Putting Swollen Ankles into Perspective

I'm one of those people who firmly believe pregnancy sucks. I've been lucky, both times, to experience mild nausea, major insomnia and swollen ankles and that's about it. And yet, oh did I complain.

Had I read this article in the New York Times on cancer during pregnancy, I hope would have been shamed into shutting right up. Because as uncomfortable and sometimes outright miserable as pregnancy is, the prospect of facing your own mortality, the possibility of harming your baby, and the hell that is cancer treatment all at once is something no one should have to go through.

But they do – as women conceive children later in life they are also running into disease that tend to strike people later, such as cancer, during their pregnancies. Also, the normal life cycle of a woman's childbearing years has changed. It used to be that girls started their periods around 13 to 15 years of age and then went into menopause in their late 30s – now, puberty can begin as early as 9 years old and menopause typically occurs around age 50. Exposure to hormone shifts for longer might be causing more cancer.

Interestingly, while doctors typically suggest therapuetic abortion because it makes the cancer easier to treat aggressively, cancer treatment while pregnant is possible. Even the most pessimistic studies show that chemo causes birth defects in 14 to 19 percent of cases, and other studies show them in only 4 percent.

In any case, it's a terrifying thing to face and the women profiled just amazed me. Anybody who thinks women are weaker just isn’t paying attention.