mtsis' Journey with Ovarian and Fallopian Tube Cancer

My only symptom of anything being wrong was that I was bloated. I procrastinated for about 5 days before I went to Urgent Care. In a matter of 5 hours I felt like my life had been turned upside down with the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. Two days later I was seen by a gynecologist. He kept saying "The sooner, the better" so a week later I was having surgery. It was quite the whirlwind.

About a week or so after I returned home from my major surgery I started becoming short of breath so I went to see the doctor. He said I would have to be admitted to the hospital to rule out infection or pneumonia. It turned out that there was fluid on my right lung. They drained off 2 whole liters of fluid that evening. It was not too bad at first but the last minute or so was very painful. I ended up staying in the hospital for 5 days. It was a relief to have the fluid gone.

Ten days after my diagnosis I was having surgery. I had to travel about 4 hours to the city where the only gynecology/oncologist practices in Montana. I was in the hospital for 6 days. It was a rough trip home. I had 50 staples running down my abdomen. I call them my railroad tracks.

In my opinion, having a Power Port is a great advantage of being "poked" all the time for blood tests and for chemotherapy. It sounded a little scary having a tube inserted into my jugular vein but it has been fine.

Ocular Migraine. I had to ask the eye doctor about this one. The folks at the cancer treatment center had not heard of it and didn't know what it was. It was like "starry vision" on the peripheral edges of my vision. It didn't last long and there was no headache or pain associated with it. It happened a few days after chemo and I had it about 3 times.

I feel that I was very blessed in my chemo treatments. The first round was pretty hard but they got better with less side effects. I had 6 rounds, once every 3 weeks. My first round included a drug called Taxol which caused numbness is my fingers and toes (peripheral nueropathy) which is still with me as of now. My oncologist changed to Taxatere after that. I was given pre-meds that almost totally prevented nausea. There were steroids in those pre-meds too that gave me a bunch of energy for about 36 hours. :) I was also given a shot the day after chemo that promoted white cell production in my bone marrow. My tumor markers came down dramatically with each treatment.

Chemo brain is real! It's not so scary, mostly a little embarrassing. Sometimes I forget things but with chemo brain I can forget what I'm talking about in mid sentence. Or forget who was running for president two days after the election! I blame other things on chemo brain too. Hopefully it passes with time. Then I'll have to blame regular old age. :)

I finally figured this one out with my last of six rounds of chemo. I found that if I started taking stool softeners 2 days before chemo, I was good to go, so to speak.

I was expecting this one so I cut my hair short before it started to fall out. Then when it did start to fall I out I had my head shaved. I didn't want to deal with hair on my pillow or elsewhere or looking "patchy". I am not one to wear wigs so I wear hats, bandanas and scarves. I never did lose my eyebrows or eyelashes. One positive thing is I haven't had to shave my pits for a long time now. :)

I had swelling in my ankles and legs mostly after surgery. I had to have those annoying inflating things on my legs while I was in the hospital to prevent blood clots. But I guess it was worth it because I didn't get any clots. It was hard to sleep with them on though. The one night that the nurse let me have them off, I woke up with swollen ankles again. After the first round of chemo there was some swelling too. It seems like it went away after about 2-3 days. It could also have been from walking around at the fair for hours the night of that first round. It was more walking than I had done since my surgery a month earlier.

This is just about a given. If you can, take advantage of this time to rest and heal. Don't fret about what you can't do. Take it one day at a time and be thankful for what you can do.

Taste changes was another annoying side effect. It would start about 1-2 days after treatment and go away about 10 days later. It made things taste metallic or just not right. So then I didn't want to eat but knew I should. People would kindly bring me food but I didn't feel like eating. Water didn't even taste right. I have a hard time drinking enough water anyway so that was difficult. Good news is that it is no longer an issue since the end of treatment and I can enjoy eating again.

Weight loss was an advantageous side effect for me. I needed to lose weight but I wouldn't recommend getting cancer to do it! (As if we have any control over that!) Now that treatments are over I'm going to have to work hard to not gain that weight back again. I love sweets and it is hard for me to say no. And folks keep saying "go ahead, you deserve it".

My first round of chemo included the chemo drug, Taxol. When I saw the doctor afterwards he said that the numbness and tingling in my fingers and toes was probably from the Taxol and he switched me to Taxatere. After that it didn't get any worse but it has not gone away and it might not. I would rather have that than cancer though!

On the day of my last treatment we had a "bell ringing" ceremony. There is a bell at our cancer treatment center that everyone gets to ring at the end of their planned treatments. There is a poem to read as well.