Receiving the news from your doctor that you have cancer is certainly devastating. On the other hand, finding out that you are pregnant is undoubtedly a source of joy for any family. But what happens when both situations occur at the same time?
This was what happened to Karrie-Ann Hoppe of the United Kingdom, when on the eve of Christmas 2015 the doctors told her she had breast cancer. A few weeks later and still trying to understand what was happening, he received other news: I was three months pregnant.
Although it is not the first case of a pregnant woman who finds out about cancer or vice versa, they usually choose to continue with the pregnancy, and once the baby is born start with chemotherapies. It has happened that some decide to postpone the treatment until their baby is born, but in some cases when doing this unfortunately it is too late.
When doctors recently detected the tumors in Karrie-Ann, they told her to be careful not to get pregnant. Karrie-Ann and her husband Luke already had a son named Wyatt and tried to have another baby, but when they told them the news of cancer they decided to put it on pause.
Everything changed when they received the results of the analysis to undergo surgery. The intention was to remove two lymph nodes from the chest to analyze them and confirm that they were cancerous. Then they discovered that a baby was already waiting.
He immediately had to make a difficult decision: the doctors told him that with the operation he ran the risk of losing the baby. But she was determined to continue with the treatment, so the surgery was performed and fortunately the baby survived the operation.
"If they had told us that we should end the pregnancy we would have accepted it, since for me it is more important that I survive to take care of Wyatt"said Karrie-Ann.
Although breast cancer is the most common in women of childbearing age, it is still rare. In the United Kingdom it affects one in 3,000 pregnant women. Termination of a pregnancy is rarely recommended when it comes to breast cancer, since most cases are able to receive treatment while they continue with their pregnancy.
"Treatment for pregnant women is very similar to treatment for women who are not"commented Martin Ledwick of Cancer Research UK."There may be a slight delay in the onset of chemotherapies to allow the first trimester of pregnancy to pass".
The doctors told Karrie-Ann that she would need a mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy, since it was better to have his entire chest removed to reduce the need for radiation therapy, which can be harmful to the fetus.
She agreed to do so in February of last year and in March she started with chemotherapies, which made her feel so sick and tired that she sometimes did not know if it was symptoms of pregnancy or treatment.
Although they stopped the chemotherapies to give them a chance to have a natural birth, in the end the doctors they chose to perform a caesarean section at 33 weeks of pregnancy. His baby, whom they called Kaiden, was born on July 1 weighing 2 kilos, half of what some babies who reach term weigh.
In August Karrie-Ann started chemotherapy again to give her time to recover from caesarean section. Soon he began a 15-day radiotherapy treatment to completely eliminate any evidence of cancer.
After going through this experience she decided to join a campaign in the United Kingdom where they show the daily reality of people who have cancer. "I want to share my story with other women so they know they may be pregnant and have breast cancer, but that they and their babies may be fine."concludes Karrie-Ann.
What would you have done instead?
