Initial Diagnosis

It all started with having trouble buttoning my pants.  This was the summer of 2003.  I didn't think anything of it at first, but then I started not being able to eat very much and I was starting to look pregnant.  I finally broke down and made an appointment with my doctor.  She tried to tell me that I had a urinary tract infection, but that wasn't what I had gone to see her about.  I went ahead and took the antibiotics and got that problem taken care of, but I told her I wanted to get the problem about my waistline taken care of.  She told me if the problem didn't clear up in a week to come back.

When I went back a week later, she scheduled me for a CT scan.  This took several weeks to get scheduled and the whole time it was hard for me to get into my clothes.  I had to start wearing stretch pants even though they weren't part of the uniform for my job.  I got a call from my doctor's office a week after the scan and was asked to come in to discuss the results.  This did not sound good because she would not tell me over the phone what she found.  The first thing she told me was that the radiologist could not see my ovaries, but that could have been the result of only scanning the abdomen rather than also scanning the pelvic region.  They also recommended an MRI of the abdomen and pelvis.  This was scheduled within days (rather than weeks). 

Less than a week after the scan was completed, I received another urgent call from my doctor's office to come in to discuss the results.  It turns out that I had a 18cm x 16cm x 12cm mass in my abdomen.  No wonder I couldn't fit into my clothes any more!  I can't picture how big that is, but I am told it is the size of a small baby!  I was scheduled to see a gynecologist a week later.  I was in her office at 10 am on a Wednesday morning and she scheduled me to see her former teacher from Duke University that afternoon!  I was worked in at the end of his day in the clinic not too far from where I was working.  I was scheduled for surgery one week later.  That was September 13, 2003--the day I was diagnosed with stage 1C ovarian cancer.