At 14 weeks pregnant, a Florida woman was faced with an impossible decision.
Alicia Harris, 37, of Tampa, had just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of early breast cancer, and doctors told her that ending her pregnancy would allow treatment to begin immediately.
But Harris wasn’t ready to give up her baby. She chose a different path, undergoing surgery and chemotherapy while carrying her baby.
Alicia Harris and her daughter Journi.
“The first doctor I spoke to told me it was grade three cancer and so they recommended I terminate the pregnancy,” Harris said. News week. “I decided for myself that I wanted to see if it was true and get other opinions to see what was good for me and my family.”
Harris, already a mother of two boys, went looking and eventually found a doctor who had already treated a pregnant woman a few months before.
After carefully weighing her options, her doctor ultimately decided to put her on the same treatment regimen that he had previously used for the other patient.
“Knowing that the woman in front of me had been through this and that her baby was OK, we did what was best for us,” Harris said.
Going through cancer treatment during her third trimester was much more difficult than Harris anticipated.
In addition to the physical demands of pregnancy, chemotherapy left her seriously ill, with persistent nausea and vomiting that made it difficult to eat food.
She also suffered from frequent nosebleeds, headaches and a series of health problems that required close medical monitoring and repeated visits to doctors and emergency rooms.
The challenges intensified when she contracted COVID-19 during treatment, forcing her to temporarily pause chemotherapy while she recovered.
“It was very hard on me and my family, but we managed to get through it,” Harris said. “Luckily, I had family members who stepped up and tried to help as much as they could.”
Going through treatment was also a lonely time for Harris. She had difficulty finding someone who was pregnant and undergoing chemotherapy.
“Even the doctors I talked to…some of them didn’t even know what to say,” Harris said. “They were like, ‘Oh, pregnant with cancer? Let me come back to you.’ Many of them just didn’t know how to deal with it. »
Looking for support, she found an online community for pregnant cancer patients, where women shared their experiences of chemotherapy and other treatments during their pregnancies.
The group has become an important source of emotional support. Harris said connecting with others who understood the fear, uncertainty and unique challenges of cancer during pregnancy helped her feel less alone.
Although she always relied on her medical team to make treatment decisions, the friendships and shared experiences she found within the community reassured her during one of the most difficult times of her life.
Years later, Harris is now an oncology nurse at the same hospital where she once received treatment, helping patients overcome challenges she experienced firsthand.
His journey has also fueled his advocacy work.
Inspired by her daughter Journi, now 4, Harris founded Journi for Two, a nonprofit organization that supports pregnant women facing a cancer diagnosis.
She is also involved in the About Damn Time campaign, which focuses on an often overlooked part of the cancer journey: survivorship.
Alicia Harris is now an oncology nurse at the same hospital where she was treated.
Harris believes that much of the focus is on active treatment, while the long-term realities of recovery, including ongoing medications, reconstructive surgeries, emotional healing and rebuilding relationships, receive far less support.
“You ring the bell, everything’s fine, you’re back to normal, but actually there’s another layer to this,” Harris said. “Survival is an eternal thing. All of a sudden you’re left with all these feelings…and I felt like everyone had kind of disappeared. Luckily I had my daughter there.”
Contact Newsweek editors about this story:Kara Dolman And Gray R.Thomas
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