My Story

Here is the story of my ovarian cancer diagnoses, treatment, and life after...

About Me

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i am a young, creative type of gal. i am a video editor for my local PBS station. i love harry potter and doctor who. i am left handed. i love to read and wish there were more bookstores. i say live and let live. i love my family and my friends, they are the best. my family doctor found a tumor on my ovary in august 2010. after surgery they found it was cancer. i was 29...

cancer sucks

at the end of august in 2010 i started to feel something "not right" around my stomach area. i went to my family doctor thinking it was something silly like gas pains but as soon as he felt my stomach his face changed. he sent me right away to get an ultra sound. when that came back inconclusive i was sent to get a CAT scan. when the results came back he said i had a tumor on my left ovary about the size of a pack of ramen noodles (my dad made that lovely comparison).this all happened in the span of a few hours. he believed it to be non-cancerous and sent me to an oncologist about a week or 2 later to plan my surgery. my oncologist also believed it to be non-cancerous but said it was growing. they scheduled my surgery in another 2 weeks. so after living with this growing thing inside of me i could not wait to get it out! but when i woke up from my surgery haze on september 24th my best friend aimee (who is also a nurse and was in the surgery) told me the tumor grew even more then they thought and that it was cancer. they gave me 2 weeks to recovery from my surgery and then it was off the chemo on october 11th.

fights with insurance, dealing with all of the side effects of chemo and dealing with the emotions that come along with all of that was quite exhausting to say the least. i would never wish chemo on anyone. it was the worst. food didn’t taste right, hair started coming out by the handfuls 10 days into treatment, i couldn’t concentrate on anything, and it was the most tired i have ever been in my life.

i think what i want people to know most is that just because you are young and healthy doesn’t mean nothing can happen to you. and if you are doing something that is known to cause cancer i want you to stop. don’t use the excuse “we are all going to die of something” because cancer is the worst, and diffidently NOT a good way to die if you can help it.

so if you know someone with cancer please be patient. don’t pretend nothing is happening, that doesn’t help. understand that even though they have been done with treatment for months and look healthy, they still feel side effects. don’t tell them everything is going to be fine because when it turns out not to be, they might feel like they let everyone down. just listen and understand what they are going through. make some jokes, let them fall asleep if they need to and understand that this is the most scared they have ever been in their life.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

chemo week 1

originally posted on my facebook on Saturday, October 16, 2010

Hi everyone. Most of you know that I have finished my first week of chemo treatment. I went for 5-days straight. So far the only side effects I have are being extremely tired, headaches, tender stomach, low blood pressure and having a odd taste in my mouth. My doctor has been very proactive on the anti-nausea meds so i'm VERY thankful for that. I'm sure as time goes on more side effect will start coming but i'm thankful for a ok first week :)
I have had a picc line placed in my right arm so I do not have to be poked for an iv everyday and they can also draw blood from it. This will stay in my arm until my treatments are done. It's basically a line that travels in a vein through my arm to almost my heart. I know it sounds weird but it is WAY better then getting poked several times a day.

for those who would like to know, here is how my treatments will be going. I will do this schedule 3 times:

1st monday – this is my long day. I am given a 4 hour iv bag of fluids (to help my kidneys), a 15 minute iv bag of pre-med, a 15 minute iv bag of bleomycin (which is the really nasty chemo), a 1 hour bag of etoposide, a 1 hour bag of cisplatin and then another 4 hour bag of fluids.

Tuesday-friday – I am given a 4 hour fluid bag, 15 minute bag of pre-med, a 1 hour bag of etoposide, a 1 hour bag of cisplatin and then just a bit of fluids to help the kidneys.

2nd & 3rd monday – I believe I am given fluids and then bleomycin. Not sure how long since I haven't done this one yet. On these 2 weeks I only go in for monday.

And then it starts all over again.
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