Well, my staples came out on Monday, February 11 and my Chemo is supposed to start on Friday, February 15. They’re not wasting any time! The sooner they start the better my chances are. It makes sense. If they kill all the leftover microscopic cancer cells now there’s less of a chance it will come back. How messed up is that? I don’t even have ovaries anymore yet the likelihood of my ovarian cancer coming back is pretty high. I’ve heard the stories “So and so had ovarian cancer and has been clear for 12 years”. I love hearing them! They’re not the norm though. But that’s ok. It’s what I aspire to. I like being different! They don’t even use the word “Remission” with ovarian cancer. They call it NED (no evidence of disease). I joined an online O.C. Support Group and some of these women have had to fight and beat this same Cancer 3 and 4 times. I’ll do it! F yeah! As long as I still have a decent quality of life I’ll fight non-stop.

And there you have it! I found it! I found my fight! Anyone who knows me knows I have it. I was just doubting myself due to the shock of it all, but it’s back. So, this chemo can take my hair, and my trip to St. John, and scare my family, and make me feel like crap and present a million other risks. I don’t care. As long is it kills my Cancer.

Truth be told, I’ve been terrified of chemo but thankfully I’ve had some  living angels give me so much advice I’m feeling more prepared. Electric blanket, check. Electrolyte water, check. Ginger candies, check. Lemon candies for the metallic taste from the port, check. The list could go on and on.

So please think good thoughts for me, or pray to who or whatever you believe in, that everything checks out Friday am with my bloodwork so I can start this fight already.

Juliette had a rough time seeing me sick. She got very clingy. I guess it started with her getting sucker-punched by thinking I’d be back home resting the night of my surgery and I ended up staying in the hospital for 5 days. We all got sucker-punched. It wasn’t supposed to be cancer. But it was. Based on the recommendations of a family social worker and a school psychologist, we were encouraged to tell her the truth. So, we said “Mommy has cancer but she’s going to get better”.  And then my sweet, innocent daughter uttered these words “Cancer makes you go to Heaven”. It was so hard not to lose it in front of her. We were afraid that’s what she’d think after having lost 2 dogs to cancer in the past few years. So, we did what anyone would do. We were very calm and told her my Dr. was going to cure me and that not everyone dies of cancer and that I wasn’t going to die. It’s not really a lie if you’re trying to convince yourselves too, right?

And then, we tried to maintain some normalcy. The three of us play UNO every night after dinner. And once I started getting more mobile we went to church and went out for pizza (which Juliette doesn’t even like). But it’s my favorite food and I rarely let myself eat it. The surgery and stress and nausea led to an unintentional 10 lb weight loss so it was liberating to eat pizza. It’s funny how my lifelong body image issues and my constant assessment of whether or not I “should” eat something became so meaningless after a cancer diagnosis. Granted, I fully intend to continue to eat healthily (and mostly plant-based), but not because of how I want to look – but because I want to live.

Juliette is going to handle this. She’s tough and she’s smart. She already suggested I borrow her tiaras and her dress-up wigs and hats to make my (soon to be) bald head look pretty.

We’re all going to handle it. We just are. I can honestly say I’ve never loved my husband more than I have since this happened. I’ve always loved him and appreciated him but this is a whole new kind of love I never even knew existed. We were supposed to be in Woodstock, VT right now. Just the 2 of us for 3 days and nights of skiing and spa-ing and great meals and romance. Aside from our family trips to St John, it’s my favorite trip of the year. I’m mourning it right now. Hard. Yet here I am, newly Menopausal thanks to my surgery, with a 10 inch incision and an aching body and an aching soul. Sex is the furthest thing from my mind and sometimes I’m afraid it’s never going to come back. But spooning in the morning before we get out of bed is pretty amazing – now that I can lay on my side.

