Life, Death, and Debulking

Today is quite an auspicious day for me. Two years ago today, I was at Johns Hopkins Hospital having my ovarian cancer surgery. I was “optimally debulked,” meaning the surgeon was successful in removing my tumors completely, along with cancerous lymph nodes, omentum, and any other cancer cells he saw, which I guess were scattered around my abdomen, colon, and rectum.

Debulking is such an odd word, though I guess it is pretty descriptive, particularly when I think about how large those tumors were. To my knowledge the term is not used for tumor removal of any other type of cancer. At least according to Mr. (or is that Dr?) Google. And yes. I had to go back and correct what autocorrect thought should be “debunk,” not “debulk.”

When my surgeon told me of the successful surgery, I naively asked him if I would need chemo. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind. His response was something like, “uh, yeah. You’ve got Stage 3 cancer.” How little I knew then. Now I probably know too much.

Because I worked in healthcare, and maybe because there is a physician in L.A. who has the same name as me, I get lots of health and medical-related emails. I get conference announcements, calls for papers, job announcements. And lots and lots of journal articles. Most I trash, but the cancer-related articles, particularly the gynecological cancer papers, I read, or least least read the intro and conclusion.

And some of them scare me, but most give me hope. There is a lot of good stuff on the horizon, and honestly, there is a lot of good stuff happening right now. The PARP inhibitor I take is working wonders, not just for ovarian cancers, but other cancers as well. And even the immunotherapy I was on— even though that trial was cancelled, it is being tried in combination with other treatments.

I have a lot of thanks, and a lot of hope. And maybe a lot of luck. So much of this is a crapshoot, I’m convinced. We are all different (duh!) so what works for me is not necessarily going to work for someone else. And that’s the part that makes me sad.

Today I went to a celebration of life for a friend who ran out of options. Candy got to see her most recent grandchild baptized a couple of weeks ago, and maybe she figured, okay, I can go now. The treatments weren’t making miracles for her any more. She led an amazing life and gave birth to three great kids with her loving husband. I feel for Tommy. They were so close and so in love. And her kids and grandkids. Damn.

Her son gave a eulogy that would have made her proud. And the priest had important things to say about life as well as death. A lot of smiles and tears.

When you are a member of a club no one wants to join, there are the inevitable losses. It is hard not to dwell on them. But I know Candy and the other women I have met through this would say we have to stay positive and look forward. Today it’s kind of hard. Maybe tomorrow will be easier.