.

Hey cattail, we actually had the lectures over this this week, maybe I am actually learning something.

She left me the most nonchalant message tonight. She was like "call me when you get this, I want to ask you some questions, or well, your sister some questions. I have stage one cancer, so call me later."

It was very weird.

Thank goodness for Papanicolaou.

If there was only an early screen as good as the pap smear for most malignancies we'd have it beat.

agreed

yeah, man I wish there were, but there is really promising research on the horizon for a lot of types of cancer.

hopefully she will be a textbook stage 1... and they can remove the abnormal and bordering cells... and they will keep a good eye on her for recurrences.

a friend of mr. cabana's had stage 1 cervical cancer that was discovered after she had her first baby. they removed the suspect cells and did a minute amount of chemo. she went on to have another baby with no incidence, and then had a recurrence recently.

this time, they opted to do a partial hysterectomy, since she's through having kids, which should eliminate her chances for a recurrence of cervical cancer (as the commercial tells us, "women with a cervix are at a higher risk for cervical cancer.".

it is scary, but know that she has an incredibly high chance of coming through with flying colors.

in my experience, it seems like the people who are more scared and don't deal with it as well as the ones who have the curable cancers (stage 1 or 0, breast, cervical, etc.) Cancers that have almost 100% survival rates. And yet these are the people who I talk to who are most freaked out. Meanwhile, I'll talk to people who have stage IV _____________ (which, pretty much any stage IV cancer ain't going to be good) and they seem to be dealing much better

I think it may be that if you have cancer, but its early, you're not so much scared of dying, but you've now at least had to confront that fear and that can actually be scarier than actually knowing that you're probably going to die soon. Just sort of interesting to me in the difference in the outlooks. (also, many that get diagnosed at stage 1 or 0 may be younger, and thus less prepared for death regardless)

my friend had a similar diagnosis of precancerous cervical something-or-other and her prognosis was good. She went through outpatient surgery and is fine.