I Will Never Understand This World We Call Cancer

Well it's been a little bit since my last post but with good reason, this entire situation sucks and I just needed some time. I received a call from my oncologist two weeks ago this past Thursday, it was more of a courtesy, heads up call to inform me that the pathologist at OSU ran a last what I like to call the hail Mary test and finally determined the type of cancer I had. I was actually quite surprise and this caught me off guard, it really seemed like they were focused on this and we so close to confirm this as ovarian cancer. Well, I was finding out that this wasn't actually the case. I have officially been diagnosed with a Desmoplastic Blue Round Cell Tumor, a very rare soft tissue sarcoma. Now, please don't jump on Google and start a search, I learned my lesson very quickly with that gut reaction. You will find nothing good about this type of cancer on the internet, there is not a lot of medical literature because of how rare it is. The information that is out there is really just scary and quite frankly at this point I don't know where I stand with this new diagnoses. I am now seeing a sarcoma specialist at The James and we really can't move forward until this last chemo treatment gets out of my system and Miss Sadie joins us on February 17th. I currently have all new scans scheduled for February 27th (MRI, CT, and PET Scans), from there my new oncologist will be able to see what is going on in all parts of my body and assign me a specific stage (I, II, III, or IV - it is most likely going to be stage III from what was found during my initial surgery). My case will then be presented to the sarcoma panel at OSU to determine the official course of treatment. Since there is no standard form of treatment for this specific type of sarcoma, I will most likely be put on the course that is used to treat patients with Ewing sarcoma. This treatment course is much more intense from what my new oncologist said but he wouldn't go into details because he wants to get these new set of scans before we officially dive into that portion. So this is what I know as of today, nothing more and nothing less.

I can't tell you how frustrating, scary, and sad this has all been these last two and half weeks.  I feel like I had finally started to deal with the fact that I had ovarian cancer and now I feel like carpet has been ripped out from underneath me.  I am doing my best to stay positive but I haven't been this scared about anything in my life and right now it just seems impossible to think I will ever feel positive about this situation.  I know I am tough and I will fight this with everything I have but honestly I am scared out of my mind, there is no other way to put it.  All of these feelings on top of being super tired from chemo and being almost 37 weeks pregnant, the nausea, all of the aches and pains I have been having, it's no wonder that I have cried enough tears for an entire lifetime these past weeks.

I did have two great surprises this past week(end) however, all of my wonderful friends and co-workers were very sneaky and threw me a surprise "Baby Sprinkle" for Sadie on Friday at work.  I was completely caught off guard and had no idea that this was happening.  I love them all so much and cannot tell you how thankful I am to be surrounded by these people on a daily basis.  I couldn't be luckier and more thankful for each and everyone of them!!

Secondly, this past Saturday my wonderfully, amazing friend Heidi managed to plan a get together at our house with the majority of our friends from college.  I cannot even tell you the emotion that was running through my heart and head.  I was amazing that she was able to pull this off considering we haven't all lived in the state of Ohio together for many, many years.  To have everyone in the same house made me realize how much I miss all of them but it was so great that they were able to come so that we could spend this time together.  It has been far too long and it meant more to me than they will ever know that they all took the time and traveled from near and far to come together and surprise me.  It was like no time had passed other than all of the little rugrats running around the house have a great time together.  I haven't smiled that much in one day and I owe that all to a great friend with a great idea.  Thank you so much Heidi for putting that together!!!  

I leave you with a few words from a very wise woman. Until next time friends...

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ~Eleanor Roosevelt