2.3.16
Time for the follow-up appointment, anxious to hear if they found any cancerous cells in the organs they removed from surgery. The nurse called to say they wanted me to meet with the radiologist while I was there, and that they had the results from the tests, but she wouldn’t tell me if it was good or bad. They wanted me to take a hearing test as well, as sometimes the cisplatin can damage your hearing. (Awesome).
Mom, Dad and Josh came along for my appointments. I showed dad the hysterectomy on you-tube while waiting. It really IS fascinating how they did the procedure. Lovely way to pass time in a waiting room. :) The hearing test went great. She said my hearing was some of the best she seen, pat on my back. She also shared that she had gone through cervical cancer herself, and that her husband is a scuba instructor. I told her how I had been once in Australia and would love to go again. She responded with ‘Well here is my card, when you beat this, you call me and we will take you diving!’ Continually blown away by how lovely and kind people are. People I hardly know. I just can’t even.
We sat down in the room with the pamphlets, again. Mom had a list of questions written down to ask. I felt very calm. Dr. Stany walked in and smiled. ‘I have GREAT news! The lymph nodes came back negative. They found no cancerous cells. We even dissected further to confirm. They’re clear. We should consider this incredible news.’
YES! THANK YOU JESUS. A huge relief came over all of us. This is big. This is a huge huge blessing and answer to so many many many prayers. So thankful.
Since it was a very aggressive cancer, we still have to continue with the chemotherapy and radiation treatments. He shares that he is discussing my case closely with the specialist in Small Cell Cervical Cancer at MD Anderson. I told him we watched the procedure on you-tube and he said they actually wanted to ask me if they could use footage from MY surgery for an instructional video. Well, duh! My lady parts will be famous! (Although unidentifiable. Haha). We went though all the side effects. Nausea, fatigue, and of course the hair loss, which he said would be around day 14… AND the worst case scenario: that too much radiation can damage other organs and too much chemotherapy can cause other cancers… like Leukemia. (Awesome. Scary. Are you sure we still need to do this? Didn’t you just say it was gone?)
We go over the schedule: I’ll be going through 6 cycles of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for 3 hours each time. Then 3 weeks off. He said I’ll be tired the weeks OF treatment, then should feel fine the rest of the cycle as my body recovers from the toxic poison being pumped through me. (Truly amazing a body can handle that). During round two, we will combine with radiation, which will be every day for 25 days, for 20 minutes each time. So 18 chemo treatments and 25 radiation… ending around July. OKAY. Let the countdown begin! (and let those prayers continue!)
