Liz's Question

My sister Liz asked me if my cancer is gone or in remission.

I don't know.

All I can say is that there is no visible sign of it.

Also, a while back, Katrina asked how I found the cancer.

In September 2008 I started having severe abdominal pain in the lower right side. I thought I might have appendicitis, but a doctor told me it felt like an inflamed ovary. The pain came and went every other week or so, and I thought it was just my body adjusting to not nursing anymore.

When I had my annual ob exam in February, I hadn't felt any pain in a few days, but it had been severe the week or so before. Also, lying in bed, I had felt something--a big bump or lump--on the right side of my lower stomach. I mentioned it to my ob, who thought it might be fibroids.

An ultrasound showed it to be a very large ovarian cyst. It appeared to be fluid-filled and unremarkable except for its size (about 15 cm long). The blood tests showed elevated CA 125 (a cancer marker), but it was not high enough to raise alarm bells. My doctor thought it was a normal cyst, and said cancer was a far distant second given my age and family history.

The surgery, however, revealed highly invasive cancer cells in the cyst. Fortunately, they were all contained in the ovary. You know the story from there: a second surgery to stage the cancer, getting a port, chemo, pulmonary embolisms, lots of help from everyone.

The moral of the story is, if you have severe pain that wakes you up at night and keeps coming back and requires huge quantities of Advil Liquigels, go to your doctor and get it checked out.