The Details

Time to clarify some vagaries. Clarity has not been easy to come by over the last few weeks. What is now a new phase of my life began when I discovered a lump in my lower abdomen. I'm young (36), I'm healthy, there is almost no cancer in my family, so I was not overly concerned that this was something terribly serious. Neither were my doctors, initially. I was seen within a week and was told with near certainty that I had uterine fibroids - not great news, but manageable - and rescheduled for an ultrasound in two weeks.

Originally, I thought I was dealing with a food allergy and subsequent constipation. Learning that this was possibly a reproductive issue rather than an impaction or something digestive was concerning but, essentially, no big deal. I had very few symptoms and my naturopath was confident we could shrink the fibroids. My next visit to the gynecologist sent me home in tears. Here are the first four sentences she said to me that day. As she walks in she says, "Any changes since you were here?" She takes a seat near me and continues with, "I was wrong, they are not fibroids. Your ovaries are quite enlarged. It could be malignant." The fifth sentence was, "You need surgery right away".

That fifth sentence was critical. It immediately set up the expectation that surgery was the next step. In most cases that is undoubtedly true. However, my situation would prove to be more complicated than she could have known at the time. She referred me to who she considered to be the best pelvic surgeon in Seattle. They made room for me on their schedule and were charged with the difficult task of confirming that I have stage 3 ovarian cancer. It gets worse. A large area of affected lymph nodes is currently inaccessible.

"This is really bad, isn't it?"

"It's not good."

The surgeon's recommendation was a two stage surgery. The first surgery would remove the large mass in my pelvis, which would include my ovaries and uterus and anything else that looked unsavory. A second surgery would follow chemotherapy and radiation aimed at shrinking this coalescent mass of lymph frightfulness. When you don't know anything about anything, all of this sounds perfectly reasonable. I mean, it sounds horrifying, but reasonable when compared to - let's face it - dying.

Arriving at this decision was not simple, but it was impressively efficient. I had two separate CT scans, a lymph node biopsy, and a PET - CT. Everyone I met along the way was extremely kind and helpful. I had none of the medical hassles and insensitivity I expected. The surgeon and her staff operate an amazing office where you really feel like you are the only one in their care and they are all doing everything possible to return you to perfect health.

After about two weeks of adjusting to the devastating news, multiple tests, assurances that I was in the right hands, and detailed advice I asked my cousin a simple question. I was leaning heavily on his expertise - he is a doctor and the president of a hospital - to guide me through the avalanche of information. I wanted to know if there was a surgical team out there that handled cases like mine and could remove all the cancer at one time. I figured he had the resources to find them if they existed. Except for an eerie experience with a crow, that I will explain later, I felt confident that his research would confirm that I was in the right place. Turns out the damned crow was right. Crows. So off to New York we went for more pelvic exams and a new opinion.