Luna van Valkengoed (32) from Rosmalen was not vaccinated against the HPV virus when she was fourteen. She still regrets that because seven years ago she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. “With today’s knowledge, I would have made a different choice,” she says.
Luna was quite a rebellious teenager at the age of fourteen. The vaccination against the HPV virus was just coming onto the market at that time and she did not think it was necessary at the time. “It was all new and exciting. I had an adolescent brain and I made the choice not to get vaccinated.”
This choice had serious consequences because at the end of 2018 it turned out that she had contracted cervical cancer due to the HPV virus. “When you hear cancer, you associate it with dying. There was two months between the diagnosis and the operation.” During those two months, it was not clear to Luna what her future would be.
This was first followed by an MRI scan, several examinations and a loop excision. This is a procedure in which part of the cervix is removed because there are abnormal cells there. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be enough to make Luna better.
“I don’t have anxiety, but you never know for sure if it will come back.”
Her cervix had to be completely removed. “And the lymph nodes from my pelvic area were also removed. The cancer was in the cervix. The lymph nodes can spread it to the rest of the body, so they investigated whether there were also cancer cells there.”
Now, years later, Luna is healthy. She is still checked annually. “I have no fear, but you never know for sure if it will come back,” she says. “It has positive and negative consequences. I have a calmer approach to life, so I live more from day to day and I enjoy it more.”
The biggest negative consequence of the disease for Luna is that the chance that she and her partner can have children has decreased. “We are trying to get pregnant via IVF. We are working hard on that.” In addition, a nerve was damaged during the operation. As a result, Luna is often in pain. She can suppress this with a device.
“Educate your children about this.”
Looking back, Luna would have liked to have been vaccinated when she was fourteen, but she doesn’t blame herself for not doing so. However, she advises today’s young people to take the vaccination. “It is also a call to parents. Educate your children about this.”
Women in the Netherlands receive a call at the age of thirty to participate in the population screening for cervical cancer. Luna often hears in her environment that people ignore that call. “They find a smear test uncomfortable, but cervical cancer is even more uncomfortable.”