Mary B.

January 2016

I had some big decisions to make in July 2014. Like many who have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I was faced with decisions like how many surgeries to have, which family members were driving me to doctor appointments, and what I was going to do with a bald head. I didn’t realize how difficult things could get. I had doctors’ appointments, on top of appointments, on top of more appointments. I only knew the day of the week by which doctor I was seeing that day.

Chances are if you are reading this, you have had ovarian cancer or someone you know has been affected by it, so I’ll spare you all the gory details (spinal taps that go bad, optic nerve swelling and more).

My story is a little different than that of the “typical” ovarian cancer survivor who maybe received a diagnosis after menopause. I was just shy of 32 years of age at diagnosis, and now, due to my cancer, I will never carry a pregnancy.

I feel like I should provide some context about where I was in my life when I was diagnosed. I had been in a job I loved for seven years; had no kids; was in a fresh seven-month relationship; and was enjoying life to the fullest. My life included quick weekend trips to California, backpacking through creeks and mountains, wine tastings, bar crawls, and lots of flannel and skinny jeans. I was living my quasi-hipster life, when all of a sudden, it all changed real quick.

After a trip to the ER for some abdominal pain and vomiting in July 2014, scans showed a 9 cm cyst on my left ovary. A surgery was performed to remove the cyst, which exploded during removal, and I was diagnosed with endometrial clear cell adenocarcinoma of the ovary. Endometrial cancer is usually a cancer found in the uterus, but I got lucky and mine was found in my ovary. Prepare yourself for a lot of sarcasm. Since my cancer was found in an unusual place, there was not a lot of research to be found, except for some studies on women in Japan. Doctors staged my cancer at 1C and they recommended I have an immediate hysterectomy and start chemotherapy as soon as possible. Holy crap, I thought – I haven’t had kids yet.

In my oncology appointments, I kept saying “fertility, fertility, fertility.” The doctors were opposed to the idea of me taking time to visit a fertility clinic to extract and freeze my eggs, when they felt it was important to address my cancer immediately. In fact, one doctor said she would not be my doctor if I chose to go that route. I learned that the shortest amount of time this fertility/egg retrieval process would take was a month, IF it worked. And, really, I only had that one month to make it work — any more time would have been too dangerous due to the cancer. But one doctor said okay, so I had surgery (my second one) to remove the one ovary where the cancer was found. Shortly after, I started the egg retrieval process.

Finding out you have cancer is hard. Going through chemo is bad. Giving yourself fertility shots is awful. Wondering if your body will produce eggs in the one-month-as-your-only-shot-to-have-biological-children is the worst. Whether you want kids or not, as a woman, you grow up believing you have the ability to bear a child. When someone says they have to take away your ability to bear children because you have cancer and the alternative is death, it’s incredibly sad. But For me, there was no time to be sad, — I still had another surgery and chemotherapy to go.

In case you’re lost, up to this point in the story it’s been three months. I’ve had two surgeries and one fertility procedure. The fertility procedure was successful and eggs were retrieved. So, I returned to the hospital for a third surgery. This time, it was the big one: a full hysterectomy.

Six weeks after the hysterectomy, I started six rounds of chemo, one session every 21 days. If you haven’t gone through chemo yet and are looking for tips, I recommend buying/borrowing every chemo book you can find. I must have had three or four different chemo books and I needed ALL of them. Many people have written down some great tips and tricks to dealing with side effects from chemo, so for any newbies reading this, get those books! Baby laundry detergent? Genius!

Early on after my diagnosis, I got myself through each day telling myself that my situation wasn’t so bad — there are people out there who have it much worse than me; I’m tough and I can get through it; there are worse things in the world, right? Minimizing my situation didn’t help and it didn’t change anything. It turns out that getting cancer sucks and you should choose to be kind to yourself.

I used to feel sorry for myself for the things that I lost during cancer. I lost muscle. I lost confidence. I lost spirit. I lost that innocent feeling that everything is going to be alright. But with the help of counselors, yoga, support groups, friends, and time, things do get better.

My cancer story didn’t end that long ago so don’t get me wrong, it’s still a struggle, but instead of looking back I’m looking forward. It’s not about what I’ve lost, it is about what I have now. It took me a long time to understand what everyone was talking about when they said “be mindful.” Now I ask myself every morning, “How can I be mindful today?”

Surgery scars fade away. Hair comes back. Appointments dwindle. All any of us can do is make the best of what we’ve got. I’m choosing to move on and not let cancer define me or hold me back. I’m still here to tell my story, to have a career, to help others, to have kids, and/or make the world a better place. That seven-month relationship I mentioned earlier – it is now a two-year relationship.

Life kept moving, so I chose to move with it.