This mom had a cervical cancer tumor the size of a baby’s head. A clinical trial saved her life.

Aricca Wallace never thought she’d still be here. In fact, in 2012, she was told she likely had less than a year to live. The Kansas mother of two, now 49, knew something was wrong when she was 33 and noticed bleeding during intercourse. Her gynecologist at the time told her it was likely an issue with her intrauterine device. Two years later, she learned it wasn’t.

Instead, the bleeding was caused by hemorrhaging from a tumor − one roughly the size of a baby’s head. Her annual pap smears had missed it. She had Stage 3 cervical cancer. “It came as a complete shock,” Wallace says. Wallace’s prognosis wasn’t good. She underwent eighteen rounds of chemotherapy and 31 rounds of radiation in total, she says. But in January 2012, scans revealed her cancer had spread. A month after that, her doctors confirmed the worst: Curing the cancer was no longer possible. In all likelihood, she had less than a year to live.

“That was hard to take. But as a mom and a wife, I said, ‘I have too much more to live for. I don’t accept that,’ ” Wallace says. “And so, I started just taking the chemo to control it and buy us some time.” To read the full story.