"Long before transitioning, Trefzger sought medical care as a teenager for persistent rectal bleeding. At just 16, she had never had sex, but according to Pride, her doctor assumed that the bleeding was the result of anal sex. Traumatized by her doctor's invasive questions, she spent years ignoring her symptoms. "That experience made me dismiss my symptoms and never talk about it again," she explained. "I don't even know how often I was bleeding. I just stopped checking.""
"After Trefzger came out as trans, she began hormone replacement therapy, and in 2017, her endocrinologist noticed abnormally low iron levels and red blood cell morphology in her routine bloodwork. Her doctor ordered a colonoscopy, which detected a tumor. Trefzger was told the cancer had advanced to stage 4 and that she had a 15 percent chance of survival. But after undergoing a colectomy and 12 rounds of chemotherapy, she was declared cancer-free."
Jennifer Trefzger, 31, credits gender-affirming care with saving her life when routine transition-related bloodwork revealed iron abnormalities leading to a colonoscopy and a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer that had likely been untreated for nearly a decade. As a teenager she sought care for persistent rectal bleeding but was traumatized when a doctor assumed anal sex and asked invasive questions, leading her to ignore symptoms for years. In 2017 an endocrinologist's testing prompted the colonoscopy that found a tumor. After a colectomy and 12 rounds of chemotherapy she was declared cancer-free, but scans after a stroke during facial feminization surgery later revealed metastatic nodules in her lungs, prompting further surgeries and chemotherapy.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]