Cervical cancer survivor shares her ‘story of redemption’
NORTH RIDING – Local resident shares her cervical cancer journey while encouraging preventative measures.
Marina van Zyl made her way to the front of the room, with long strides accompanied by the click of her heels.
“Mine is a story of redemption and a lot of women, 50 per cent of women who get diagnosed with cervical cancer, don’t live to tell the story of redemption and I have a lot to be grateful for and I’m aware of this.”
Van Zyl was diagnosed with cervical cancer after her annual pap smear. Her gynaecologist told her that she had to come back in a year as he had noticed abnormal cells at the microscopic inspection of the cervix feared by women. After being diagnosed, her mother moved in with her and her friends offered consistent support throughout her journey.
The survivor recalled the sequence of events when she told her loved ones that she has the disease and that it felt as if she was ‘kicked in the gut’. She found herself in the role of comforter due to their reactions, however, she continued to have sit-down conversations with loved ones about her health scare.
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“I had friends who prayed for me and I believed I would be healed but I didn’t know how that healing would look like.”
Van Zyl was grateful to her support structure and noted that information given to patients about cervical cancer was limited, even in her experience in a private hospital. This coincided with what Bongiwe Nkosi, senior radiation therapist in radiation oncology at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital had to say about the lack of education.
Nkosi explained the trajectory of a patient in the public sector’s journey through the motions of cervical cancer. Patients have delayed treatment due to trauma, lack of support structures, no sense of urgency or time and the lack of infrastructure to deal with the disease, among other challenges. Cervical cancer has found itself side-lined to other cancers in the past.
Van Zyl urged parents to vaccinate their children between the ages of 9 and 12 against human papillomavirus (HPV). People can be vaccinated until the age of 26, where more than 70 per cent of cervical cancer can be caused by HPV, which has over 100 different strains.
