The Time Has Come To Talk Of Many Things

“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

It’s 4 a.m. on Mother’s Day and I am finally having my breakdown. Three weeks ago I went in for a da Vinci radical hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. I ended up having a diagnostic laparoscopy, exploratory laparotomy, total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, bilateral pelvic and periaortic lymph node dissection, omentectomy, peritoneal biopsy and appendectomy when my gynecological oncologist found a large malignant mass on each ovary.

I am so angry right now. This should not be happening to me. My freelance writing business was finally starting to take off and I had so many plans this year. I was going to Ireland and Scotland for a month. Now I am reeling from not only a diagnosis of early-stage endometrial cancer but stage 1c ovarian cancer and getting ready to start chemotherapy. If my gynecologist had listened to me in 2008 and did the hysterectomy then I would not be going through this now.

It’s taken three weeks for me to wrap my head around this and I am still an emotional wreck. My brain has refused to process this information. I was mentally prepared for endometrial cancer. I had done my research. I knew everything there was to know about endometrial cancer. I knew nothing about ovarian cancer. No one expected this. My surgeon did not expect to find this. It was a shock to wake up in recovery with 25 staples in my belly.

I’m terrified. No woman wants to hear she has ovarian cancer. No woman should have to hear she has ovarian cancer. I’ve been trying to put on a brave face and making jokes but the reality of the diagnosis hit home when I met with my doctor Friday to go over the pathology report and discuss my treatment options.

According to my pathology report, I had synchronous primary tumors on my right and left ovaries. The tumor on my right ovary had seromucinous and clear cell histopathologic features and the tumor on my left ovary had seromucinous histopathologic features. What this means is while my cancer was caught early, it is more difficult to treat and less responsive to chemotherapy. My doctor placed me in the 50 percent or greater group of women who survive.

I start chemo next week. I have six sessions, one every three weeks. I will have infusions of Taxol and Carbo. I’m not ready for this. I am never sick. I don’t even have a primary care physician. Since 2008, when this nightmare started, I’ve only been to the doctor twice – once for a broken finger and once when I got hit by lightning. I survive being hit by lightning only to be taken out by cancer.

I’m not ready to die yet. There is still so much I want to do. I need to finish writing my book. Dying is all I can think about. Thank God for my friends. They have talked me down off the ledge more times than I can count the past three weeks. No woman should go through this alone. I don’t get along well with women. My best friends are guys. But I have discovered such a great sisterhood of women out there since my diagnosis who have been supportive and loving. Women need each other at times like this and I am so grateful for the women in my life right now.

I have stepped off the edge of the world where there be monsters. I must take up my sword and shield and prepare to do battle.