My Battle With Cancer

Cancer is such a horrible thing, a curse on us. The cancer that I had is called placental choriocarcinoma. Placental choriocarcinoma is a gestational trophoblastic disease and incredibly rare. My story is very traumatic and deserves a trigger warning to those who are sensitive. My story includes jail, rape, pregnancy loss, emergency surgery, and battling cancer. So please proceed with caution.

In 2013 I got arrested for white-collar crimes, and after a few months, the secret service picked up my case, and I became a federal inmate. I was in Pennsylvania committing my crimes and was arrested four days after I arrived there, but I'm from California. Initially, I was arrested in State College, Pennsylvania, and went to Centre county prison but then was transferred to the Lackawanna County prison, where the worst event in my life took place.

January 2014, 7 weeks before my life changed permanently, I had been incarcerated for 7 months but had only been in Lackawanna county prison for 8 weeks. My room had no camera on it, and I was in a blind spot, and Men weren't on the same floor. There were no conjugal visits; if there had been, I didn't know anyone on that side of the country. Now there were men guards, but there was always a female with them. The prison had a long history of rape and abuse; it was cold and dirty; the food was barely edible; the conditions were egregious.

On March 8th, 2014, I was cleaning my cell. And I began to feel those pains again, then my whole stomach hurt. I sat on the toilet, thinking the food was messing me up again. But I began sweating, it was snowing outside, and the prison had no heating. It was freezing in my cell, and I was stripped down to my underwear and sports bra drenched in sweat. I fell on the floor, and I was so weak I could hardly move, and I was in so much pain. I had no way to let anyone know I wasn't ok other than to press the button on the wall and hope the CO would check on me. But I couldn't move to get to the button, so I prayed. I didn't pray to God or Jesus, I don't hold that faith, and I felt this was a problem another woman could understand, so I prayed to The Goddess to give me strength, and I felt a surge enough for me to crawl and press the button. Then I prayed someone would come to my door.

For the first time in all the collective time of incarceration I've experienced, the CO came right away to my door. She looked through my window to find me half-naked lying on the ground, barely aware of what's going on. she called a medical emergency and her. A few other guards and a nurse tried to dress me, but I kept passing out. They rushed me to the hospital with two guards accompanying me. One guard asked me repeatedly what drug I was on. But I hadn't taken any drugs. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I began to feel a bit better and thought maybe nothing was wrong with me, and I caused all this fuss for no reason. But the doctor came in and asked the COs and me if the prison had conjugal visits. We all said no, and he asked me how I had had sex because I was pregnant. I told him the last sex id had was seven months before with my then-husband, so if I was indeed pregnant, I was 7 months. one look at my stomach made the idea of me being that far along unlikely.

He then had an ultrasound done where it was seen that I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and I was then rushed to emergency surgery. I lost my tube and part of my uterine muscle, and 2 liters of blood. I had a blood transfusion and was in ICU for 3 days and spent a total of 14 days in the hospital.

On the tenth day in the hospital, the doctor came in with the worst news. He told me they had run tests on the 2 liters of blood, and I had placental choriocarcinoma, cancer. He told me they had caught it early, and I would be fine, but I needed to have an intense chemotherapy treatment to rid of it. In the span of 2 weeks, I had almost died, learned I was pregnant, and discovered I had been raped somehow but didn't even remember then to be told on top of all of the trauma I had just gone through and all of it, I had to process I had to come to terms with the fact that I had a hard battle ahead of me. I had cancer. I didn't cry. I couldn't. I just kept thinking, why me? My whole life had been shit. I was born unlucky, and now I have to go through this at 22 years old. It took me a few hours to pull myself out of my self-pitying and see that I was pretty lucky. Yea, I had cancer, yea. I had just gone through this horrible event, but my cancer was treatable, and it wouldn't kill me. Not every person who has been told that kind of news gets to hear that. I began to be hopeful. Id get through this, and id be ok.

On the 14th day, I went back to jail, but instead of Lackawanna county prison, I went to Columbia County Prison. Columbia county was so much nicer and smaller. The food was better. The conditions were humane.

It took a month for my chemo to begin. They performed surgery to put my medport in. the first hospital visit was 6 days. I was pretty happy to have a tv all to myself and decent food. The next chemo visit was outpatient. I sat for 4 hours as they pumped chemicals into my veins threw a catheter in my chest that flowed to my jugular vein in my neck. I got to watch tv and snack. The chemo wasn't so horrible the first round. The next week I was impatient again, and that's how it continued. 1 week was 4 days impatient next week was 4 hours outpatient. This lasted only 2 months before my chemo was gone. But those 2 months felt so long.

After the first round, I began to feel the effects of chemo. My eyelashes started to look fried. My hair started to fall out and fry. I started to bloat, but I couldn't eat much other than bread. My bones hurt, and after every round, I had to get a shot in my arm that hurt so bad to up my white blood cell count, and that caused me pain for a few days.

By the 3rd round, I choose to shave the rest of my hair. My ponytail was tiny and fried. At the beginning of the 3rd round, the judge had signed an order giving me furloughs every inpatient chemo. I wasn't a flight risk because I needed the treatment. So I had a bit of freedom to contact my family. I had 8 rounds total, and then I got the longed-for news that the cancer was gone. I got sentenced to 33 months in federal prison. I served my time. I got out, and since now, 6 years later, I have changed my life.

I stopped hanging with the people I knew. My husband had left me, and I divorced him. It worked for the best he was on drugs and cheated, and he was a criminal. I changed my scenery and my company, and my mindset. I got a job, and I faced homelessness and an insufficient income, and I got off probation, and now I am doing excellent. My hair grew back beautiful medium brown ringlets but went straight after too many dyes and bleaches. I now have 2 daughters, and my son I had at 16 but hadn't raised him is coming to live with me shortly. I'm a stay at home mom with a loving boyfriend. I am happy. I don't think i would have changed my life with out what i went through, with out being shown my mortality.

A few months after my release, I tried to get a Pennsylvania lawyer to sue, but I couldn't because I didn't know who raped me. The cops did a piss poor job on finding who did it. The lawyers said I had a molar pregnancy, so I couldn't have been raped, but a molar pregnancy still needs sperm. Someone did this to me, and I cannot get my justice because I don't know who. I was accused of covering up for a CO I was sleeping with, but I wasn't sleeping with anyone. I was a victim, and I will never get my justice.