Even as she battles cervical cancer, young woman also fights to spread awareness

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month, and the Cancer Services Program of Suffolk County is raising awareness regarding cervical cancer, a specific type that affects the cells lining the cervix, and offering free cancer screenings to those who qualify.

“Regular screening is key to preventing cervical cancer or finding it early, when treatment is most effective,” said Cancer Services Program of Suffolk County Director Maureen O’Connor in a statement.

Last June, after months of experiencing irregular menstrual cycles and severe spotting, 27-year-old Dulce Rojas—a bright-eyed, passionate and positive young woman— was diagnosed with cervical cancer, three weeks after her maternal grandfather had passed away.

“I knew something was wrong for months, but I kept putting it off,” she said. “First I thought it had to do with my hyperthyroidism and then, with my grandfather’s situation, I just didn’t listen to my body.”

Rojas said that her first reaction was to panic and to think of her mom and how was she going to take the news so soon after the passing of her father, but then she remembered the wise words of her late friend and well-known immigrant advocate and community leader Sandra Gil, who passed away last fall from uterine cancer.

“She was my biggest inspiration, “ Rojas said. “She told me to ‘always stay positive’, and that the mind is very powerful.”

Her positivity would certainly be tested in the months that followed.

Rojas’ malignant tumor was larger than a tennis ball, she said, and after a series of tests, doctors told her it had spread to her lymph nodes, or what is also known as IIIB2 stage cancer.

“I was told I had five years to live, not something that is easy to hear and I couldn’t process that,” she said.

Rojas said, that with Gil’s words on her mind, and also drawing up from years of civic activism, she decided right then and there to fight and not give up so easily.

“I thought ‘I’m young and if other people have come out, I can too,’” she said.

Rojas, a community organizer at SEPA Mujer’s — a non-profit organization that advocates for Latina women and women’s rights on Long Island— is familiar with what she calls “la lucha,” or “the fight” in Spanish, a general idiom that describes the process of fighting for human and civil rights, including the right to a healthy, positive life.

“I will fight to raise awareness on this issue,” she said. “Listen to your body, get checked regularly, that is very important.”

“There is a lot of stigma around cervical issues,” she said. “We shouldn’t be uncomfortable to talk about what is happening to our bodies.”

She also said that it wasn’t until recently that she noticed the commercials for HPV vaccines on TV and wondered why wasn’t this a regular topic of conversation in schools or in the media when she was a teenager.

“People need to know there is a vaccine out there for HPV,” she said. “Parents, kids, they need to know they have a precious window of time they can’t miss.”

Today, after months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Rojas’ tumor has “disappeared” and even though she is awaiting the results of her latest scans, she says she feels better.

“Even if the cancer is gone, they have told me that is normal for this type of cancer to come back even two or three more times,” she said. “If it does, I’ll be ready.”

Screenings are key

According to the American Cancer Society this type of cancer was “once of the most common causes of cancer death for American women,” something that changed significantly thanks to the Pap smear, an important screening procedure that detects any change in the cervix and that takes a few minutes at a physician’s office.

And although with other types of cancer is sometimes hard to pinpoint the exact origin, we know that about 90 percent of cervical cancer cases are caused by human papillomavirus or HPV, a sexually transmitted infection that is very common.

Experts say that although most sexually active people have been exposed or are infected with it, of the more than 100 types of HPV that we know of, only about a dozen can sometimes lead to cancer, which translates into a small percentage of those infected with it.

The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2018 there will be about 13,240 new cases of invasive cervical cancer diagnosed and about 4,170 women will die from it.

ACS research also shows that Latino and African-American women—followed by Asians, Pacific Islanders and whites—are more likely to get cervical cancer.

Death rates for cervical cancer seem to have stabilized during the last 15 years, but they haven’t changed much either according to the American Cancer Society, which has led to an increased effort to raise awareness regarding HPV vaccines for children and teens and the importance of having Pap tests done regularly for women over 21 years old.

“You can prevent cervical cancer with the right test at the right time,” O’Connor said.

And although a simple test is all it takes to rule out abnormalities, there are factors like having health insurance or not, that can make it more difficult.

According to the latest New York State data, women without health insurance are much less likely to be screened for cervical cancer when compared to women with health insurance, which is why CSP is encouraging uninsured women to apply to their program and get a free cervical cancer screening.

“The Cancer Services Program of Suffolk County can help close the screening gap for women without insurance,” said O’Connor. “It is also a covered service under most health plans, including Medicaid plans and plans participating in the New York State of Health.”

The Cancer Services Program is currently offering free cervical cancer screening to eligible uninsured women, age 40 or older.

To find out if you quality for the free cancer screenings or for more information, call the Cancer Services Program at 631-369-2770.