When Emma Evans was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2020, she thought her chances of ever becoming a mother were between slim to none, but four years later, the George Town resident is relishing moments of motherhood with her baby Jasper.
“He truly is my miracle baby,” Evans said as she cuddled her son during an interview with the Cayman Compass.
In less than four months, the mum is set to mark her child’s first birthday and four years of being cancer free.
How it all started
Evans told of being locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic and having to deal with her cancer diagnosis and treatment on her own.
She was diagnosed following a routine pap smear, after the Health Services Authority’s Dr. Karina Palmer-Forde found an abnormality and investigated further. Evans said she believes that additional check saved her life.
It was through a LEEP procedure, which is when doctors remove abnormal tissue from the cervix and test it for cancer, that they discovered her tumour.
She said she was shaken when she received her cancer diagnosis, which came at a time when most of the world was in lockdown. Being thousands of miles away from her family in the UK made the process very difficult.
“I would call my mum in the middle of the night crying and panicking,” she said, adding that “it was a bit surreal, to be honest, because as soon as you hear you’ve got cancer, you think you’re going to die. You don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
Being able to have a baby was the furthest thought in her mind at the time, she said, since she was not sure if she would need chemotherapy or radiation.
“My first, kind of, initial thing was to go into survival mode, really,” she said.
She said she was grateful for the support from her team at the Department of Child and Family Services, where she worked at the time, as they gave her the strength she needed to fight.
When she flew to Miami for her first major procedure, they saw her off at the airport. One of her colleagues would also send her relatives in Miami to the hospital to visit her.
“My colleague from work sent her sister around with goodies and stuff for me, so that was really nice, and then all my friends and my colleagues were bringing me stuff every day,” she said, adding that, though she was in pain, those extra efforts helped with her healing.
Tricky treatment
Dr. Peter Sipos, a consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist, later took charge of Evans’s case.
He said, at the time, his goal was to ensure she had every chance at survival.
He was also hopeful that she would be able to have children when she wanted, but “to be entirely honest, at initial assessment, we thought that’s probably not an option”, he said.
Given the complexity of her case in the beginning and her cancer procedures, he knew pregnancy would be a challenge.
“It was quite an undertaking for us to devise her care in a way that [it] is possible for her to have what she has now achieved. But also it is something very remarkable that she has done. I have seen her through this process over years,” he said.
Sipos lauded Evans’s resilience over the four years of treatments.
“She has done remarkably well, and it was just amazing for us to see how well she coped with all that,” he said.
When treating gynecological cancers in general, Sipos said, there has to be a plan to, first, keep the ability to become pregnant and, second, to ensure the treatment is safe and the patient “will recover or at least have the best chance of becoming cancer free”.
In Evans’s case, he said, though complex, they were able to achieve both.
It was during her cancer battle that Evans met and fell in love with her husband Kerry Powell.
After crossing her cancer hurdles, attention turned next to Evans’s pregnancy plan.
Due to removal of her cervix, getting pregnant naturally was not possible, so together the couple embarked on in vitro fertilisation, IVF.
Sipos said, after all the cervical procedures, Evans had to undergo a rare transabdominal cerclage surgery to be able to safely carry her baby.
Her pregnancy also had to be timed with her final cancer treatment.
Evans said when her pregnancy was confirmed, she was in disbelief.
“I was really scared. I knew the pregnancy probably wasn’t going to be as straightforward as most pregnancies,” she said, adding that she had every faith that she was in good hands.
Sipos, who managed Evans’s treatment throughout, also delivered baby Jasper, a satisfying feeling for him at the end of a long journey.
Looking ahead
Now, eight separate surgeries, both locally and overseas, and 107 doctor visits later, the 37-year-old first-time mum says she is grateful for the medical team at Health Services Authority who helped her through the worst period in her life.
“I try and practise gratitude every day anyway because, I think, nowadays, people get so tied up in complaining about this and about that and seeing the negative. But turning the lens inward, and looking at what we do have, completely changes our lives,” she said.
Even as she battled cancer, Evans did not give up on her dreams of getting her PhD in social work, and today she is on the final stretch to achieving that.
Looking back on her journey, Evans said all of it was worth it in the end, because today she is alive and she has been blessed with a healthy, happy baby.
“I know there’s so many people that haven’t been as lucky as me or haven’t had the same treatment. I am forever grateful to the doctors, the universe and the Cayman Islands,” she said.
Both Evans and Sipos urged women in the community to do regular checks for cancer as it could mean the difference between life and death.
With her son nestled safely in her arms, Evans said she is looking forward to the next big challenge, that of being a mum.
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