A little about my battle with Ovarian Cancer... Day 1

I had an English teacher in High School who always told me to start my stories at the beginning and work my way to the end. I have never been the best storyteller and my writing tends to be better if it is technical writing not storytelling.  In this case though I really have to start my tale in the middle and work my way back (and forth from there). My story starts on June 3, 2011 at about 10:00 Pm., just about 8 weeks before my 45th birthday. That was the night I was diagnosed with CANCER.

I had my husband drive me to the Emergency Room at Lexington Medical Center that night because I just had so much pressure in my gut. Maybe the Lasagna I made for dinner was making me sick? I felt like I needed to use the bathroom but, I couldn't. Felt like I needed to throw up, couldn't do that either! Really wasn't expecting them to help me when I got there because I had been sick for weeks ( or maybe years?) and none of my doctors had figured it out. I had past diagnoses' of Fibromyalgia, Hypothyroid, and Degenerative Disks in my spine and none of them really completely fit what was going on with me. I was pretty sure my file at the doctor's office had a big red flag with the word "Hypochondriac" included somewhere in the folder! I was sent to a bunch of specialists and no one was able to get me feeling normal again. I was so exhausted, I just wanted to go to bed and never wake up. I had given up on being normal ever again and felt I was just going to be a chronically ill person all my life. Turns out I wasn't really suffering from any of those things, I had Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer, I just didn't know it yet.

Thing is they couldn't tell me that on June 3rd, 2011,all the Emergency Room doctor could tell me was that I had cancer. I asked him how he knew, and he said he could see it on the chest X-ray they took. According to him, the cancer  "was all over". He was so choked up he could hardly get the information out to me and I was left in the room with my husband sitting numb beside me. I don't think my husband could even breathe- he had been down this road with a sibling and I know it was the biggest fear in his life that he would lose her.

All I knew was that I was in trouble, if your doctor gets choked up telling you what is wrong.. how scared would you be?

I didn't even have the presence of mind that night to ask what kind of cancer, I just asked what happens next? I was told they were finding a bed for me upstairs and admitting me. For the moment all they could do was give me some Demerol for pain.I was so miserable. I was happy to have the drugs and wait to be admitted. In the morning I would meet the Oncologist and find out what was going to happen to me.