Mount Temple’s Anne says: ‘Women need to listen to their bodies’

By Navjyoti Dalal

On September 20, oncologists, patients, and caregivers around the world shared stories and insights around the various forms of gynaecological cancer. Their goal was to endorse prevention, early detection, and reduction of social stigma around ovarian, uterine, vaginal, or vulval cancers.

The day is observed as World GO Day, where GO stands for gynaecologic oncology. Closer home, in Mount Temple, Anne Nally, a cervical cancer survivor, and an advocate of better medical services for patients and survivors, opened up with Westmeath Independent about her story, which is heartwrenching and inspiring in equal parts.

There's hardly anyone in Mount Temple who doesn't know Anne. Born and raised in the Westmeath village, Anne has always been known as an outgoing, bright, social girl.

"The village shaped my love for the outdoors and animals. I love horse-riding, and anything to do with animals," shared Anne, who grew up in Mount Temple and now lives there with her husband and child. For the last decade, though, her identity has shifted from the social, animal-loving girl, to a survivor who alchemised her pain into purpose to help others.

When the best and worst cohabit

Fifteen years ago, a 29-year-old Anne found out she was pregnant with her first child. It was the news she had been preparing for over a year.

"A year before embarking on parenthood, I was readying myself for the pregnancy, doing everything perfectly, by the book, like taking folic acid supplements, doing all the necessary tests, including the PAP smears, which came back negative," shared Anne, who was ecstatic about starting family with her husband.

As the pregnancy progressed, she began to bleed heavily. "I thought I had miscarried. The doctors checked it and, after some tests, diagnosed that I have cervical cancer," recounted Anne, who had never imagined she would hear the worst news of her life, during its happiest phase.

She didn't have time for feelings then, decisions had to be made. "I was 29-weeks pregnant when I was diagnosed, I held on to the baby till 33 weeks, and delivered Colin premature," she shared. The doctors' initial plan of removing the tumour right after taking the baby out didn't go as planned.

"But Colin wasn't breathing at first. There were several interventions they had to do, so they just closed me up and decided to do it after six weeks, once my caesarean-section scar had healed. Colin was placed in the NICU," she added.

Anne, on the other hand, spent the next four months being treated for cervical cancer in Dublin, away from her newborn, and family. "I thank my husband and family for looking after Colin while I stayed in the cancer care centre. It was a hard time, but I didn't have the time or choice to go through the motions," she explained.

When survival feels like bereavement

Anne's treatment included radiation, chemotherapy and brachytherapy. As a result of the treatment, she had to go through menopause at 30, and was told she couldn't have children anymore.

"I went into a dark place, a very difficult phase. I couldn't accept the new reality, that I can't have any more children, that I wouldn't be able to work to my fullest potential again, and that this is going to be permanent in my life. My whole life revolved around my cancer, my sickness, my treatment," limned Anne.

When a womb becomes a tomb, the epitaph tells a story of living with death. Anne emphasises that cancer treatment should go beyond the physiological and a patient needs mental and emotional healing too. The new reality doesn't just affect the patient/survivor, but also their caregivers and family.

"It's so important to seek help and psychological counselling. Depression creeps in; difficulties in marriage and finances start to emerge. I was grieving the loss of so many things. When you leave the hospital after ridding the body of cancer, you're supposed to be 'good'. But that wasn't the case. It took a lot of time to get used to the new reality," Anne detailed.

And then came another blow, a punch in the gut. On a regular check-up for Colin, when he was less than a year old, Anne was handed another diagnosis. "In the new year of 2013, I was going for a doctor's visit, where I was told that Colin had Cerebral Palsy, which he developed due to the complications during his birth," Anne told.

The new Status Quo

The news meant diverting whatever survived of her spirit into taking care of Colin, and healing herself.

Anne detailed that the body goes into shock due to the various therapies -- chemo, radiation and brachy. The fatigue is unbearable, and one’s bladder and bowel function is terribly compromised. “The brachytherapy is very extreme (it is when radioactive seeds, pellets or wires are placed directly inside the tumour or near it to kill the cancer). Eventually, you’re cured of the cancer, but what’s left of your body is unrecognisable. It’s badly scarred,” Anne described.

Once a marketing executive at an accountancy firm, Anne had taken four years of recuperation to return to work, if only part-time. She is currently working part-time for an interior design firm, Ashen & Cloud, and appreciates her boss and colleagues of being accommodating and sensitive to her situation. She shared that she chose the part-time model to be present for Colin.

The road to healing is long and winding. It has been 14 years since her treatment, but her post-cancer life still has a large shadow of malaise over it, be it the volume of medication she takes every day, or the regular checkups and tests she gets done. There is also the fear of relapse she lives under. "One has to live with that fear, but you need to live anyway. Speaking to the right consultants is very helpful," said Anne.

Also part of her new normal are her regular brushes with grief, while the world expects a survivor to always be in a state of gratefulness. "There's so much you lose in your trade-in with survival. Gratitude and grief live next to each other in a cancer survivor's life. There's gratitude for life despite the cancer, but there is also grief that you don't have the same body, health, or career anymore," Anne added.

Using pain to pave the way

Anne has distilled all of her grief, pain and learning from her cancer experience into her voice, as a leading advocate of Gynaecologic Oncology awareness and patient solidarity.

She has championed the cause of better medical services, including physiotherapy, and psychological counselling, for patients, not just during the course of treatment, but even after.

"Cancer is a cruelty that we forever live with," noted Anne.

"I am a part of a community called This is GO (thisisgo.ie), which is a platform has doctors, patients and survivors working with and for each other. Our aim is to advocate for better services for women even in towns and country, not just the cities and big towns," said Anne who believes support groups should not be limited to patients alone.

"Caregivers too need to feel seen and heard, this is where such a group may help. For instance, my husband Jonathan is amazing, he is so patient. He lives with the added responsibility of taking care of the family financially, shouldering the responsibility of raising a child with needs," she added.

Anne said that women should attune themselves to their bodies. "Except for cervical cancer, the other gynaecologic cancers do not have a test or screening. There are many symptoms, but the most common and overlooked symptom is bleeding irregularly. But it is also the main symptom of cervical cancer. Women need to listen to their bodies, and be verbal about what they are feeling," she explained.