Woowoo!!

[Guest guest]

Hello friends! We saw the oncologist late yesterday for my first post-surgery appt. (Surgery was two weeks ago yesterday.) The staples were removed and it was confirmed that I am healing well and quickly. He said the biggest obstacle from here on out is going to be fatigue and rebuilding my stamina/strength. And he's right, halfway through a shower I have to sit on the edge of the tub just to finish washing my hair because I get so tired at this point. But every day I feel better and stronger and am able to do more. And I can even resume driving in a week, which has been a big inconvenience!

But the real news is that the pathology report revealed great news! There are several different types of ovarian cancer, mine was the rarest one, occurring in less than .2% of all cases. It was contained inside the ovary and everything else that they removed tested clean/benign so the cancer was staged at 1a. It doesn't get any better than that! No further treatment at this time. I told him that I wanted to treat this aggressively and if that meant chemo just to be safe, then I was prepared to do that but he felt it wouldn't accomplish anything at this point except make me sick and make my hair fall out. The recurrence rate is comparitively low, less than 10%, but when it does recur, it's most often within the first year. And if it does recur, it tends to be slow-growing and they usually treat it with surgery again rather than chemo. So I'll be followed closely with an appt/exam in three months and one in six months with another CT scan at that time, and so on.

I am incredibly relieved and grateful and a bit in shock, to be honest. I'm not completely out of the woods and of course nothing is guaranteed, but at least I feel like I have a fighting chance at being around to see my boys grow up now. And for right now, that is more than enough!!

Love,

Judy (mom to , age 12, NT, and Jake, age 10.5, ASD)