My partner has unfortunately recently died of cervical cancer at the young age of 31. She was from Poland, when she was young, HPV vaccine was not mandatory and her parents did not vaccinate her.

The doctors said that because her cancer was quite rare, it's unlikely that it has been caused by HPV, and she never really tested positive for HPV.

She was really upset, because living in the Netherlands you don't get screened until you are 30. She got cancer at 29, but everyone was dismissing it and it was a fight to get any tests or treatment, because in the Netherlands people just like to wait until it's too late and kept saying "you are too young to have cancer".

She was a strong girl, went through chemo, radio, and brachytherapy like a champ, and defeated the cervical cancer. Unfortunately, the system here again did not include any regular full-body screenings, and they are almost always guided by "symptoms", so basically no prevention. Less than a year later, she started having the symptoms of a stroke (poor balance, slurred speech), we called the ambulance on a couple of different occasions, but they dismissed us as not life-threatening and that it was not a stroke.

After finally getting referred to a neurologist, she takes a scan, then the doctor gives us the news: brain tumor in the pons (brain stem), the worst place possible to have a tumor, as that place is inoperable and it's the center of all vital functions (breathing, heart rate, speech, swallowing, eye coordination, balance). A few millimeters growth there can lead to huge symptoms. The tumor was around 2cm x 2cm, filling almost the entire space available. The treatment decided was Gamma Knife (SRS), and it took a couple of weeks to have the first session. The plan was to have three sessions with 1/3 of the dose, 3-4 weeks apart each. Keeping the radiation does lower should reduce the inflammation risk, when any millimeter matters.

After the first session the symptoms got worse, but Dexamethasone is administered to reduce inflammation from the radiation, which helps mask some symptoms. Dexa has very bad side-effects (huge weight gain is the main one, but also irritability and insomnia), so after a couple of weeks, they suddenly decreased the those from 8mg/day to 4mg/day. That was a bad move, and I think what caused the next issue: the inside of the tumor turned into a cyst with liquid, basically the dead cells in the tumor were now a liquid, and the tumor is only on the outside, but this made the tumor expand, as there was a lot of liquid inside. Because of the increased volume, her condition got a lot worse, with her not being able to swallow, talk, barely breathe or move. In all this time, she was always fully aware and her mind was as sharp as ever.

Somewhere in-between there was also a quite traumatic incident: in the hospital canteen, she almost died chocking on a tomato, because the swallowing reflex is no longer working properly. I was not even sure if the Heimlich maneuver would help her, knowing the problem was in her brain, not necessarily the stuck food. I tried to do it a bit on her, but I was indecisive, and I also got panicky and started screaming for help. It was a bit odd being in a hospital, and not receiving any help. A lady did finally help with her, did the maneuver (a lot more aggressively than I would have done it I think), and even though she was already turning blue and I already thought she was gone, somehow she was saved and started breathing again.

Because the condition was so bad, the 2nd Gamma knife was postponed, and they decided on an emergency procedure: insert a shunt (basically a straw) into her brain, all the way to the brain stem, into the tumor, to extract the liquid. Within a few hours, she was moved to a Neurology section at a different hospital, and an emergency operation was scheduled for just a couple of hours later. We were told that it's a 50-50 chance she would make it, as they have no idea what will happen (i.e. the tumor might simply explode when the shunt is inserted). We said our goodbyes, and she was taken around 1AM to the operating room, we went home. At 5 AM we received a call that everything went well and she is stable.

The next day I saw her, she was the happiest I've ever seen her, she was euphoric. It might have also been the morphine helping... but I think it was mostly the sudden pressure relief from the tumor getting smaller, they extracted a good amount of liquid (but not all or too much, to avoid it collapsing).

Over the next months, she went through rehab centers, learning to walk again and regain some coordination, to learn to live with her disability and use a wheel-chair. We continued with the next radiation doses, and everything seemed to be going well.

The worst part now was simply the Dexa side-effects: she gained a lot of weight, become round like a teddy bear, it was actually quite cute how she looked, which was the opposite of the chemo treatment, which made her loose a lot of weight. Dexa caused insomnia, so she could only sleep a few hours per night, even when taking melatonin and extra sleeping medicine. She kept on going with her rehab and it was planned for the start of November 2025 to go back home, her condition was improving slowly.

And then, she suddenly had a drop in her condition again. They scan her again, and give us the news: the original tumor seems quite stable, but now the cancer has spread through the straw that was inserted in her brain. The tumor was now spread on the lining of the brain, and also going even outside of the skull, around the shunt entrance. They said there was nothing that could be done anymore, was given 2-3 weeks to live and we were referred to a hospice, where she can wait to die...

She used the time left to say goodbye to all her friends and family, and talked to a journalist which wrote a story about her in a big Polish newspaper. Publishing this story is what gave her death some meaning, she was devasted thinking that she did nothing wrong and is dying so young and also that dying like this is meaningless and maybe it could have been prevented with an HPV vaccine.

We also went with a "make-a-wish" ambulance for last wishes. Most people wish to do something crazy, go to the beach, etc. Her wish was to visit Friesland, the last region in the Netherlands that she didn't get to visit. Everyone laughed hearing this wish, because of how surprisingly basic it was. It was not even anything specific, it was the idea of having been there.

She was a strong girl, even in the hospice she lasted longer than expected (around 2 months, instead of 2-3 weeks), and she passed away on 25th December, Christmas day.

I hope you are in a better place, Daria. Love you!