A Heartbreaking Story
Cindi Newman hadn't had a pap smear in 30 years. But after her wife Nikki Marshall died of cervical cancer last year, she knew that had to change.
“I thought, 'No way, I am not going through that,'” Newman, 63, told USA TODAY, recounting Marshall's tumultuous, years-long battle with the disease.
Both survivors of sexual abuse, neither had regular pap smears, finding them “invasive and horrible,” Newman explained. Plus, there were “a lot of misconceptions in our day that lesbians didn't have to worry about pap smears and having HPV,” Newman added.
HPV, or human papillomavirus, is one of the leading causes of cervical cancer. Each year in the United States, about 13,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed and about 4,000 people die of it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now Newman is on a mission to share her and her wife's story to encourage others to never skip their routine medical screenings.
Love from 5,000 Miles Away
Their love story began in 2000. Both newly single, neither was looking for a relationship but soon the internet brought them together from opposite sides of the world as “email pen pals,” Newman explained. After writing back and forth, there was “instant chemistry.”
“She was a computer geek like me, and a photographer like me, and we both liked football. But mine at the time was the 49ers and NFL, and hers, of course, was real football (soccer),” Newman laughed, gushing over Marshall's intelligence, curiosity, creativity and humor.
“She was just brilliant,” she smiled. “Anything she put her hand to, she could do.”
They were living 5,000 miles away − Marshall was in Glasgow, Scotland, where she was born, and Newman was in Santa Rosa, California. But just a few months later, they decided to meet in person to test if their connection was just an internet illusion.
“We were just so compatible from the very beginning,” Newman said, saying Marshall met her family during the visit, and they knew they had something “real and unexpected.” A trip to Scotland allowed Newman to meet Marshall's family and they knew they wanted a life together.
“We started looking at immigration possibilities, green cards, that sort of thing, and there was nothing at the time for lesbian and gay people at all... unless you had a lot of money, which neither of us did,” she explained.
Despite all the challenges they faced, the pair stuck together, becoming domestic partners in 2008 and getting married in 2013.
“It was just fantastic,” Newman reminisced of their nuptials under the dome of San Francisco's city hall.
It seemed like nothing could keep the pair apart − until Marshall was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The Onset of Symptoms
In 2022, Marshall started having intractable pain in her abdomen. Having previously dealt with digestive issues, they brushed it off. But when the pain persisted, a CT scan showed a cloudy mass in her pelvis.
A recommended pelvic exam and pap smear led to “so much pain and trauma” that they were referred to a trauma-informed specialist at University of California San Francisco, where a transvaginal ultrasound triggered bleeding.
“Then there was more bleeding and more bleeding. And Marshall was postmenopausal, so bleeding is never a good sign,” Newman said.
Several samples and exams later confirmed what they feared: Cervical cancer, with a tumor so big “she needed to have chemotherapy and radiation as quickly as possible.” A stent was also placed to keep her urine from backing up into her kidneys since the tumor was blocking her urethra.
Following rounds of grueling chemo and radiation treatment, a PET scan showed some success, but now lymph nodes started “lighting up.”
Surgery came next. Then brachytherapy, which Newman described as the tumor being “zapped with nuclear medicine” via rods inserted into the impacted area.
“She had to have 12 rods put into her cervix (and) nuclear medicine put in,” Newman said, choking up, recalling her wife having to spend the night in the hospital in a frog leg position, unable to move.
Months passed. More treatments. More lymph nodes lit up with disease.
“That just kept happening until nothing more could be done,” Newman said.
Conquering the Fear of Medical Screenings
After Marshall's death, Newman started making appointments to get herself checked out but was still hesitant about the screening process.
The American Cancer Society notes that cervical cancer screening rates still haven't rebounded from lows hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a continuation of a declining pattern for the past 20 years.
The American Cancer Society recommends that “women and individuals with a cervix at average risk initiate cervical cancer screening at age 25 and undergo primary HPV testing every five years through age 65.” Other recommendations, like those from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federal advisory panel responsible for making health recommendations on preventative care to Americans, say cervical cancer screening is recommended every few years starting at age 21. Consulting with your doctor is important to assess your risk level and screening needs.
In her search for an easier way to approach it, she came across the Teal Wand, the first at-home cervical cancer screening kit approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2025. A year earlier, the FDA approved the method of self-screening with a swab at a doctor's office. And in 2026, the FDA approved another brand for at-home collection. For decades, HPV testing had only been available in tandem with an in-person pap smear.
Following the FDA approvals, the American Cancer Society added self-collected vaginal specimens to their acceptable cervical cancer screening guidelines.
To Newman's relief, the self-collection was “no worse than a tampon,” she said. “There's no embarrassment, there's no self-consciousness.”
After sending off her sample, Newman was notified that she had HPV. Fortunately, her condition was caught early and she is now under monitoring.
“If I hadn't taken that test, I could have gone down the same path,” she said. “I could have died of cervical cancer too.”
Newman now encourages everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or past experiences, to prioritize their health. “Don't let fear keep you from a test that could save your life,” she says.
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