Ovarian Cancer Awareness
My mom was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer 8 weeks ago and since Ovarian Cancer Awareness Day is this week {May 8th}, I felt like I should share my story (the story of a daughter who is watching Ovarian Cancer). I wish to spread awareness about Ovarian Cancer, and hope someone can catch it before it’s too late.
Ovarian Cancer is known as “The Silent Killer”. Normally the common symptoms are overlooked and it is caught too late. The following two are the best graphics depicting an overview of Ovarian Cancer.
For more in-depth info.. Ovarian Cancer National Alliance is an excellent resource to find out more info.
It’s humbling how life works out… how we are given opportunities to grow and increase our empathy. I believe empathy is one of the most important qualities to develop. It is not until you go through the experience yourself that you truly gain empathy for others. That is powerful. But I am so grateful to be along side my mom, experiencing this with her.
She is the strongest woman I know. Yet there have been discouraging, depressing moments when it feels like we are facing straight into the eyes of death. But we have seen so many miracles, so many tender mercies where angels (here and on the other side) have answered deep, earnest prayer.
My mom has Stage 3 Level 3 Ovarian Cancer. Here is her story… from a daughter’s perspective…
I have spared some of the details.. out of privacy and length. But this is a summary of what we have experienced during the last 8 weeks.
My mom started to feel abdominal discomfort. It was about two months or so, it got worse as time passed. She first thought it might be lactose intolerance, or possibly IBS. My mom was also having daily headaches, so she decided to monitor everything that she was putting in her body to see if there was any correlation. At one point she stopped taking her acne medication. My mom didn’t know this at the time, but it was a diuretic. Within days her stomach had bloated large enough to where she felt like she looked pregnant.
She is a petite lady, so any extra can show. However I didn’t believe her when she told me that she looked pregnant. (She happened to be on a cruise when this all happened). When she came home, indeed she did look pregnant!
The acne medication had been flushing out excess fluid that was building up because of the cancer.
She went to an insta-care the day she got home from her cruise. That doc said he wasn’t sure what it was and that they needed to run tests. He said he imagined it was an internal blockage. He took some blood samples, and scheduled a colonoscopy 10 days out.
The weekend came and went and her stomach was continuing to grow! My 5’6″, 105lb mom looked like she was 8 months pregnant! It was so weird. We all sort of joked about it, but wondered what it could be.
The following Monday, a co-worker convinced her to go into the emergency room. She did, and within 30 minutes the ER doc came back and said he was 99% sure she had some gynecological cancer.
An entire week went by without us knowing what kind of cancer exactly it was, or what stage it was. It was a very uncertain time. I cried. A lot.
Well 2 weeks after she was diagnosed she went into surgery. She had a full hysterectomy (uterus, both ovaries, and fallopian tubes removed), her omentum was removed (the lining of her stomach), her spleen was removed, parts of her liver, the lining of her diaphragm, and she had reconstruction on her bowel and colon (the bowel and colon are where the left and right ovaries sit). Her incision covers her entire abdomen! Top to bottom! Major, major surgery.
She stayed in the hospital for 2 weeks… very painful and very very discouraging 2 weeks.
She finally was able to come home! Oh what a relief and joy that was for our family. However, at home, she could not keep anything down. She continued to throw up, all of the time. She got down to 90lbs or so. It was a vicious cycle.. no energy because she wasn’t eating, but she would eat, then throw it up, so she was weak again. But since she was weak, she needed to eat… it wouldn’t stop for what I believe was two weeks. The docs let her stop all of her medicine… hoping that would fix the nausea. It didn’t. So they prescribed her a few things at a time to see if it would help.
She has regained a great portion of her strength back. However, tomorrow she starts chemotherapy. They want to treat it aggressively so they are going to give her 18 weeks of chemo. One treatment a week. I know that this next phase is going to be an uphill battle, but it is a battle our entire family (and incredibly supportive friends) will take along side her.
My mom does not have any of the known risks. The gynecological oncologist said it just had to have been a mutation. They don’t know why or how long it has been growing. But we are so grateful she went into the doctor to have it checked.
My hope for this post, is for you to be aware of the signs of Ovarian Cancer. Go get checked, don’t just blow off your symptoms as “nothing” or gas. My mom’s biggest concern going into the doctors was that they were going to tell her she just had gas, or that it was nothing.
Please, share your story. Tell us what you have experienced. It is so healing to talk about it, to process it out, and to realize there are others going through a similar journey as you are. It helps us not feel alone, it helps us feel like “if they can do it, so can I”, it helps unite us.
