The Cancer Story, Pt I

 Sirens On The Catclaw

 Starting over on starting over. May 5, 2012

The Cancer Story, Pt I

I first began this particular project, The Life Coach’s Blog, a couple of years ago, but quickly ran out of gas. The reasons were many, but basically I didn’t really know where to start, or what direction I wanted it to go. I got bogged down in details, and then basically said, screw it, and let it languish while I just tried to maintain living, day to day. Then I decided that the overall topic would be starting over, and that would be broken into subtopics. How many I still don’t know. I have started over several times, and in several different ways, from divorce, to losing almost everything, to injury and illness. I am going to dive right in, hopefully a beautiful swan dive, into starting over after having been diagnosed with a deadly disease, in my case ovarian cancer.

I knew something was wrong; my body had been giving signs, from whispers to shrill screams, that something was most certainly not alright. I mentioned symptoms to a few people, who assured me that they had had similar symptoms with menopause, and it would all even out eventually. I was only 47 years old, but had been having perimenopausal symptoms since I was around 35. My periods had slowed and then stopped, in the preceding couple of years. I was getting regular mammograms, had no reason to worry about birth control for years, since J’s vasectomy, and was not a fan of the last gynecologist I had visited, so I let it slide. Every once in a while I had a nagging thought about needing to get a pap smear and an exam, but the attendant discomfort made me dismiss it as not a priority.

The symptoms became more nagging. My abdomen was very bloated, my back hurt like it would with a kidney infection, and I just didn’t feel well. So I set up an appointment with my family doc. When I got to the office, my doc was running late, business as usual, but I was offered a chance to get out faster by seeing his nurse practitioner. I agreed, and was taken back to a room pretty quickly. That decision probably saved my life, but it didn’t feel like a revelation, only a matter of convenience. The NP, her name was Jean, was very thorough in her exam, and obviously very concerned about what she was feeling. She told me that she wanted me to see her gyn, and she left the room and made the appointment on the spot. Within a week I was headed to the appointment, after he had me give blood in a lab a few days earlier.

What he told me was that I needed to make plans for surgery in the next few days. I didn’t have a lot of time to fret about it; I was in for a pre-surgical consult at the hospital within days. I made out a will, packed a bag, and headed for the final consult with the doctor before surgery. He told me that it could be anything from benign cysts to cancer all over my body. That I might wake up with a small incision, or with no breasts and a colostomy bag, but that he would do a thorough internal exploration no matter what he found. He was partnering with a gynecological oncologist, so they would be ready for anything. I prayed a great deal, and let myself mentally explore some worst case scenarios.

The actual day of the surgery I remember very little of. Both docs were there when I came out of recovery and was taken to my room. They both said that I was actually a best case scenario, and that surgery had resolved the issues, no further treatment, like chemo or radiation was going to be necessary. There were tumors on both ovaries, so a total hysterectomy and exploration from the top of my torso to the bottom, was the worst I would endure, besides the healing process. I was hooked up to a morphine pump, so I was not really with it enough to do much deep thinking.

After a few days I was able to come home to my own bed. That night, J hand fed me watermelon and kissed my incision. To this day I find that to be the most romantic thing anyone had ever done. I felt very lucky and much loved.

(Next: The out of body experience and the road to healing)

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