Hi all,
I’m not sure what I’m hoping for here, but maybe just hoping that other people have the same fears...!
14 months ago I was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer. I’ve had 6 rounds of chemo, and debulking surgery which removed 3 tumours (on my right ovary, bowel, and omentum); since April I’ve been on Avastin every 3 weeks. Now I have only three Avastin treatments to go and I’m starting to feel worried about what next. How will I cope without knowing every 3 weeks that things are still ok?
And now I have an extra worry creeping in as today’s Avastin has been delayed because the last few times there’s been protein in my urine. I’ve done a 24-hour urine test this week (oh what fun!) but the results aren’t back yet. If they’re not ok, they’ll do another test in a week or so, and if they’re still not ok, will start looking at renal things. In the back of my kind there is of course the worry of what if this is the cancer back again?
I know the stats for my prognosis only too well. Most of the time I can push them out of my mind - but I’ve recently been feeling very aware that we’re a year on, and that’s a year nearer it being bad again, whenever that it. How have others come to terms with this, or reframed it in a better way?
I usually try to be positive about things - there is so much good, even with all this. My treatments have gone well, the cancer responded really well to the chemo, and the surgery went better than we’d ever dared to dream. But I figure this is a safe space to have a wobble, so here I am, wobbling!
chris
Oh my word - that’s a huge decision to have to make! 
I hope you feel at peace with the decision you make either way.
Wit’s the end of treatment thing, I think I’m feeling lost and unseen and uncertain of my place. Cancer Twitter (which can be a great place to find support and encouragement) is full of people who are now cancer-free, or who are openly terminal. And I’m here thinking that I /think/ I’m cancer free at the moment, but that I’ve been told it will come back, probably every couple of years or so. So it’s almost like I’m counting down to the recurrence, without knowing when it’ll hit.
At the same time, the cancer is almost certainly going to be what kills me, but I don’t want that to be what defines me until then. I have a bunch of colleagues on my Twitter account, so can’t comment freely about what it’s like to live with this prognosis, to be told how small the chance of surviving the next five years is - because I don’t want them to know that about me, to have that on their mind at work meetings, or even for it to influence my chances of getting a new job in another part of the University where I work, if people there know this Thing about me.
My husband is great at being supportive and understanding but I don’t want to tell him that I think about dying every day. The cancer is *there* in my consciousness Every. Single. Day. And with it comes the shadow. Even when I’m doing fun things like putting up a tent in the sleet with Teen 2 there’s that thought ‘this will hopefully be a good memory of me for them’ and I HATE that this is now a regular thought pattern. I’m just not even close to being ready to die.
i know I’m physically in a good way at the moment, I know that this isn’t even close to the end for me. But yeah, I’m a bit of a mess inside at the moment.
