Anna DeMers

November 2016

I am a Type A personality. I have a lot of energy and will power through whatever needs to get done. Early in 2016, I was the healthiest I’d been in years. I’d lost 36 pounds on purpose, had a job I loved and everything was fabulous! I was looking at my 60th birthday in April, and my husband and I were planning a birthday trip to Italy in the fall. Everything was easy, fun and pretty perfect.

But cancer has a funny way of changing things. For me, it began one February morning as I was getting ready to jump in to the shower and start my day. A sudden sharp pain struck me on the left side of my pelvis, where my left ovary was. It doubled me over with pain, made me light headed, dizzy, hot and sweaty. I couldn’t move because the pain was so intense. After about 20 minutes or so, it dissipated enough for me to stand up and go sit on the toilet, because I thought, “hey this must be constipation or some such thing.” It took an hour for me to feel good enough to take a shower.

Although I see a naturopathic doctor as my primary care physician, my husband was insistent that I see my medical doctor immediately. She knew of my family history of cancer: aunt with breast cancer, grandfather with colon cancer and sister with uterine cancer. She listened to my concerns, did a pelvic exam and ordered a transvaginal ultrasound.

After the ultrasound, my doctor called. When your doctor calls you on her day off at 8 p.m. you know it can’t be good. In fact, it wasn’t. She ordered an MRI for me the next day. After the MRI, I didn’t get a call from my doctor, I got a call from her scheduler asking my husband and me to come in to discuss the test results.

Sitting in her office discussing my future, I went from being a healthy 60 year-old to being a cancer patient. Blood work was ordered, including a CA 125 blood test, and then she did the very best thing she could have done — she made an appointment for me with a gynecologic oncologist.

The journey with cancer was now moving at a breakneck pace. I had a CT scan. The bloodwork came back, my CA 125 was 29 which was below the normal mark. I met with my new gynecologic oncologist: he called my tumor unremarkable; I called it my “Orange.” I was not yet ready to say I had cancer.

My gyn onc scheduled surgery for three weeks later; it was the longest three weeks of my life. After diagnosis, I just wanted “it” – the cancer — out and I wanted to start on the next part of the journey. I was scheduled for laparoscopic surgery, but the surgical pathology required a complete hysterectomy including the removal of 13 lymph nodes, my omentum and left and right gutters. I was diagnosed with Stage 1C ovarian cancer, and after 36 hours in the hospital, I walked out to go home.

Because my doctor is a gynecologic oncologist, he was up on the science regarding chemotherapy. His plan for me was to have only three cycles of Carboplatin and Taxol rather than the normal six. Eighteen days after starting chemo my hair fell out. Oh well. After a good cry, I took my husband’s clippers in my hand and cut off what was left.

Chemo was not what I expected, but the new pre-chemo drugs kept most of the side effects down to a low roar. Nausea was taken care of with diet. Coffee on an empty stomach was not a good thing. Fatigue was addressed by taking naps and through my naturopathic doctor’s IV “cocktail” which contained lots of supporting vitamins so that my energy levels would be boosted. The myalgia was the hardest to keep under control, but the pain from that was decreased by taking ibuprofen. And, lastly, the neuropathy was minimized through acupuncture.

I look at my health care as a team activity. My naturopath, my MD, acupuncture, and body work. My ND had worked with oncology patients and was very familiar with the IV protocol that would support my body during, and now-after, chemo. I went twice a week while I was getting chemo and now that I’m finished, I go once a week. These IV’s are helping me get back to myself.

But some side effects still linger. The bone pain can be ugly. In the end you get your health back. The hardest part for me was/is the fatigue and brain issues. You think you’re done with chemo so you should be back to your old self when in fact you are not. The fatigue continued but does go away. The brain fog, memory and loss of drive dissipates but not nearly fast enough for me. I’ll get there. One of the gifts from cancer is being forced to be patient (not my best thing).

I will end where I started. We caught this at Stage 1C. I had a great doctor who was my advocate and did all the right things, including ordering the correct tests and making a referral to a gynecologic oncologist. She didn’t dismiss me, didn’t minimize the symptoms I had. As women, we put up with a lot of aches and pains, and just keep on going. We think we can tough it out, just get through it, we don’t have time to deal with our health concerns.

But sometimes we get lucky.

Editors note: Anna has been married to her husband Michael for two years although they have been together for 15. While she doesn’t have children of her own, she enjoys Michael’s two adult children, one of whom lives just a half mile away with her husband and two children. Anna and her husband have a very supportive circle of friends for whom they love to cook quite often.