At 32, Wendy Maultsby was working full-time and planning out
her dream future: meeting her future husband, getting married, and giving birth
to her first child.
But what awaited Maultsby was a diagnosis she never anticipated—and
certainly not in her 30s. If she ever imagined it, she thought it would come
when she was a grandmother in her 70s.
“Around February 2022, I started what I thought was a
regular menstrual cycle,” the now 35-year-old recalled. “Everything seemed
normal, but things seemed strange when it started getting heavier than usual.
It lasted for about two-and-a-half months.”
Maultsby shared her symptoms were relentless and resulted in
multiple trips to urgent care. She was given medication that would offer temporary
relief, but the bleeding continued.
“It got to the point where one day I just felt so weak. I
was in my office at work and I was so weak I couldn’t even walk to my car,” she
said. “I knew something was wrong. My heart was beating incredibly fast. I got
home, I went straight to bed, and I thought, ‘I’ll just sleep it off. Maybe I’m
just tired or stressed.’”
When she didn’t feel better the next morning, Maultsby said
her gut told her she needed to go to the emergency room.
“I got to the ER, and they put me back into the room almost
immediately. It turned out I had lost so much blood that I required a blood
transfusion,” she added.
Her extreme blood loss was putting additional stress on her
heart and causing it to pump harder than usual to circulate what little blood
she had left.
An emergency gynecological visit to Johnston Memorial
Hospital in Smithfield caused the Johnston County resident to be scheduled for
a biopsy.
Maultsby told WRAL, “The doctor was like, ‘It’s super highly
unlikely this is it, but I just want to cross all of my Ts.’ I almost canceled that
appointment because the schedule of birth control that she had given me did
stop the bleeding. I was like ‘Oh, I’m fine. I’m cured.”
Maultsby still remembers the Friday morning, just a few days
after her biopsy, when she got the call that changed her life.
“He said, ‘I’m so sorry, but you do have cancer.’ I was in
complete shock,” she said. “The first thing I thought about was, ‘Am I going to
die?’”
She was diagnosed with grade 1 endometrial cancer.
The average age of diagnosis for endometrial cancer is 60,
according to the American Cancer Society, with diagnoses under 45 being uncommon.
Maultsby said she was told her prognosis was good and she
would likely live a long life because the cancer was caught early.
But her dream of getting pregnant was suddenly in jeopardy.
“My biggest fear was that my fertility would be affected,”
she said.
Maultsby continued, “My options were basically to have a hysterectomy,
or have hormone treatment. I opted to do hormone treatment so that I would have
the possibility of motherhood.”
Three years later, Maultsby is celebrating five months of
marriage. She shared she and her husband are continuing to weigh all their
options of becoming parents.
“We’re still going to try to become parents the natural way,
but if that doesn’t work out then we plan to adopt,” said Maultsby.
Dr. Angeles Alvarez Secord with the Duke Cancer Center is one
of the physicians who has been treating Maultsby.
The gynecologic oncologist shared cases like Maultsby’s are
becoming more common as the cancer affects a greater number of young adults.
WRAL investigated the rise in younger cancer cases in our
recent documentary Diagnosis:
Young, The New Face of Cancer in NC.
“This disease
continues to rise in the United States,” shared Alvarez
Secord. “It’s anticipated that about 70,000 women will have a diagnosis of
uterine cancer this year, and almost 14,000 women will die.”
The physician stated education is vital to reducing the grim
statistic, particularly among at-risk demographics.
“Individuals who identify as Black are at a twofold
increased risk of death,” she added. “We’re seeing an aggressive rise in
cancers in women under the age of 50. These issues in totality, they cannot be
ignored.”
Alvarez Secord said abnormal bleeding is the most common symptom
patients will present with, regardless of age.
“If somebody is postmenopausal and they’ve stopped having
their periods and have any bleeding at all, even just a red dab, that is a huge
warning sign,” the doctor advised.
She continued, “If it’s before menopause, it can be
harder. What you’re looking for is, is there an increase in that bleeding
pattern or are they having bleeding between their periods, or any sort of abnormal
bleeding.”
She noted that bleeding after sexual intercourse is
another sign someone should seek medical attention.
Alvarez Secord said in addition to a biopsy, a patient may
have a pelvic ultrasound to help reach a diagnosis.
The physician noted clinicians also need to be more aware
of the growing impact cancer is having on younger demographics to prevent
symptoms from being misdiagnosed or missed entirely.
“Often they will think it’s their period, and it’s not
just them that think that, it could be their healthcare providers as well,”
said Alvarez Secord. “For the care providers that are on the front lines, it’s having
that little ‘red flag’ in the back of your head that somebody complains their
cycles are increasing, or becoming abnormal, or bleeding between periods or
after sex—that needs to trigger some sort of evaluation.”
Maultsby added more open conversations among those with
diagnoses like herself could help reduce stigma, and aid in earlier
intervention.
“It was almost embarrassing to talk about at first,”
Maultsby added. “I wanted nobody to know because I felt like I had an elderly
person’s disease.”
Maultsby told WRAL she often questioned, “What did I do
wrong?” after being diagnosed at such a young age.
“Knowing it is an epidemic, makes me want to share my story
because I know a lot more people are going to be diagnosed in the coming years,”
she said. “They need to know they’re not alone, and it’s not your fault. This
is something that is ongoing and it is happening. Research has come so far, but
we need more of it, and we just need to advocate for each other and ourselves
in this fight against cancer.”
Alvarez Secord further underscored the call for more
research, adding, “We need to do something. It’s a serious call for action.”
The oncologist noted recent NIH cuts impacting medical
research nationwide, including
cancer research in the Triangle, is cause for concern.
“It is very hard for OBGYNs to
compete at that level,” Alvarez Secord said. “I think probably in terms of NH
dollars, OBGYNs represent about 1% of that. When you cut funding even further,
I’m worried that we’re going to lose a generation of researchers who are going
to have a calling to do this work specifically for cancers that affect women.”
When asked what she thought might contribute to the rise in
young cancer diagnoses, Alvarez Secord called attention to the food supply.
“I think there’s a lot of
potential linkages between food, not just highly processed, but different types
of food that we eat. We’ve gone from an environment where you used to eat food that
came out of your own garden, to an environment where now everything’s bought at
the grocery store. And, a lot of people don’t even eat raw vegetables and
fruits,” she said.
Maultsby said one of her biggest
pieces of advice for other young adults is to prioritize their health.
“People need to empower themselves,
especially with learning their own family history and their own personal risk,”
she said. “Remember your health is so precious. Being so young, it is easy to
take health for granted.”
She continued, “When I was younger,
I wish I had limited alcohol more. I wish I had been more physically active, and
consumed less processed foods, and slept better. I definitely didn’t take as
great care of myself as I do today. It’s only because once you lose your health
it becomes the most precious thing to you.”
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