The year 2009 started out awesome: I had taken my husband to see John Legend in concert for his birthday and I just returned home from Washington D.C., after the inauguration. My 24th birthday was less than a month away and my friends and I were planning a fun night out. Having rescheduled my annual check up two times already, I just couldn’t put it off any longer.
Sometimes I feel like I can remember everything that happened so clearly, other times it feels like a blur or maybe if I close my eyes, like it really didn’t happen at all.
I went alone to my appointment. It was routine procedure, that is until the actual exam. I’d known I had put on some weight, but put it off as holiday weight – you know, lose it later. Immediately my doctor started questioning me, and surprisingly I started to realize I was uncomfortable a lot, couldn’t sleep on my stomach…things I didn’t really take seriously.
One week later, on a Thursday, I went for my ultrasound. My follow up appointment was scheduled for the following Tuesday, but that afternoon my doctor’s office called and asked for me to come in the next day.
From that point on everything went so fast (though most people thought it could have went a lot faster).
The mass was on my right ovary – 17cm.
My surgery, scheduled for February 27, was just 10 days after my 24th birthday.
Though my doctors never said the “C” word, I could tell that’s what they were thinking. Even after the surgery, after they confirmed it, he only said it once, right after I came out of surgery, when my throat was still to sore to respond. I think that was easier for him. So instead he just held my hand while I cried (or at least tried, it hurt my stomach to cry to hard).
I already knew, as did my family, that if it was cancer I would have a total hysterectomy. And I did, two weeks later. It was never a choice for me, I am blessed with two beautiful children, and like my oncologist said, if I wanted to gamble, I needed to go to a casino. Everyone that knows me, knows that I am not a gambler.
I would be lying if I said that I don’t regret having my hysterectomy. At 24, I am surrounded by girls my age having babies, or talking about the possibility of having a baby, so I am sad, but I am also here. It was the easiest and hardest decision I have ever had to make. I ask myself, “If I hadn’t rescheduled my appointment would everything be different or the same, just a few months earlier?”
Whatever the case may be, I am here, with my family, still making memories (and of course getting check-ups every three months!). With the year now coming to an end, my resolution is to share my story in hopes that it will bring ovarian cancer to everyone’s attention and find a cure for this awful disease.
