Jessica Pettway, a 36-year-old YouTube beauty influencer, passed away after battling stage 3 cervical cancer. The tragedy of her passing is deepened after learning that the wife and mother of two was misdiagnosed by doctors of having fibroids, rendering her death even more heartbreaking.
Pettway shared her diagnosis in a July 2023 Instagram post. In June 2022, she shared that she started having intense vaginal bleeding, fatigue and weakness. But when she asked other women about her symptoms and if they had experienced them, they told her that it was a normal thing that women go through. However, later when her husband found her unresponsive on the bathroom floor one night, she was rushed to the hospital where doctors told her the “extreme blood loss was due to fibroids.”
“My Gyno made it seem like it was so normal and common. I didn’t think much of it, however, I was passing clots the size of a placenta, which was really alarming,” she wrote.
Pettway continued to experience bleeding that was eventually replaced with labor-like pains. It was not until she had a biopsy on Feb. 23, 2023, that she was officially diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer. “Being told I have cancer didn’t devastate me. It was the reaction of those close to me. I knew that God is my healer and that no weapon formed against me, not even cancer, would prosper. I knew that I am more than a conqueror and that I will get through this,” she wrote in her caption.”
Pettway is remembered for her natural hair, wig, and makeup vlogs on YouTube channel, with over 229K subscribers.
Black women have the highest mortality rate of cervical cancer and are over 40% more likely to develop cancer than white women and are 75% more likely to die from it, according to the National Institute of Health.
The medical misdiagnosis of Black women
Unfortunately, medical misdiagnosis is not uncommon among Black women. Dr. Dawn Ericsson, the Chief Medical Officer at Age Rejuvenation, cringed when she heard Pettway’s story but says there is a longstanding history of inequity and experimentation on Black women in healthcare. According to Ericsson, women and minorities are 20-30% more likely to experience medical misdiagnosis than white men. Black women are at an even greater risk due to healthcare inequity.
Ericsson adds that the occurrence of uterine fibroids in Black women is 80% by the age of 50, whereas, the incidence of cervical cancer among Black women is 0.008%.
“In Jessica’s Pettway’s case, I am left wondering whether annual well-woman exams were recommended by her healthcare providers,” says Ericsson.
Nonetheless, Pettway’s family is left without a loved one.
Pettway’s sister, Reyni Brown described her as ‘the most amazing, strong, confident” woman she had ever met and filled her life “with so much wisdom, prayed for me, and helped me become a better mother,” according to E! Online. She leaves behind her husband and their two children, Kailee, 10, and Zoi Lee, 3.
