Living with Endometrial Cancer

I am a 59 year old RN who went through menopause at age 58 (or at least I thought that I did) I had one more period approx 1 year later. In April of this year, I noticed a small brownish spot on the toilet tissue after urinating. I had no bladder symptoms and blew it off. A little more than 4 wks later, the same thing happened. I contacted my Internist who had his nurse call me the very next day and tell me that he was sending me to a GYN. I had some reservations about who he was sending me to, as I had socialized with him when I was younger but my doc wouldn’t take no for an answer. I made an appointment and saw the GYN about a week later.

Our first conference was just that, he related that his experience was that any woman with any bleeding after menopause should be treated as if they have uterine cancer. I was surprised to learn that obesity, late menopause and having only one child were all risk factors for this disease. We discussed options and agreed on an ultrasound. The vaginal ultrasound should a few small fibroids and one spot of endometrial thickening “unusual for a woman my age” Our next step was a hysteroscopy with endometrial biopsy.

I was stunned when he called me the following business day to tell me that there was a polyp associated with the endometrial thickening and that it had a small blood vessel at the tip which was probably the cause of my bleeding. Th rest of the news was that the polyp and the endometrium was positive for adenocarcinoma. I have never been sck more than 2 days in a row in my life. It was a real jolt to all of a sudden be a patient for the first time in my life. A pelvic and abdominal CT scan with both IV and oral contrast gave me some reassurance when there was no evidence of any lymph node involvement. The GYN sent me to a gynecological oncologist He explained that he didn’t “feel qualified to do the surgery” that he believed I needed. 10 days later, I sat in the gyn oncologist’s office and listened as he explained that I would be having a total abdominal hysterectomy with removal of my tubes and ovaries and a complete lymph node dissection of my pelvis and abdomen all along my aorta up to my renal arteries. He explained that he would not do the hysterectomy without the rest; that he wanted to be sure that there was no lymph node involvement if he was going to be able to tell me that I had a surgical cure.

The surgery took a little over 4 hours to do, I was given an epidural for pain control and for the first two days, there was hardly any pain. My epidural and foley catheters were removed on 2nd post-op day, as were the 2 drains that I had in my pelvis and under my incision, I was discharged from the hospital on my 3rd post-op day.

I am now 10 days out from surgery. The pathology came back clean as a whistle; no evidence of any cancer outside of my uterus. I was staged at a 1A and will not require chemo or radiation at this point. I will be under close observation for the next 5 years and will need a pap smear every 3 months for the first 2 yrs with annual CT scan and chest xrays. Then I can graduate to pap smears every 6 months for the next 3 yrs.

There are a few things that I would like women to know. First, there is no baby in the world who deserves a mother who dies before s/he is grown. Do not use that as an excuse for not getting a hysterectomy Secondly, surgical menopause is what you make of it, as is recovery from surgery. The alternative makes it pale in comparison. Thirdly, if you do not understand or don’t feel that you have had state of the art medical diagnosis and treatment, search out another opintion. Look up Fran Dresscher’s story and see how she persisted until she got appropriate care.

Uterine cancer is a survivable disease if caught early and treated aggressively. As women, we deserve that… don’t settle for less.