My Perspective

I checked into the hospital on Monday morning. Surgery was scheduled to be about 2 hours long. It ended up taking about four and a half hours. My surgeon made three small laparoscopic incisions and was able to remove my left ovarian tumor. He said it was smooth and the size of a grapefruit. (Yep, no kidding.....the size of a freaking grapefruit .) I asked him to repeat that several times just to confirm that I was hearing him correctly. Anyway, He sent my ovary and affected filoppian (sp?) tube to pathology while I was still on the table, to have it tested. He seemed confident that it was benign and started to close me up. But the report came back from pathology that it was cancerous. I had to be reopened immediately with a large bikini line incision to dissect lymph nodes for biopsy. While doing that, I had the unexpected complication of excessively bleeding and lost a lot of blood which required a transfusion. After all this, I was stapled back together and was sent to recovery in stable condition. I felt pain and had lots of blurred vision and lightheadedness when I woke up. I felt very loopy on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then last night, they tested my hemoglobin and found it very low and gave me yet another blood transfusion. Upon receiving that, I felt much better. I was happy to be able to come home this morning. I didn't want to miss Olivia's school performance. She had a speaking part in her first grade play this afternoon.

Basically this is what I have or had (past tense possible) A very rare form of cancer known as Granulosa stromal cell tumor. Only 1 to 2 % of ovarian cancers presents in this form. So, if I am going to have ovarian cancer, this is the one to get. It typically is not a fast spreading cancer and is usually treatable with just surgery . I should not need any chemotherapy to follow up the surgery, but that will depend on what the lymph node biopsy results are. Hopefully I will get those results soon.

We, (as the doctor suggested) got very lucky. We were the only good news our oncologist Dr. Boente
got to deliver on Monday. There were many other families on the cancer care center floor with us that were not so lucky. For now....I am calling myself a cancer survivor. I 'm counting my many blessings. I am feeling very tired and sore. I have about 20 staples in my abdomen and a lot of bad bruising. One side effect of having the lymph nodes removed is that now I have what is called lymphnode edima. My left leg is swollen to twice the size of the other and is a wee bit uncomfortable to walk on. But they have given me some great drugs to help with recovery. My mom is here and has been a wonderful help to me and to Byron and the kids.

Thanks to everyone for your concern and thoughtfulness. Thanks for all the flowers, cards and gifts and for coming to visit me in the hospital or calling me there to see how I was doing. It feels so good to know that everyone cares so much. I'm feeling the love, people. Feelin' the love. Take Care

-lisaD.