I was on the 21st floor of MGH, in an enormous single room overlooking the Charles River. I had loads of visitors and flower deliveries. I felt loved. So, I guess it could have been worse. I finally got to go home on February 2. I was miserable. I was in pain, I couldn’t eat due to nausea, couldn’t poop due to constipating meds and the Dr having had to inspect my bowels to check for cancer (None! Thank You God!). I’ll say it again. I was miserable. I cried a ton. For me. For Rick. For Juliette. I just kept thinking about how unfair it was. How I’m a good person and I don’t deserve this. I had to work so hard to have Juliette and had to suffer the loss of my stillborn son Owen and have so many failed IVF attempts and losses. Then, we finally did it! We had a healthy baby girl who is the most amazing person I’ve ever met and now, at the age of 6 she has to be faced with the possibility of losing her mom. WTF! Seriously! I cried thinking of Rick all alone trying to keep it together for Juliette and my heart broke. I’ve read the stats and the survival rates. I know this is a bad one.

And all the while well-meaning people kept telling me I could “beat this” and “fight” but I felt so weak and broken I couldn’t imagine ever feeling strong enough to do that. They were dark days. Rick was a rock star. Making J’s breakfast and lunch and getting her on the bus every am, bringing me breakfast in bed to try to get me to eat, then going to work himself and putting on a happy face for his patients. I don’t know how he did it.

The silver lining during this time was the incredible outpouring of support. Friends and family came out of the woodwork. Making meals, doing laundry, taking Juliette for play dates and activities, going to the grocery store, providing a comforting visit, hiking the dogs, doing Reiki on me. You name it. There were days I had to cancel visits because I was just too sad. I wanted to put on a brave face for people and I couldn’t always do it. We were truly blown away by all of the support and love we got from our village and we are eternally grateful.

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.

The next day, on January 23, I was at a “Grand Tasting” for work (What? Your job doesn’t consist of trying dozens and dozens of wines on a Wed morning?) when Dr. Del Carmen called to tell me that the CT scan and blood test showed additional findings: plaque on my liver and a CA-125 score that was borderline at 65. The CA-125 is a test that can determine ovarian cancer. Wait. What? Then why aren’t all women getting this testing done regularly like, say, a mammogram or a Pap smear?  I guess it’s not 100% reliable, but still. Anyway, my score was 65 which is “borderline” for cancer. My mom for example, who had a benign tumor 2.5 times bigger than mine, had a score of 0. As for the plaque on the liver, I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but I knew it a) explained the pain below my rib cage and b) wasn’t good. We lost all of the optimism we had gained the day before. The likelihood that this was cancer was increasing.

The next few days were just long days of waiting and waiting for the surgery and continuously going over every possible scenario from best to worst case. Rick and I also managed to take a day and go to Mirbeau Spa for massages and relaxation. My surgery meant we had to cancel our upcoming annual Valentine’s Getaway to the Woodstock Inn in VT. So, we improvised. Aside from the veil of a possible cancer diagnosis hanging over head it was still a fantastic day.

Oh and because I am who I am, that weekend we also hosted a party that had long been planned. I just didn’t want to cancel and have to explain to everyone and I thought it would be a good distraction. And let’s face it, I hate to miss a good party. And if this was cancer, who knew when the next party would be.

On Tuesday January 22, I saw Dr Marcela Del Carmen, Gynecological Oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. All she knew of me at this point was an ultrasound and now a face. So when she looked at me and said “you’re too young for cancer” I flatly said “But I’ve already had it.”

Based on the ultrasound she didn’t seem too concerned. So, we came away thinking there was a good chance it was benign (hoping it was the same thing my mom had). She scheduled a CT scan and a blood test for later that day and surgery was scheduled for 1/29. It was supposed to be a laparoscopic removal of my left ovary. However, I had to consent to the fact that Dr. Del Carmen could not truly know what was going on until she got in there. She warned me that if she found cancer she’d have to “open me up and take everything”.

