Most cancer survivors will admit that they never quite stop looking over their shoulders to see if a recurrence is creeping up on them. Having been caught by surprise once, nobody wants to be blind-sided again. My initial experience of ovarian cancer came in February 2008 when I was 52 years old, a Sister of Charity of Cincinnati practicing family medicine at the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas.
Stage IV at diagnosis, everyone including myself was amazed that I went into complete remission after surgery and an initial course of chemotherapy. Six years a survivor, I never tired of hearing people say, “You are a miracle!” But each follow-up visit, each PET scan, each lab test for the cancer marker raised the specter of a recurrence. In February 2014, just as the oncologist was suggesting that we decrease the frequency of those surveillance tests and the insurance company was beginning to balk at the costs of the same, a “little something” glowed in my chest on the PET scan. September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and on September 15, 2014, I was diagnosed with recurrent ovarian cancer in two lymph nodes on the outer lining of my heart.
To read more, click here: http://bit.ly/1Q3QAiu
Stage IV at diagnosis, everyone including myself was amazed that I went into complete remission after surgery and an initial course of chemotherapy. Six years a survivor, I never tired of hearing people say, “You are a miracle!” But each follow-up visit, each PET scan, each lab test for the cancer marker raised the specter of a recurrence. In February 2014, just as the oncologist was suggesting that we decrease the frequency of those surveillance tests and the insurance company was beginning to balk at the costs of the same, a “little something” glowed in my chest on the PET scan. September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and on September 15, 2014, I was diagnosed with recurrent ovarian cancer in two lymph nodes on the outer lining of my heart.
To read more, click here: http://bit.ly/1Q3QAiu
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