Next Step in Treatment and Carpe Diem!

Casey and I went to see my oncologist yesterday. After my last round of IP chemo on April 13th he will send me to have the cyst drained. Next on the agenda is a visit to see a radiation oncologist for a consultation. He has a patient in my situation who did radiation and has been cancer free for four years. He thinks she's cured. He thought I was too, however. I love that he's so optimistic! It's not his area of expertise, so he's not sure if I'm a candidate. He wants me to ask about the level of toxicity and side effects. Radiation has side effects that can show up during treatment and others that can manifest down the road. It can cause adhesions in your intestines that cause nausea and pain, and of course both chemo and radiation are carcinogenic - oh, the irony - and can cause secondary cancers.

Ovarian cancer not only sucks, it want to hang out and return again and again. 70% of women with ovarian or fallopian tube cancer have at least one recurrence. Some recur over and over again, and endure many surgeries and many chemo treatments. In 2010, more than 21,000 women were diagnosed with ovarian cancer and about 13,000 of them died. That is a sobering statistic. Today they have the technology to trace the cancer back to its origins, and probably what they always thought was ovarian cancer is actually fallopian tube cancer. They are doing a study of 200 women in the UK where they are doing the CA125 blood test as a screening process like we do for mammograms. The test is not always reliable, gives false positives and false negatives, which is why it isn't done routinely. There are better tests in the works. One of the reasons this type of cancer is such a killer is that there are typically no symptoms until it is late stage. I had symptoms but they were misinterpreted. A reliable screening test would be huge. I think this cancer is on the rise. Why else would I know so many women who are affected? I still can't believe there are three women in the neighborhood where I grew up who have been diagnosed with this cancer. Coincidence? Maybe. Environmental toxins? More likely, but who knows? One sad fact is that since 1 in 75 women get gynecological cancer, but 1 in 8 get breast cancer, guess where the research money goes?

One thing I have learned is not to get freaked out by numbers like these. I am a statistic of one.

Did you know that in Japan, if a woman eats the traditional Japanese diet and isn't sucked into our SAD diet by patronizing the McDonald's that is probably in her town, she is not likely to get breast cancer. It is virtually non-existent if they stay away from our crappy diet. Yet 1 in 8 American women will suffer with this disease. Vegan diet, anyone?

Sydney and I are off to San Francisco later this morning. Carpe Diem!! Boy, do I need it. Our motel room is like an apartment. I'm going to live out my fantasy of living in the City and add to it that I'm a cancer free woman!!

This is the view out of the back door, to the left of yesterday's magical blooming plant. Our friend Casey McDonald took our ugly lawn out and replaced it with a flagstone patio and flowerbeds. Much prettier!!

Namaste,

Jill