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I first want to say how glad I am that I found this website. The stories have been an inspiration and they fill me with such hope. In March 2008 my mother age 64 began losing weight and her hands were swelled. She had been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome years earlier. Her and my father were under extreme stress and depression. They were on the verge of losing their home of 30 years and their business of 40 years because of the bad economy. I am the 2nd eldest daughter and me and my older sister thought the tiredness and weightloss were all part of her life situation. She went to the doctors for her hands in December 2007 and they told her to take ibuprofren. Finally in May 2008 she was sent to a arthritis specialist who gave her a lung x-ray because he suspected a deadly auto-immune disease that turns your body to stone. We were terrified but not as much as when they found a mass on the x-ray in her abdomen. We were lucky she was only 5'2 and it showed up. Immediate hysterectomy with debulking. she was 3C. After operation first question out of my mouth was How many years has a patient of yours with the same stage of ovarian cancer survived? He answered 22 years I have clung to those words since Six months of cheomo up in Jan 2009. CA-125 at 6. It is now October 2009 and her CA-125 is creeping up first 25 now 67. We have cat-scan on Wednesday then go from there. My mother had not been to a gynecologist in 5 years since hers moved to Florida. She had been to every other doctor for high blood pressure to cholesterol. Why was CA-125 not standard? I am scared but hopeful. I always come back to this website I want survival stories from all you brave, courageous and inspiring women. Thank You!
meant to be yours marian tee pdf 39
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My story I guess begins in January 2008. I am a grandmother raising 3 granddaughters, I ran a day-care home and I knew that I had 4-7 hernias in my stomach. I started having a lot of pain. After children were picked up my husband took me to the ER. I had many tests and they kept me from wednesday-Friday. I finally gave them permission to do surgury to repair the hernias, I stayed in hospital for one week; since I had staples I had to go back the following week to remove them. The doctor asked me if I wanted the good news first or the bad news. I had no idea what the doctor meant, he told me he had found a tumor and removed it and sent it for biopsy. The result came back stage 4 Ovarian-Peritoneal Cancer. I had to go the next week to see a gynecologist. Theyordered a ct scan and some bloodwork and said I needed to start chemo. I was terrified but was ready to fight. I had many people and churches praying and I totally gave it to the Lord. I went through 4 cycles of chemo, lost 30 lbs but got through it. All blood tests, CA-125 and ct scans are within normal range. I go see my oncologist at the end of Dec 2009, hoping all is within normal range. I will tell you please don't give up and stay strong because miracles do happen.
I feel very fortunate that I am going to make it through this with only minor "glitches" along the way. I feel that having a positive attitude, doing what they tell you to do, making yourself get up and get going as much as you can do really helps.
My mother has always been overweight. She has been on and off of diets for years. On my 30th birthday she had been on one of her diets and lost almost 60lbs. She was feeling so good about herself. Almost too good. Like the world just knows how to knock you off of your high horse. She started complaining later that month that her stomach was bothering her. Low and behold the doctors found nothing. Something I thought was wrong as it wasnt from the diet. My mother went back again to a different doctor and was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer. She was scheduled for surgery a few weeks later. The initial surgery didn't go well. They decided to not perform the surgery because the cancer had spread aggresively to her arms, her lymph nodes. Once the surgery was performed , we were told that they got some of the tumor but not all of it. So here we are back at chemo, which doesn't seem to be doing a damn thing but making my mother tired and old. She was once very strong and determined to beat this, but I see her hope dwindling every day. I just wanted to know where to get information on clinical trials. I mean phone number, names and addresses. I undertand that there is some sort of vaccine for stage III and IV cancer patients that has been very successful. Any information you can provide me would be so much appreciated in this hard time for my mother and my family. God bless you.Sincerely yours,Mitchell B. Rudich(Son of Lois Rudich)
Being a 35 year old mom of two boys is wonderful considering there is always something that has to be done. Throughout my life I never thought that being a mom was hard but sometimes it is a struggle and also a test that God gives you. It all started with the word stress. Yes that word stress that can either make you tired or just overworked and I fell in that category. To my surprise, on July 27, 2007 I ended up going to emergency room in Bellvue Hospital where they detected a pelvic organ prolapse in which my muscles dropped severely. At this time I never felt symptoms but one day when I was taking a shower, I saw my cervix and boy was I nervous. So I ended up visiting the hospital until Sept 19, 2007 in which they detected in my cat scan an ovarian mass/ovarian neoplasm term: benign tumor. I was scheduled on Sept. 19 for operation and I had my right ovary, appendix, and uterus removed. Procedure was complete, no complications at all . At this moment I will not have menstrual and I was told to leave one ovary for estrogen because of my age. Menopause would have been severe to my body and mind. So now I kind of irritated a little, moody and sometimes feeling down. I am coping with this but it is difficult for me. I cry at night and sometimes think that why me????? So for all you young women that are 35 and older please check yourselves. Don't let cysts get in the way of your health and be stress-free the way I am today.............to be continued on a later note..... P.S. I looked like I was 6 months pregnant and now I loss a lot weight because of the tumor.. It is out for good.
