Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Aware­ness Month takes place every Jan­u­ary, aim­ing to in­crease pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of cer­vi­cal can­cer, its caus­es, and pre­ven­tive mea­sures. Dur­ing this month, health or­gan­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ties world­wide hold var­i­ous events and cam­paigns to ed­u­cate women.

Cer­vi­cal can­cer is pre­dom­i­nant­ly caused by per­sis­tent in­fec­tion with high-risk strains of hu­man pa­pil­lo­mavirus (HPV), mak­ing aware­ness and pre­ven­tion cru­cial.

The theme of this aware­ness month in 2025 is “Pre­vent, Vac­ci­nate! This en­cour­ages women to care for their cer­vi­cal health proac­tive­ly through reg­u­lar screen­ings and the HPV vac­cine to pre­vent ill­ness.

De­spite be­ing one of the most pre­ventable can­cers, cer­vi­cal can­cer re­mains a crit­i­cal health con­cern glob­al­ly, and for Mariska Seereer­am, it be­came a ma­jor health chal­lenge, lead­ing to an ar­du­ous road to­ward re­cov­ery. Seereer­am, a cen­tral Trinidad na­tive, a moth­er of two and the head of Tal­ent Ac­qui­si­tion at Caribbean Re­sourc­ing So­lu­tions Lim­it­ed, was di­ag­nosed with cer­vi­cal can­cer in 2022.

She re­mem­bers sud­den­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing se­vere low­er back pains in De­cem­ber 2021, which she ini­tial­ly at­trib­uted to her pos­ture from work­ing at home, but soon re­alised they were ex­treme­ly un­usu­al.

In the ear­ly months of 2022, she vis­it­ed her OBG­YN to do a pap smear, and when the re­sults came back, there were in­di­ca­tions of ab­nor­mal cells in the cervix.

Her doc­tor rec­om­mend­ed a col­poscopy—a pro­ce­dure al­low­ing close ex­am­i­na­tion of a woman’s cervix, vagi­na, and vul­va by a health­care provider—which en­ables the doc­tor to see ab­nor­mal­i­ties in­vis­i­ble to the naked eye.

Fol­low­ing fur­ther test­ing, in­clud­ing a biop­sy, tests re­vealed she had Stage 1 B2 cer­vi­cal can­cer, mean­ing the can­cer was lo­calised, and the tu­mour mea­sured be­tween two and four cen­time­tres. “When I found out about the can­cer, I felt pos­i­tive that it was still very ear­ly so I would re­cov­er,” she said, and was in­tent on tak­ing quick ac­tion to en­sure re­cov­ery.

Fol­low­ing the hys­terec­to­my, which re­moved her uterus and cervix, an on­col­o­gist re­ferred her for what they called a “mop up,” a few rounds of chemother­a­py to re­move any re­main­ing can­cer­ous cells.

How­ev­er, be­fore she could do that, Seereer­am de­vel­oped a com­pli­ca­tion, a fis­tu­la, which was an open­ing in her blad­der, and by Ju­ly 2022 (two months af­ter her hys­terec­to­my), she had to do re­con­struc­tive blad­der surgery. She, how­ev­er, had to re­cov­er from the surgery be­fore she could do the rec­om­mend­ed chemother­a­py.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, al­though there were no signs of can­cer on her CT scan, Seereer­am’s doc­tor rec­om­mend­ed she still do chemother­a­py, as there were pos­si­bly mi­cro­scop­ic cells that would not show up on the scan and could lead to a re­cur­rence of the can­cer.

“I al­ready had a blad­der that wasn’t ful­ly healed,” she re­mem­bers, “so I was con­cerned about do­ing ra­di­a­tion, which could be a risk to my blad­der.”

As she mulled over her op­tions, Seereer­am did her rou­tine check in Oc­to­ber and due to the lo­cal re­cur­rence of the mi­cro­scop­ic cells, the re­sults showed a four cm tu­mour in the cervix. This tu­mour was al­so af­fect­ing her blad­der by squeez­ing the ure­thra and caus­ing low­er back pain.

Be­cause of the re­cur­rence, she pur­sued chemo-ra­di­a­tion treat­ment, which in­volved one chemother­a­py ses­sion per week along with five ra­dio­ther­a­py ses­sions over the course of six weeks.

“When the can­cer re­curred the sec­ond time, it re­al­ly hit me,” she re­mem­bers, “I felt shame be­cause of the close as­so­ci­a­tion with HPV, and shame for not hav­ing got­ten the vac­cine.”

This shame meant that Seereer­am’s jour­ney to re­cov­ery was not on­ly phys­i­cal but men­tal and emo­tion­al. Up­on her di­ag­no­sis, many peo­ple of­fered min­i­mal sym­pa­thy, non­cha­lant­ly say­ing that cer­vi­cal can­cer was mi­nor, and it would be an “easy fix.”

How­ev­er, along with sup­port from her fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty and the Blue Star Heal­ing and Well­ness Cen­tre in Clax­ton Bay, Seereer­am pur­sued home­o­path­ic heal­ing, in­clud­ing chang­ing her di­et, ex­er­cis­ing, do­ing breath­ing ex­er­cis­es, med­i­ta­tion and do­ing pelvic floor ex­er­cis­es.

By April 2023, she had com­plet­ed treat­ment and re­cov­ery and had to con­tend with ear­ly menopause, which was a re­sult of the ra­di­a­tion.

“It was a very trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence,” Seereer­am says. “I had mo­ments where I felt so alone, and I was so an­gry. Many peo­ple didn’t have em­pa­thy and com­pas­sion for what I was go­ing through, which can go a long way.”

Hav­ing to cope with her ill­ness and re­cov­ery, along with car­ing for her chil­dren, was al­most im­pos­si­ble, and the sup­port from her fam­i­ly and work was in­valu­able. Her ad­vice to women is “to pay at­ten­tion, lis­ten to your body; if you’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing some­thing ab­nor­mal, don’t take it for grant­ed.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she en­cour­ages women to keep cur­rent with their pap smears, as “ear­ly de­tec­tion saved my life, don’t ne­glect get­ting checked reg­u­lar­ly.”

En­sur­ing your health is a pri­or­i­ty can be life-sav­ing

Cer­vi­cal can­cer re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic health chal­lenge in T&T and world­wide, but it is large­ly pre­ventable or treat­able in its ear­ly stages through reg­u­lar screen­ing and vac­ci­na­tion pro­grammes.

Ear­ly de­tec­tion plays a cru­cial role in in­creas­ing the chances of suc­cess­ful treat­ment, em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of reg­u­lar vis­its to an OBG­YN. As we con­tin­ue to ad­vance in med­ical re­search and tech­nol­o­gy, rais­ing aware­ness and en­sur­ing ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty to pre­ven­tive mea­sures can help bridge the gap in cer­vi­cal can­cer care.

Ac­cord­ing to Mariska Seereer­am, “valu­ing your health means valu­ing your­self,” and en­sur­ing your health is a pri­or­i­ty can be life-sav­ing.