Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep very well that first night. In the morning, I convinced my husband to go to his golf lesson, despite him offering to stay home with me multiple times. We still had to take advantage of vacation down south! My sister showed up at my parents’ house bright and early, after carpooling all three kids to their schools (and her husband to the train!). She immediately started to cry when she arrived - I could tell she just wanted my life to be easy and smooth without such a big roadblock. When she is worried, she doesn’t sleep, which meant that she had spent all night researching online. She already knew way more than I did about endometrial cancer in younger women. So my mom, sister, and I headed to our favorite deli for bagels and an update on all of her research.
Here is the theme of what she found: women who meet very specific criteria can be treated with hormonal therapy. If the cancer regressed, some women are allowed to try to get pregnant. Most doctors recommend IVF because it is more likely to be successful and you are on a timeline to a hysterectomy. Some women go back on the hormonal therapy after they deliver and based on results of endometrial sampling, may be allowed a second pregnancy soon after the first (hello kids close together). But, a hysterectomy is the definitive treatment.
Believe it or not, this was encouraging news! I just needed to know if I met the criteria… I decided to worry about it after my massage.
The massage was heavenly but to be honest, I couldn’t clear my mind to relax as much as I would have liked. When I left the spa, I decided it was time to start dealing with this. On the initial phone call with my diagnosis, my doctor had asked me which local hospital I would want to be treated in. She planned to call and speak to a gynecologic oncologist about my case. An oncologist? That sounded very real. She had, in fact, called back the day before while we were sitting by the pool and had left a message. She had spoken with a gyn-onc that I was familiar with from my job at the hospital. She would be happy to see me as soon as possible. Before my appointment, she wanted me to have a chest x-ray and an MRI of the abdomen and pelvis.
I drove from the spa to my parents house and sat down to make phone calls. They wanted the MRI before my onc appointment so I started there. Two and a half weeks? I had been hoping to have seen the gyn onc specialist and have some answers by then! The chest x-ray I could just walk in for anytime. Next, I took a big deep breath, and with my heart pounding, called the gyn onc department. The first appointment they gave me was a month later! Was I just supposed to sit with this cancer growing inside me for a whole month?! The appointment secretary who was supposed to be aware that I would be calling was out of the office so I decided to try again the next morning.
A few minutes later, my dad called my cell. My dad is also a doctor and he had already been in touch with the chair of gynecologic oncology at his hospital. The first thing my dad said on the phone was, “You don’t have to have a hysterectomy.” His colleague had told him that hormonal therapy with megace can be used in young women. Megace? Wasn’t that the drug I had learned about in med school that was used as an appetite stimulant for patients with cancer and AIDS? Yup. This was definitely going to be an interesting process…
No comments:
Post a Comment