Survivors Blog April 5, 2013- Who the heck is Tara Robinson and why is she blogging about Ovarian Cancer?????

Hello Everyone,

I know since this blog is only six months old that so far the only people reading this are friends and family but, I wanted to introduce myself and share why this blog is so important to me!!

My foster daughter Angel and myself summer 2012

I am 46 years old, married and live in  the small town of Irmo, South Carolina. I am not a native South Carolinian, I am a transplant from California who kicked around the word for a bunch of years before I landed in Irmo. I have been chronically ill ( we will discuss this in a minute)  since about September of 2001 and that is what prompted me to become active in the online community seeking to help cancer patients and their families. When I am at work, I work for Michael's teaching the Wilton cake decorating classes and I also free lance teach at Orangeburg Technical College, Richland County Public Library, and other venues around town. When I am not at work I really enjoy my family and friends, cooking, gardening, and reading a good book.

Part of the reason I felt so strongly about doing something to help out in the cancer community is because when I went looking for meaningful simple things that would help me with my Ovarian cancer I did not find what I was looking for.

Here is what happened to me;  when I was 34 and newly married in 2000 I started to feel really awful. One day in September, I woke up in so much pain I could barely even breathe. I did not even really have a regular doctor here at this point so I hauled myself to the urgent care to get some help. They thought I actually may have injured my lower back in some fashion-- even though I could not remember doing so. I was sent off for an MRI and sure enough they found several herniated and ruptured disks in my lower back. I was sent to all sorts of doctors, pain specialists, and even the Medical University of South Carolina. I would always get a little relief but, never really enough to justify all the time and money I spent trying to heal my back up. As I moved through 2001 to 2002 the pain became more acute every month. I took a year off from the  job I loved ( and had worked my whole life for)  and stayed on my State Disability plan until it ran out. When I was out of disability payments, my doctor tried to get me moved on to regular disability but, I was immediately denied. I was much too sick and painful to go back to my career, so I reluctantly terminated my employment. I worked part time contract jobs whenever the pain permitted it and tried to maintain as normal a life as possible. Thank god for a very tolerant and loving husband,Oscar. I am not sure what would have happened without his support.

Sometime during this period of not working and trying to cope .. I was also diagnosed with hypothyroid, arthritis, and Fibromyalgia. I was well aware that when the neurologist diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia  it just meant he could not put a name to why I was in pain, or he thought I was completely crazy? The pain in my right side and  lower back just kept increasing exponentially, and I just kept trying to move forward.


After a few more months of not working, I realized we were not going to make it if I did not at least try to work a regular job on top of the contract work and eBay stuff I was doing. So I sucked it up and took a part time job in a property management office (pretty much diametrically opposite of any job I would have chosen had I been healthy). I knew I could only handle simple tasks and had to have a bunch of repetition if I was to keep a job and function with the pain I was in. It was still a huge struggle to go in there on bad days though- pain takes away some of your reasoning and logic skills. I was always making the stupidest mistakes in the world. I was very lucky in one respect though, my employer had also been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and so she allowed me to adjust as needed. I stayed at that part time job for 5 years and each year the pain and symptoms grew. I made a pact with my regular doctor: he agreed to manage my symptoms and not send me to any more specialists, we would just do the best we could with what we had.

After 5 years, I had to leave that job as well. I just could not do it anymore and the physical part of it was becoming hard to do. ( You know you are sick when walking people through tiny apartments wears you completely out.) A few months later, I heard about a cake decorating instructor position at Michael's and applied for it. It took several months to get the job because, it takes you not only testing at Michael's to be approved, it also takes testing and being approved to work at Wilton too.   Never the less,  I have been at Michael's  for almost 4 years now and it is the best job I have ever had. Teaching has allowed me to become the artist I should have always been, and my students bring me joy every day!!

Me at SCOA January 2012

However, my " Fibromyalgia" kept progressing. One day in April of 2011 I had a ripping pain in my right side and back, it felt as if I had been hit with a bat! I went in to my doctor the next day and he sent me off for an MRI, they called me a couple of hours later and told me I had an ovarian cyst that had ruptured and that I must get to my gyno. immediately. I was in her office the next day, and she did an ultrasound to confirm the MRI. When the results came back they too said I had a ruptured cyst, the gyno assured me that usually they just absorb into your system in two weeks, so she scheduled another ultrasound for two weeks out and said to keep taking my pain pills until then. About a week later, I called and told them I could not wait two weeks. They said I should do so and reviewed my scan results just in case. The next day I was so painful I called them again, again I was told to wait or go to the emergency room if I was in pain. So I hauled myself to urgent care- the doctor there took one look at my vitals and hooked me to an IV and prepped for me to go to the hospital. When he reviewed my scan results and called my gyno. she told them I did not need to be admitted based on my scan results and scheduled me for a laparoscopy in two weeks just to make sure I was OK. Once again, I was sent home and told to take pain pills. Two days later, I had my husband take me to the emergency room. I screamed the whole way there with the pain. When we arrived it was 11 pm, thank god we arrived before the place became busy.

The doctor at the ER, Dr. Langley, ran some blood work and my vitals and decided that I was seriously ill ( thank god for a fresh set of eyes). He took one simple chest X-ray and 5 minutes later he came into the room with tears in his eyes and said " you have cancer, and it is everywhere!". He admitted me to the hospital that night even though the Oncology Ward did not even have room for me. I woke up the next morning in the Geriatric ward of the hospital.  By 5:30 am I was informed by an Oncologist that I did indeed have cancer and since they had no idea what kind of cancer I became the patient of 3 oncologists and I don't know how many residents. I was in that hospital a week before they could diagnose my cancer. Once they had the results they let me know that I had Ovarian Cancer stage 4, because the plum sized tumor had attached itself to all sorts of organs.

That diagnosis and all the misdiagnosis before it ( up to and including the scans I had in the month prior) are what led me to want to help others who have my condition. There is so much misinformation out there and so few concrete suggestions for taking care of yourself as you go through the maze that is cacner. I have looked down the barrel of Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer and survived. This past February I was again diagnosed with cancer, I have 3 tiny tumors in my belly. So once again I am in treatment for cancer and on chemo. I am a survivor  and this is the why behind " Scrambled Eggs" .....