Life's Journey

Hi Everyone-

Thought it was time for me to follow-up on my own. I've been home for just over a week now and my recovery from surgery is going very well. Roy, Ben, and Kitty have managed to keep me smiling everyday. My incision is healing well and while uncomfortable it's honestly a lot better than having the big masses in there. I'm already starting to wean off the pain meds and am wanting to get up and do more. I don't "sit and collect dust" easily.

Yesterday Roy and I met with my oncologist to follow-up on surgery, review the pathology reports, and discuss treatment plans. I know many of you have been waiting anxiously for this information. The pathology from the surgery showed Metastatic Endocervical Adenocarcinoma. This means this is a recurrence of my cervical cancer from 2008. It has spread to both my ovaries and some surrounding tissue. This is an extremely rare situation especially considering my age - I'm officially an anomaly. It's also behaving very aggressively, so we are planning to treat it very aggressively. Tomorrow I will go to the hospital to have a port placed. The port allows for quick access to the veins for blood draws and chemotherapy. The procedure for placing a port is fairly common out-patient procedure. Next Thursday (3/31) I have a consultation with a radiologist and a PET Scan. The PET will show a much more detailed picture of what's happening. My doctor said that the nearby organs that he had access to appeared to be disease free and healthy, the PET will show any abnormalities that cannot be seen by the naked eye along with other organs that he couldn't see like the lungs. The hope is that there aren't any mets (visible abnormalities) in the scan, but we won't know that until the week of April 4th. The final treatment plan is dependent on these results, but the projected plan is to have targeted external radiation performed 5 days a week (mon-fri) along with chemotherapy one day a week (mon or tue). As I mentioned this is a very aggressive plan, but one thing my doctor said is "we will never look back and question if we fought hard enough". He feels that I'm young, healthy, strong, and determined enough to get through this.

As is true to form for me, I researched and prepared for this meeting with the doctor ahead of time. I came with three pages of questions (yes, it was color coded for those of you that know me well). While I didn't have the opportunity to ask all my questions, Roy helped to make sure I asked the big ones. I will meet with Michelle, the phenomenal nurse practitioner, next week to answer any additional questions. We did ask about side-effects to all this treatment. He said many of the side effects that hear about from chemo and radiation are now manageable. There are meds for the nausea and things that can help boost the white blood cells. Some things they can't really do much about is the extreme fatigue (which I will deal with) and the hair loss. Yup, that's right, I'm going to be bald soon. But, honestly, it's hair... it will grow back, who cares? It will be interesting to see what my head really looks like. Oh, and I'm going to start a betting pool on what my natural hair color is which will be discovered as it grows back lol.

It's going to be a challenging journey and the next few months are going to be tough. But, I am ready for the fight and more determined than ever to win! I can't thank you all enough for the love, support, and happy thoughts that have been sent my way. I will be in touch again soon.

With great appreciation and lots of love,

Sarah