Connie's Story: ovarian cancer

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Connie Hill: Coping with fear and anger

Hello. My name is Connie. I'm over 50 years old and I have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer two years ago. The strong part for me, the biggest problem is that there has been no history of cancer on my family from either side. I was not expecting a cancer diagnosis when it came through. I had gone to the hospital thinking I was having an appendicitis attack. One of the unfortunate side things of ovarian cancer is that although it gives symptoms, it's the kind of symptoms that women our age world normally just ignore. If you have a little pain or a cramp like during your menstrual period or something, you're used to it. The only real symptoms I had was I was tired. I work for a retail company that is very busy and this was in December, our Christmas rush. If you're not tired at Christmas time, you're not doing your job.

When I went into the hospital, like I said, I thought I was having an appendicitis attack. They went through, they had me sign the paperwork for the surgery. After I got out of surgery is when I found out that I had a complete hysterectomy and that was when they had discovered the ovarian cancer. Needless to say, I went through a lot of fear, I went through a lot of anger, why did this happen to me? I had been just a few months before I had been through all the proper things you need to do for a physical, I'd had the pap tests and all that stuff. I had been suspicious that I was starting into the change and had even gone to the expense of having a blood test and confirmed that was the reason I was skipping periods. So the anger was very natural for me, that I really had to work through a lot of that. I felt like I had been kind of dumped on all at once.

I had the surgery and then they decided that I, my veins are not easy to access, so for me to have a comfortable chemo, they wanted me to have a port a flush inserted. So it was like a month after I had my hysterectomy, I was back in for that, and then the next day they started my chemo. And I was scared. I'd heard a lot of things about chemo. For me it wasn't that bad an experience. I was lucky. I only had to have six sessions and they did them four weeks apart. I know others have had much worse experience with it. But for me it was just like two or three days that I did not feel well. I didn't want to work I didn't want to do anything. And then I was kind of back to normal. After the six months, they seemed to feel, the doctors felt like I had they had gotten all the cancer with the surgery and the chemo seemed to have taken care of any little unknown side effects there.

Changing direction

As far as what happened with me after that, I feel like I have reoriented my life. I was always one of these women that took care of everybody. I always said I was everybody's big sister. I never had children, but I took care of my brothers and sisters, I take care of my husband, I take care of my coworkers. I was always one of these that would just give and give and give. After I went through this, my attitude changed, that I had the right to my life, too. I felt like I had had a very close brush with death. Not the kind of thing you would experience like with an accident, but it felt very similar to that kind of thing, where I wanted to re-evaluate my life, where I was at, what I wanted to do. Of course now I had gone into counseling. I had to have counseling. I was much too upset at the diagnosis. I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't say the word "cancer" for a good two months. But I worked with my counselor and I made a list of the kind of things that I wanted to do with my life and the changes that I wanted to make, if any.

For example, one of the things I wanted to do, I've always wanted to go on a cruise. My husband won't go on a cruise because he gets seasick and I got my all clear in June, I booked a cruise in August and I went on it the following March, as soon as my doctors had given me an all clear after all my surgery. I had the unfortunate experience that I had a hysterectomy in December and the following November I had to have gall bladder surgery. So I had to put it off after that. But I couldn't get anybody to go with me and I just decided that was their problem, not mine. And I went on a cruise by myself. And had a good time. I did what I wanted to do. I went snorkeling in the Caribbean and since then I try not to be too selfish with it. Because I mean there are people there that care and that I need to take care of and stuff, but when there's times that I particularly want to do something now, I will speak up and say, hay, that's not for me. I want to go to school or I want to take this trip, or you know, I'm going, whatever the situation is.

Family support made a big difference

One of the things that was important for me was the support of my family. My husband fortunately was retired so he's home with me all the time. He was at the hospital all the time. The first time I had ever been in the hospital. I'm not one to get sick so when he called my family and let them know I was going into the hospital, my mom was here in about three hours, which is about right, she drove over. They worked with the doctors. They were trying to keep the secret from me until they had a confirmed diagnosis, because I had been through a serious surgery. Unfortunately, I'm not one of these people that you keep secrets from very well, and I started, what's going on, why did I have a hysterectomy, and asking questions. So they weren't able to keep it very long from me. But they were there to support me during the times that I was in tears, the times when I would have panic attacks, where I could not breathe for the fear that was there. But I had questions that I had to ask, and they'd have to wait for me to quit crying and get my breath long enough to answer my questions for me.

When they brought me home from the hospital, we were just home a few days. I got out of the hospital the 21st of December and my whole family was going to my Mom's house, which is about 3 hours away. And we got permission from the doctor and took it in easy stages for me to go home with them. And we spent a couple of weeks there and I got waited on hand and foot, my dad my mom and my husband were all three waiting on me. Then when Bill brought me back home then he was able to not only physically support me, with you know waiting on me if I needed something, taking me, I couldn't drive yet and that stuff. He also gave me a lot of mental support in that he let me talk about it. I think that's one of the hardest things for someone who has not been in that situation to understand, that talking about it is the biggest relief. You might say the same thing a dozen times or more, just over and over every day, but eventually you get the point where you can say the words, Yes I had cancer.

Learning about cancer

Another thing that I found helpful for me was, I'm curious. I had heard of cancer, but I like I said had no personal knowledge of it. The doctors handed me brochures which were I thought pretty sanitized, myself. I know they didn't want to scare me. But I had to know more. And I got the Internet, we called the American Cancer Society, and I would get brochures from them. I found websites that were for ovarian cancer, my specific disease. I still get notices from them about things going on. But I had to search it out. The Internet, the doctors were very careful to answer just what question I asked, they would give me no extra information, and so I did my own research. I did the, I hunted magazines, I would go to the library, whatever wherever I could think of to get enough information to where I felt comfortable making my own decisions about my own treatment, what I needed to do to survive, and I have. I've been clear since then. And survival's the thing. That's what it takes to do that.

I can remember one time in one of my searches for information. I read an article that said that the chance of survival for ovarian cancer after five years was twenty percent. And I found this out about a month after I had been diagnosed. And I went through panic attacks for a week. I just could not handle the fact that I had instead of 20% of survival I saw 80% chance of being dead in five years. And that's when I went to the doctor again. I went to my counselor and I went to the doctor and they were able to show me how that was a real possibility if in my situation I hadn't been diagnosed when I was. But I had been caught at an early stage and that I had survived the initial problem, They were saying the longer you go, the better your chances increase. But that was one bit of information that they wouldn't have told me that maybe I would have found out later. I wouldn't have had the support group in place, where I could just go right to the doctor, right to the therapist, or whatever and say, hey, this is scaring me, what's going on here? And get my answers that way. If I had found it out later, I probably wouldn't have done that.