"A MOTHER'S WORST NIGHTMARE"
My story is more my daughters story, but it also effected and changed my life also.
It is a mothers worst nightmare to hear your daughter has cancer.
It all started early spring of 2013. It started as a bad experience that turned into a blessing...
My daughter Heidi was just 28, a single mom to two little boys, 5 & 9. Her rocky relationship came to a point when she found out he was seeing another girl (and Heidi knew this girl and her reputation and common knowledge of being with a lot of different men) and so Heidi made an appointment with a doctor to be screened for sexually transmitted diseases. Well the good news was there was no sign of any STD's, BUT the doctor said she needed to be seen by a specialist as he could see some "suspicious looking areas" that needed to be checked out ASAP.
After a couple appointments, a colposcopy was scheduled and after a LONG weeks wait for results. The call came, it was cervical cancer. NO SIGNS and NO SYMPTOMS, just her wanting to be sure he didn't give her any diseases.
Her doctor scheduled her for a "cold cone cut", he had to cut out a bigger area than he thought, and she had A LOT of pain from this, but the doctor assured us he was very confident he got it all. There was just one "funky looking area" he was a little concerned about, but otherwise, very confident. So we had to wait another week. After a long weekend of waiting and counting down days, the call started out, "We are very sorry to have to tell you this but..." The doctor was wrong, he did not get it all, and she was being scheduled with an appointment with a gynecological oncologist 200 miles from home for a consult.
At the consult it was decided they would do a radical hysterectomy. Her surgery was scheduled to be a 1-2 day hospital stay. Well, surgery took "longer than they expected, 6 1/2 hours, but overall she did "fine". We had high hopes of being home in a day or 2. Heidi had one complication after another:!severe pain, vomiting, bowels not working, bladder not working, fevers. Our 1-2 days stay turned into12 days....12 LONG days of pain..tests..pain..vomiting..pain..bloating..and oh, did I mention severe pain?! Pain from bigger surgery, severe bloating, organs not working correctly..she was upset as being pregnant twice she did not have stretch marks, but the bloating was so severe that she got stretch marks from that! lol. She couldn't eat without causing severe pain and leading to vomiting.
After we finally got home, we thought we were on the road to recovery. Well, there was LOTS of complications that led to trips to the hospital 200 miles away, more 2-3 day hospital stays. Throughout all this, the second hardest thing for Heidi was being away from her boys. She was never away from them for more than 2-3 days at a time.
Also rough was the "middle of the night chats" we had about the concerns and care of her 2 boys in the event she lost her battle, very hard for her as a young mom of those 2 boys, also heart wrenching for me to try to ease my baby's mind about her babies!!
Long story short:
NO further treatments to date. NO further tests to date.
Her first post cancer surgery check-up/tests are coming up in a week or 2.
To date - 9 months post surgery-Heidi still: DOES NOT have regular bowel movements, sometimes goes a week or more without any (even tho she takes something for it). DOES NOT urinate regularly, sometimes only goes once daily. STILL CAN'T eat a lot of foods, especially breads, pasta, pizza, etc., without causing severe pain within minutes of eating, making her almost afraid to eat a lot of days. BUT NONE of the doctors or specialists are concerned about this , OR about the fact that we have been told that because they left the ovaries when they did her hysterectomy, her chances of cancer returning went from single digit percentages (if they HAD taken the ovaries) to over 55% (because they left the ovaries). Ournconcerns and questions are many, but we have not received satisfactory answers or had our minds put to ease as of yet.
So this is our story.
Another important factor I forgot to add...her lymph nodes were so extremely swollen during surgery that they removed almost 30 of them. Biopsy results and further testing showed she also had sarcoidosis. This already has effected her eyesight and her lungs!
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