{"id":483,"date":"2022-10-21T06:31:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T06:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/2016\/11\/05\/eva-perons-cervical-cancer\/"},"modified":"2022-10-25T13:39:20","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T13:39:20","slug":"eva-perons-cervical-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/?p=483","title":{"rendered":"Eva Peron and Cervical Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"vaFrom 1945 to 1952, Eva Peron was the wife of Juan Peron, the most powerful man in Argentina. When she first met him, he was a general who seized the dictatorship of the country. She was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman and his girlfriend. Because her parents were not married, her father never acknowledged her birthright and she was very poor. She became a singer and crawled to the top of her profession on the basis of great drive, beauty, modest talent and spectacular charisma. However, her marriage was marred from the very first day that they met, because Juan Peron constantly berated her for not being a virgin, and she repeatedly begged him to forget her past. Many times, she wrote to him, “Please think of me for what I am. Stop berating me for the things that I have done before I met you.”\u00a0 Today, Eva Peron is best known as the subject of Evit<\/em>a, the beloved musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber, with my favorite song of all time, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Most Adored Person in Argentina<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n
She was much smarter than her husband and appeared regularly on the radio and in newspapers to support the image that he was a great ruler. \u00a0She traveled throughout the country trying to help the poor and the workers. The masses in Argentina loved her because she:<\/div>\n
\u2022 was brought up in severe poverty,<\/div>\n
\u2022 was a strong supporter of labor rights and the pro-Peronist trade unions,<\/div>\n
\u2022 directed the Ministries of Labor and Health,<\/div>\n
\u2022 founded the charitable Eva Per\u00f3n Foundation,<\/div>\n
\u2022 was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage in Argentina, and<\/div>\n
\u2022 founded Argentina’s first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In 1951, the people of Argentina were ecstatic when she announced that she would run for Vice President of Argentina. \u00a0However, health problems prevented her from actually seeking that high office. In 1952, she was given the title of “Spiritual Leader of the Nation” by the Argentine Congress.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Misdiagnosis of Appendicitis<\/strong><\/div>\n
In January 1950, at age 30, she fainted in public and was diagnosed as having appendicitis and had her appendix removed. However, she really had cancer of the cervix. \u00a0She never really recovered from the surgery and continued to be weak and tired all the time, and had horrendous vaginal bleeding. Later, she was correctly diagnosed by her gynecologist as having cervical cancer, but Juan Peron never told her of that diagnosis, probably because she was necessary for his re-election as president of Argentina in 1951.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
She Was Never Told She Had Cancer<\/strong><\/div>\n
In November 1951, when her husband was running for re-election, she was put to sleep for surgery. She was told that she would have her uterus removed and that her doctor would be the famous Argentinian surgeon, Ricardo Finochietto. After she was asleep, and without her knowledge, the noted American cancer surgeon, George T. Pack, entered the operating room and removed an extensive cancer of the cervix that had already spread to other parts of her belly. \u00a0After he operated and before Eva Peron awoke, Dr. Pack left the operating room and headed to the airport to fly back to New York. When she awoke, she was told that she had an uneventful removal of her uterus for bleeding. Juan Peron never told her that she had a widely-spread cancer, even though she was the first person in Argentina to receive chemotherapy. She died at age 33 in July 1952. \u00a0The entire nation went into mourning and all activities throughout the country were closed down.<\/div>\n