Survivor mom backs vaccine

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 12, 2007 at midnight

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Wendy Creason never missed an appointment. Mammograms, Pap smears, uterine exams - she did everything she was supposed to do to take care of herself and lower her risks of cancer.

But in 2003, after a partial hysterectomy, doctors discovered that she had cervical cancer in a place that Pap smears never would have reached.

"It was a shock. I had no idea," said Creason, 50, who lives in Littleton. Creason's husband had died, and she was raising two young daughters. Suddenly, she was facing a possible death sentence of her own.

"My doctors asked me, 'What do you want?' I told them I wanted to live to watch my daughters grow up," Creason said. "So they took out everything - my uterus, lymph nodes."

The procedures rid her body of cancer, and she never had to go through radiation or chemotherapy. But the experience was both frightening and shattering.

Now she worries for her daughters. Her 17-year-old already has had the new HPV vaccine, which prevents the viruses that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers. She wants her 14-year-old to get the vaccine when she's 16.

"Anything that can lower the risk, that can help women not go through what I go through," Creason said.

"I'm very adamant about prevention. I'm very much in favor of the vaccine."

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729

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