Now 9 months in remission from stage 1C Ovarian cancer I fight everyday to ensure that I have a chance to be a part of my children’s future.

At first I was told I was pregnant, then that I had miscarried and needed a D&C and finally that I had a large ovarian cyst. A cyst that resulted in my OB/GYN referring me to a gynecological oncologist Clearly, it wasn’t just a cyst. After surgery to remove a tumor the size of a football along with my left ovary and tube I was left to wait. My surgeon said it was either borderline or malignent but he wanted to wait until the pathologist report came back. Well, it came back and I was diagnosed with stage 1C ovarian cancer at the age of 29. It was a stage C rather than A because during surgery the capsule ruptured. All of my other biopsy’s came back benign (abdominal fluid, lymph nodes, pelvis, remaining tube and ovary, omentum etc..). My CA-125 was at 99 before surgery, 125 immediately after surgery, 22 before my first chemo and 13 after my first chemo. Now, 4 months after my final (5th) round of chemo my CA 125 level was 12!

Chemo was different than I expected, I gained 20 pounds due to steroids primarily and was told that I’d probably lose weight, I took a drug called Emend which was miraculous because I did not suffer the nausea that many patients report. I felt more tired than usual, had trouble sleeping, felt tingling in my legs and feet and had a ringing in my ears periodically for the first week after chemo then life was back to normal until the next treatment. My hair started to fall out on my 30th birthday, about a month following my first chemo session. Of everything I went through, the experience of holding clumps of my hair in my hand was the most difficult experience I have ever gone through. For the following few days I washed my hair and clumps fell out reminding me each day that I had cancer, so with my wigs near by I took clippers to my hair and shaved it all off and I have to say that while I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore and my vanity was no more, I felt a huge sense of relief.

My husband and kids rubbed my head and told me that I was beautiful and that was all I needed to keep me going. My eyelashes and eyebrows didn’t go until after my third treatment, but false lashes and eyebrow powder did the trick and I reveled in buying wigs in hairstyles that my own hair would never do. I have everything from the short and sassy bob to the long blonde bombshell hair to the dark sexy vixen hair. My husband swears that with each wig a different side of me comes out. I look at it as my chance to be a little girl again and play dress up at the age of 30!

I finished my treatments (chemo/taxol) and am now seeing my MD every 3 months for a pelvic exam and blood work (CA-125) and while I thought fighting cancer was tough, the waiting in between appointments is proving tougher. I wonder if every ache and pain I feel is my cancer coming back. I wonder what my next appointment will bring. I’m just waiting to see if my first fight was enough to be my only fight or if I’ll have to put on the boxing gloves again and go head to head with this disease. Cancer is not like a broken toe, it doesn’t fix itself and go away, it’s a chronic disease that once you’ve had it, you always own it in one way or another. I’m now and will always be a cancer patient, a cancer victim, a cancer survivor, a cancer statistic, but I will also always still be a woman, a mother, a wife, a lover, a best friend, a sister, a daughter and a fighter. And now as the signs of my fight disappear (my hair is 2″ long, my eyebrows and eyelashes are back, the extra weight is coming off, the bruises from my IV’s have long disappeared and the smile on my face appears more often) I know that I am changed forever, for the better.