I hadn’t yet had the pelvic ultrasound. But after a weekend of general discomfort, where the Right Upper Quadrant pain had come back pretty fiercely I decided to call my primary care Dr. to say I thought I was having Gallbladder issues. They scheduled an ultrasound for January 16. Later, on the day of the ultrasound I got a call telling me that radiology said my gallbladder and liver were “all clear”. My thoughts: “Phew. Relief. I don’t have to give up cheese! But wait, what is causing this pain?”

Just 2 days later on January 18 I had the ultrasound of my pelvic area at noon. I received a voicemail that night while at work asking that I page Dr Shifren about the radiologists report of my ultrasound. Instant dread. I’ve gotten a call like this before. 17 years ago – when I cheated cancer.

Turns out, Rick and J came into work to visit right after I got that message. So, he and I called together, while my co-worker entertained J. Dr Shifren told us about an 8.5 cm mass in my pelvis, likely my ovary and that she would set me up for an appt with gynecological oncology at MGH on Tuesday.

Tuesday! It was only Friday and it was Martin Luther King weekend so we had to wait until Tuesday. We cancelled our plans to go away the next day. No one felt like going anywhere.

And the whole weekend  we vascilated between “It’s probably benign. My mom had a huge ovarian cyst and it was benign” and “OMFG. This could be ovarian cancer.” It was 3 days of absolute torture.

The Right Upper Quadrant pain was still there under my rib (yet subtle) but I was also experiencing pelvic pain. Sometimes I’d feel sharp, stabbing pain in what I thought was my uterus and sometimes I’d experience pain during intercourse. I attributed it to peri-menopause and thought maybe I had a fibroid(s). More confusing though, I was experiencing an unusual amount of pain when I had a bowel movement. So again, I figured diet was to blame for that – but by this point I had really gone back to my generally healthy eating.

Basically, I just didn’t feel right and Rick was getting concerned too. So on January 7, 2019 I called to schedule appt with Dr Shifren, my Gynecological endocrinologist at MGH. She had been treating me for peri-menopause symptoms.

She’s usually really tough to get an appointment with but fate was on my side. She had a cancellation in 3 days if I wanted the appt. Yes, yes I did!

I saw her on Jan 10. When I described my symptoms she scheduled an ultrasound for the following week. She also did a Pap smear and a pelvic exam. I think we both suspected fibroids at this point.

In the middle of the night of Dec 1, 2018 I woke up with excruciating pain on my Right Upper Quadrant (under my rib cage). I considered waking up Rick and telling him I needed to go the the emergency room. Thats how much it hurt. But then I calmed myself down thinking “it’s probably your gallbladder or something digestive”. We had an at-home date night earlier (thanks for letting J sleep over mom and dad) and had capped off oysters and champagne with an amazing cheese board and a baguette. What happens to someone who generally tries to avoid gluten and then eats a half a loaf of bread and All The Cheese? This. I thought this is what happened.

So, I waited a few days and the pain subsided but never quite went away. It felt “sore”.

By then the Christmas season was in full swing. We were in our new home and I had so much fun decorating and the Elf came to visit Juliette for the first time and it was a truly magical Christmas season. So, I didn’t really think about it. I just ate Christmas cookies and more cheese, like it was my job. And continued to blame my minimal discomfort on my diet.

On January 29, 2019, after a major surgery I’ll discuss in detail later, I was officially diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer. Some have been brave enough to ask me “what were your symptoms?” but even for those who haven’t, I know they’re curious. It’s human nature.

Never in a million years did I think ANY of my symptoms could be ovarian cancer. That’s the thing about ovarian cancer, and why it’s often referred to as “the silent killer”: the symptoms are mostly what all women experience at one time or another. Bloating, pelvic pain, constipation. That’s what Periods feels like. That’s what peri-menopause feels like. That’s what life, as a woman my age, feels like.

Not to mention, the pain in my Right Upper Quadrant, which is nowhere near ovaries. But I’ll get to that soon.