“Life is a daring adventure or nothing”

The story until now:
For all of us girls, from puberty on, we visit the gyno every year for our annual exam.  It is not the most pleasant or comfortable dr. visit, but it’s something that needs to be done.  At 26 years old, I had had 12 annual exams and no concerns.  A few months after my last annual, something started to happen;  I thought I was having bladder incontinence.  Definitely embarrassing, but I managed to find my dignity and visit my family doctor.  He started the process and referred me to a specialist.  About 3 months later, I visited the specialist.  She made me feel like I was more a pain in her ass, then my problems were to me.  I think someone needs to remind her that she’s a doctor and that any person will be a pain in the ass when they know something is wrong.  Believe me, I have a very elaborate list of words I wish I had said to her!  To make it worse, she misdiagnosed me.  In her own words, “It is not a serious problem, but extremely frustrating for these people”, and told me to come back in 3 months.  At my follow up visit, I told her everything had worsened and that I had lost weight.  She actually rolled her eyes at me and told me there was nothing she could do.  One of her colleagues had had a cancellation, so she sent me down the hall to see him.  He started his exam and a few words slipped out if his mouth.  He did a biopsy and I left knowing it was more than likely a tumor.  Two weeks later I got the confirming phone call, it was a cervical adenocarcinoma, and I was referred to the Cancer Care Clinic.

Before I go any further, I do want to state that I do know the seriousness of the situation both then and now.  I try to make light of the situation, and find the good and humour in it all.  I don’t want to dwell on the prognosis and be so concerned with the seriousness of the situation.  That is not me, and I would rather be happy and laughing…or trying to make someone else laugh, then be sad and crying.  I hope as you do read the blog you at least crack or smile, or better yet laugh out loud.  If it can inspire and motivate others then that is even better.  

                “A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on
                one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.”
                                                                                                      - Hugh Sidey

It was at Cancer Care where some of the embarrassing events took place.  Sure they weren’t funny then, but as I look back on them…they were pretty funny.  At my first appointment I met my gyno-oncologist; an amazing doctor and surgeon.  She told me she needed another biopsy and that I might have a small amount of bleeding.  Well let’s just say the slight bleeding resulted in wearing an adult diaper, my first experience with a catheter, a luxurious 3 night stay at the hospital, an allergic reaction to morphine, and 4 blood transfusions.  Good thing my dad and I had only planned a day trip!  First off…the adult diaper was huge, I had noticed I was bleeding a little more than a small amount.  I tried to hide it from my dad, but needed something until I could see the doctor again.  The nurse handed me the diaper, and I took it to the bathroom.  This is when I started to cry…I was totally mortified.  When I opened up the diaper it was huge and awkward.  I swear it came up to my armpits!  I put back on my jacket and waddled back to my room.  Second is the catheter …of course they are not comfortable, but either is accidently disconnecting two of the tubes and finding yourself lying in a bed of urine.  That one was good… I had to call the nurse and tell her I peed the bed.  When the nurse came in, I had gotten myself out of the bed and was standing in a puddle of pee.  Standing in pee or laying in pee, not too sure which one is more humiliating.   Brought back childhood memories of a nickname my dad made me…Peebody!  (On a road trip when I was 7 or 8 I tried to pee on the side of the road and managed to get more on myself then the ground).  As for the morphine reaction, I warned the nurse as she told me she was giving it to me.  I am pretty sure in red letters on my chart it states my allergies, but really what do I know?  Within a few seconds I was out and woke up to an oxygen mask.  Thankfully after a few days the bleeding stopped and I was sent home, only to return in a few weeks for surgery.  My surgery consisted of a radical hysterectomy and lymphadenectomy.   Although the surgery left me feeling like I had been beat up and run over, things looked good.  I did have one positive lymph node, but because the positive lymph node was the node closest to the tumor and everything else was clean, the doctors believed that the surgery was a success.  I was released from the hospital on Christmas Day ’09.  I had follow up visits every three months following the surgery.  At 6 months I received a CT scan which looked good.  At 12 months, I received a PET scan…The PET scan revealed a localized tumor and 2 positive lymph nodes.  Radiation and chemotherapy was my next adventure…