Alma Pol was diagnosed with cervical cancer by gynecologic oncologist Ricardo Estape, M.D. To ensure the best outcome and give her a chance to have a baby later, Dr. Estape recommended robotic surgery for treatment. Watch Ms. Pol explain her journey from diagnosis to recovery and learn about the benefits of robotic surgery.
[Transcript]
[Alma's Journey]
Alma Pol:
I'm sitting in his office and he says, "Well, we got back your results and you have a very aggressive form of cancer." That's all I heard. Time stopped. It was scary. It felt like the world flashed before my eyes very quickly and I wasn't prepared mentally for that. And then he realized that I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. And so he calmed me down, gave me a hug, said, "Listen, don't worry. I'm going to walk you through this. This is what we're planning on doing. We caught it very early and yes, you have it, but we're going to take it out. I'm going to make sure we're going to clean you very well. And you won't have any worries. You'll see." Dr. Estape [Inaudible 00:01:31] was very thorough in explaining to me the benefits of robotics. Three small incisions, pretty much by the hip bones, a little higher, and then the one inside my navel.
Alma Pol:
Preparation for the surgery, I can't eat or anything throughout the day today only drink certain fluids, certain colors, which is challenging for me. Take a laxative throughout the day, not pleasant. I guess just emptying my body of everything so that I'm ready for tomorrow morning because I'm supposed to be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning.
[Doctors setting up robotic surgery equipment]
Alma Pol:
These past three weeks I've learned that I am stronger than what I thought I was. And my family is so important to me, and that it's okay to reinvent yourself because nothing is written in stone. And I'm ready.
Alma Pol:
I'm not worried or scared. I think that has a lot to do with how the doctor spoke to me and relayed what was going to take place and what to expect on top of the fact that he also operated on my mom who had a hysterectomy.
Ricardo Estape:
Well, Alma has early cervical cancer. It was mostly limited to the inner side of the cervix. We're going to remove the cervix itself along with all the tissue around it. Once we're able to get that out, then we're going to reattach the uterus to the vagina. By doing this, we can allow her to try to have a baby down the road, but not having lost her uterus completely.
Alma Pol:
The night was horrible. A lot of pain after the anesthesia wore off. A lot of pain. I wasn't expecting that, but the doctor wasn't also expecting my lymph nodes to be swollen when he went in. I'm staying one night more just to make sure everything's okay. He's changing my pain medication because it would give me nausea. That and the gas from the ... It was just a horrible night.
[Alma talking to doctor before her surgery]
[Alma undergoing surgery]
Ricardo Estape:
Well, Alma's prognosis is actually very good. Her cancer seemed to be completely limited to the inside part of the cervix. I thought that it had gone possibly to one of the lymph nodes because it was enlarged, but we had the pathologist look at it during the surgery and it was negative. The biggest problem she's having right now is little nausea from the pain medication, maybe from the pain medication, maybe from the anesthesia, but from a surgical standpoint, she's actually doing pretty good and she's starting to move around. So it's just a matter of getting out of bed and walking today.
[Ricardo interviewing Alma after surgery]
Alma Pol:
I guess I expected it to be quick. For the pain to not last as long as it did, but then again, my situation was a little different because of the swelling. And so we had a couple more incisions and a little bit more was done than expected. I guess it goes hand in hand. But I'm here, I'm recuperating, I'm walking a lot better. The swelling has gone down, every day I feel like the swelling goes down a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. So it's been progressively positive.
Ricardo Estape:
So even at the time of surgery, she had a lot of swelling. Before she had her a radical trachelectomy, she actually had a cone biopsy to find the cancer, which is just cutting out a piece of the cervix where the abnormality is at. And that's the way we find out whether it's truly an invasive cancer or not. And at that time she had a lot of swelling, even six weeks out from the original comb biopsy. So, she's just maybe what we call a slow healer or just somebody who has a lot more inflammation than usual. So after surgery, she actually took a little bit longer to recover. Instead of a day, she was a couple of days in the hospital, just with more inflammation than anything else.
Alma Pol:
Since then, I've gotten progressively better. You feel your body going back to normalcy again. Going
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