My total hysterectomy

On January 29, 2019 I had my surgery. I went under thinking it was going to be a laparoscopic removal of my left ovary and a biopsy of the plaque on my liver. I woke up to a 10 inch vertical scar down my abdomen fastened by staples and a lot fewer organs. My Dr said my ovaries were connected and twisted on each other so it looked like 1 mass on the ultrasound but the cancer was really in both (I still can’t comprehend how that didn’t hurt me more? I was on my feet working and hiking my dogs an hour a day!). My Dr was confident she got all of the cancer out but told me that I still needed chemotherapy to kill any microscopic cancer cells she couldn’t find. She removed: both ovaries, Fallopian tubes, cervix, uterus and omentum (which I had never heard of. It’s a layer of fat that lines your abdomen), took a lymph node to check it, and also burned off the cells on the exterior of my diaphragm (not my liver). According to Rick, “we caught this just before it was about to blow up!”

I am Stage III. Stage III cancer is fucking terrifying! But the reality is, most ovarian cancers are already Stage III or IV before detected. Remember, there’s no way to screen for it and the symptoms aren’t very obvious.

There was some positive news, I guess. It had only spread a little to my diaphragm (not my liver as the Scan suggested at first, thank God) and my lymph nodes were clear. And, there was only 1 cancer nodule on my omentum. My Dr. held my hands in the hospital and looked me in the eye and said “I’m treating to cure. I want you to die as a grandmother when you’re 80, from something else”. I want to believe her.  Its feels overly optimistic but a little hope never hurt anyone.  

So, my planned outpatient surgery morphed into 5 days in the hospital. Most of them are kind of blurry. I had a dilaudid drip the first few days and then they switched me to oral OxyContin which was less strong. The pain meds made me itchy and nauseous and Rick flat out told me I’d make a terrible junkie.