Cedar Rapids woman listens to her body, catches cervical cancer at early stage

When Carissa Starleaf, 32, started experiencing prolonged periods - sometimes lasting three weeks or longer - she knew something was up.

'I'd always been super regular, like clockwork,” Starleaf said. 'So I knew something was going on, but having an abnormal period is super common and could be a ton of different things.”

It could be stress, for example. She and her husband had just moved and a pet had recently died, she said. But a internet search revealed it could be something much worse, so she decided to find a doctor despite years without regular check ups - she and her husband were young and healthy, only going to urgent care when necessary, she explained.

After a Pap smear came back abnormal, her doctor recommended a colposcopy - a procedure that takes a closer look at the cervix.

Again, the test came back with indefinite results, so Starleaf was sent home.

'But I still had this prolonged bleeding,” she said. 'Months went by and it was still happening and I wasn't getting any answers.”

Desperate, Starleaf begged a doctor with an OB-GYN specialty to help her, despite not being available for new patients at the time.

She was lucky. The doctor agreed.

Again, Starleaf had an abnormal pap result. This time, her doctor noticed 'a weird cell formation” and recommended a LEEP procedure, which uses a thin electrical wire to remove abnormal tissue from the cervix.

The day she was supposed to have the LEEP, though, the doctor noticed the cell formation had grown. She advised another colposcopy, which finally revealed the answer.

In August 2016, months after Starleaf started visiting doctors in January, she was diagnosed with stage 1B cervical cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, cervical cancer was once one of the most common causes of cancer-related deaths in American women. But over the years, the rate has gone down more than 50 percent due to increased use of the Pap test, which can find the cancer early.

They estimate approximately 12,820 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2017 and 4,210 women will die as a result.

'I was not expecting the diagnosis at all,” Starleaf said. 'But it could have been so much worse. This is a very treatable cancer, especially when caught early. And I have access to a great hospital with excellent treatment options.”

'Most of the time, cervical cancer is caught early or right before it becomes an aggressive and invasive cancer - about 60 to 70 percent of the time,” said Dr. Jean-Marie Stephan, a doctor in gynecologic oncology at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

'Treatment depends on the wishes of the patient to preserve fertility and the stage of cancer,” he added.

Starleaf received treatment at UIHC, where doctors first recommended a radical hysterectomy - a procedure that completely removes the uterus and cervix.

'Luckily we had already made the decision to not have children years ago, so that didn't come into play which I was really thankful for,” Starleaf said. 'I feel for people who hadn't made that decision and then it gets made for them.”

Then, additional scans revealed her tumor was bigger than they'd thought and had spread to localized lymph nodes.

'That took the hysterectomy of the table, so then the treatment plan was a combo of chemo, external radiation and internal radiation,” she said.

Once she started radiation, the bleeding finally stopped. In fact, her ovaries had disintegrated as a result of the radiation. Now, at just 32-years-old, Starleaf is going through menopause. However, she is done with treatment and, so far, cancer free.

'If something's wrong and you're not getting the answers you're looking for, keep asking questions,” Starleaf advised. 'If I wouldn't have gone and sought a different doctor and really pushed the issue, right around now I would have been going in for the yearly exam and the cancer would have progressed another four months. ... I know some people are scared about going to the doctor, but not knowing doesn't mean you're not sick. It just means you're not getting diagnosed and starting treatment.

'That's why it's important to catch things early,” she continued. 'Make sure you're going in for your yearly appointments and get the (HPV) vaccine if you're able to, because this is definitely a preventable form of cancer.”

Stephan also recommended women go to yearly screenings and get Pap smears starting at age 21. Vaccination eligibility ends at age 26, so he advised women be vaccinated before then.

Starleaf also emphasized the importance of having access to affordable health care.

'Not everybody has insurance and not everybody has time to take off work to go see different doctors or be able to push it,” she said. 'We need to make sure people have access to health care to do preventive things like Pap smears and cancer screenings.”

Regardless, women need to be 'very aware of what their body is telling them” and go to the doctor when needed, he said.

'It's curable if caught early and there's plenty of opportunity unlike other cancers,” he said. 'You just have to act on it and make sure you get a yearly exam.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8364; elizabeth.zabel@thegazette.com