Cancer

It's one of those words that you wish to never be around, and unfortunately it comes up more times than anyone wishes.

My beautiful son was born in July 2020. The whole world seemed to be divided because of covid, and all I cared about in that moment is that my husband and doula were able to be a part of the birth.

The weeks following his birth seem to have gone by so fast, and I was adamant to be on my toes and moving. By the time my 6 week check up was due, I felt great and ready to get the clearance to exercise and continue normal activities. If only that would be my biggest concern.

I remember getting the call that I had an abnormal pap, and being who I am, I made sure to be seeing the doctor the next day to see what all of this meant.

The doctor performed a biopsy, and told me it's extremely rare to have anything major be an issue. I left there comforted by his words. A few days go by and I receive a call from the doctor around 5pm before a holiday weekend. He promptly tells me that I have cancer cells in my cervix and that I'll need to see a gynecology oncology doctor. Before I have a chance to process, he ends the conversation, and I'm left with a hundred questions and absolutely terrified. Rich is there by my side, both of us freaked out, and I have to wait 4 days before I can schedule to speak with an oncologist.

When they tell you to stay off google, that is not a joke. It's one of those rules that you should follow, but you would rather know the worst case scenario and hope for better news later. And honestly what kind of doctor tells you something like that over the phone. Bed side manner in doctors seems to be something forgotten nowadays.

The weekend goes by slower than ever before, but luckily I have my newborn to keep me busy and occupied. I won't deny that moving forward my mind was preoccupied and it robbed me of the first 6 months of his life. Learning the ropes of being a new mom and breastfeeding is hard enough. I'm able to schedule my appointment to see my oncologist. She is the best in her field and I trust her whole heartedly.

We start off by doing a conization procedure to try to remove the cancer cells from my cervix. We hear back from the pathologist that the margins were not clear and it did not work. It takes 4 weeks before I can do another procedure. The second conization is much more high risk. Because my cervix is so thin now, there was a potential for her to puncture my bladder, but I trusted her and we moved forward. Second surgery was also unsuccessful.

No matter how hopeful I was. No matter how much I did. All of it felt like failures. Eating organic and being extremely healthy. None of that matters when cancer is involved. I sought out the help of a naturopathic oncologist, which helped me feel like I was targeting everything at all angles. But the hard truth is that now, my only step forward was getting a hysterectomy.

The surgery was scheduled for December 28th, and two days before the surgery I was doing an MRI to see if they would be taking my ovaries also. My oncologist was thorough in my option of egg retrieval at that moment, but we chose to not do anything too invasive, since all these surgeries were already taking a toll on me. It was such an awful feeling to know I would be damaged and unable to have kids on my own ever again. It's hard not to feel gross or insecure about this entire process. It's hard to not look at things to blame.

The day of the surgery was intense. My mother had flown to spend the next 8 weeks with us, since after my surgery I wasn't able to carry anything more than 10 lbs for a while. Which meant no carrying my son.

As I was getting prepped for my surgery, it was hard to swallow that this is what's actually happening, but in the bright side my ovaries were able to stay. As the anesthesiologist was prepping me to go completely under and they were taking me to the operating room, an imense amount of fear and loss came over me. I sobbed all the way to the operating room until I was out.

The surgery was successful, and I see my oncologist every 6 months now and moving soon to every year for the rest of my life. The healing process was rough, but I'm very glad to have been able to make it through this and be in the other side.