She said goodbye to everyone and visitors left feeling uplifted and hopeful about everything when they visited her. She joked about and was incredibly candid about her impending death and openly shared her feelings with us all. I asked her if she was mad about leaving us while she was still so healthy and vital and she said, "No, this is what is meant to be...it is my journey to take." She was so full of life even right before her death.
The following morning the Hospice nurse arrived and told us they had a bed for her. I felt relief but also felt bad. My mom would be leaving her home for the last time. A week before I had told her that I dreaded that moment when she would leave for the last time. She told me that death and life are a series of steps or notches. And told me that when she left the house for the last time not to think of it anymore than that....a notch or a natural step in life. When the ambulance drivers were taking her out that last day she actually grabbed my hand and opened her eyes and in her stupor said, "It is only another notch." She was referring to the conversation we had a week ago...Imagine her-comforting me at such moment. Once she was at the Hospice they took her off the patch and put her on morphine instead her mind cleared. She stopped talking that much and every once in a while could speak or answer questions. She told me that her loved ones where there and trying to take her. She was afraid to go with them. She did not want to leave us. I went down a list of deceased relatives and friends and most of them where in the room. She had told me that her father was in the room and when she tried to talk to her he told her he was there to keep an eye on her and take her to heaven when it was time. In the mean time she was not to talk to him but to us. Our priest came down and we prayed with her at her bed. She tried to cross herself and seemed to relax. He comforted her and told her to go with them if they wanted her to go. After this it was difficult to understand what she was saying. We sat there, kept each other company and held her hand. It was a wonderful relief to have the staff to care for her and us. The night before she died everyone left one by one to get home, get the kids to bed and get some sleep. I couldn't leave, I wanted to share every last minute with her even if she was out of it. I sat there in the dark holding her hand and one of the patients in the room called me over. She said, "What would your mother tell you right now?" I said, "she would tell me to go home, get some sleep and come back in the morning." She told me to listen to my mother. I was exhausted. This patient told me she would watch over her for me. What an angel. I reluctantly left and was back in the morning. It was so sunny outside. This Hospice is on the Long Island Sound. I looked out at the water in her room and saw boats going by, waves hitting the shore and sea gulls flying about. It was a beautiful day to die. My mom was awake and alert. I described what it looked like today. I smiled at her and told her that I loved her. She just stared at me. The nurse came in to clean her up...I went next door to the lounge and almost immediately she came flying in telling me to hurry up...that she was going now. I flew back into her room. Her eyes were closed but she clutched my hand when I held it. Her color got very dark reddish-grey and then the color left her face at the same moment she let go of my hand. I know this sounds corny but I looked up at the beautiful sky and in my minds eye saw her-young, beautiful, happy and pain-free in the sky outside her window. When I looked back down at her face she was just a shell. The beautiful part that was my mother was released. There was no sadness in seeing her like that. She was out of pain. And I was privileged to be there for all of it....from the day she was diagnosed to the day she went to heaven. Like so many people, I wish I hadn't needed to work and could have been with her the entire two years but she laughed and said, "You must think highly of yourself to think I would want to be with you that much!" It has been almost five months now and I have to tell you that I learned more about how to live from her death than anything else. You see, my mother did not let cancer rob her of her life. She said that she lived with cancer-not in spite of it. She took her treatments and followed the nurse's and doctor's advise. She called cancer her blessing and really enjoyed what time she had left. She didn't let her illness spoil any moment that was left-cancer did not win and that has truly been a gift to us. My mom was a retired therapeutic recreation director in a nursing home. She said that she learned about life and how to die from some of the residents there. One in particular taught her a poem about death: 2ff7e9595c
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