My Story

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

About Me

My photo
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.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

End of year update

Well it's almost the end of 2011 and I have to say this year has been better to me then last. I can't even compare this time last year to now. In 2010 I was fresh off my chemo treatments and still feeling the effects (and did until early summer).

This year I have been in remission, my hair is finally back to normal (with just a few more curls), and energy is back.
I have started to Zumba twice a week and also started an etsy site that has been doing alright (store name Young and Wiley if you want to look it up). I also achieved reading over 25 books years. Way past my goal.

I want to thank all my family and friends who made this year great. Cancer is part of my life but it is not me, and you all remind me of that everyday.

I do not have another doctors appointment until February. I will continue to update.
And a reminder the relay for life is just around the corner ;)
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)