I decided to start this blog solely as a tool to inform others of my experience. I'm hoping that by putting my story out there, it will help others. I know how corny that sounds, but it's the truth. So here's my experience with the "Big C".
I grew up in the South, and because of such, having a tan in the summer was necessary. In my teen years, I used all the things most of you did to acquire that tan: Baby oil, afro-sheen, crisco, butter, laying on the roof of the house, etc. (Well, actually, maybe none of you did some of these stupid things, but I did.) I eventually started going to tanning beds, and even bought my OWN bed at one point. I would start in early spring, getting that "base" tan from the bed, then when summer rolled around, I spent almost all day on Saturday and Sunday in my brother's pool. And when I say "almost all day" I mean from around 10ish until the sun went down. When I got the chance to go to the beach, I was on the beach as soon as the lifeguard put down the chair cushions and umbrellas, and I didn't leave until the sun went down - he would actually ask me to let him have the cushion so he could close up. Never once during that time did I ever consider the damage I was doing to my skin. Sunscreen? Maybe - just because I was worried about the burn that accompanies the coastal sun.
In 2003, I started seeing a dermatologist for some skin issues. At that same time, my husband John & I were dating and we planned a trip to PCB for a long weekend. While he was not the sun worshipper I was, he indulged me and I spent most of my time reading in the sand while he enjoyed the balcony of our hotel room. One morning, I asked him to apply some sunscreen to my back, and he remarked, "Next time you go to the dermatologist, you should have her look at this mole". I listened, and made a mental note, but it really didn't slow me down as far as my time out on the beach went.
The weekend ended, and I went back to work at UAB, while he returned to Gulfport. Sometime in the next week or so, I had a followup with the dermatologist (for a totally different issue) and told her what he said about the mole. She took a look at it and said, "Let's do a biopsy". Nothing to the biopsy, I didn't feel much of anything. A day or so later, her resident called me and said, "Unfortunately, you have a malignant melanoma and need further surgery". Still not really concerned, I scheduled the appointment. The surgery was done in the office, but I really wasn't prepared for the amount of skin they were planning to remove. The scar was huge, and required packing and all of that lovely stuff. However, I returned to work that day and a few days later, got another call from the resident - "We got it all - the margins are clear" - and I went on with my life. (Except for the fact that I was required to see the dermatologist every 6 months for a full body skin check!) Thankfully, any suspicious areas have turned out to be benign. I'm thankful for a dermatologist who requires me to come in every 6 mos (because I'm very "moley" she says) and keeps a close check on things.
Fastforward quite a few years. The closer I got to 50, the more female issues I started having. Mainly just longer and more painful periods. I saw my local gynecologist in January of 2012, and he told me it was just "part of getting older - take some ibuprofen". Well, 6 months later and things were getting worse, adding in extreme nausea with the cramps. I scheduled an appointment with an OBGYN at UAB, but was feeling so bad that I made a visit to my regular doc. He listened to my symptoms, and told me he had a feeling I was going into menopause. (Oh great!! But at least it was a diagnosis.) He did some blood work and gave me something for the nausea to get me through the next 2 weeks when I had the appointment in Birmingham.
In early September 2012, I finally got in to see Dr. Boozer. She was the kindest, most compassionate doctor I've met to date. Not sure if it's because she's a woman, but she listened to me, read all of my notes and timetables, and gave me several options for treatment. I had read about ablations and felt that it was the way I wanted to go, and she agreed that it would be helpful. She explained, however, that she would need to perform a few tests before going forward - one of which was an endometrial biopsy. She performed the biopsy that day in her office, and scheduled the sonogram a week or so later.
Her office called me just a few days later and told me that she wanted me to come back in to discuss my blood pressure numbers. They had been concerned that it was a little high in their office, and asked me to check it periodically at home, which I did. When I got back to her office, tho, it wasn't the BP that she wanted to discuss. She told me, in the most gentle way possible - that my biopsy had come back atypical, and that I had endometrial cancer.
It's hard to explain the emotions that come with hearing a diagnosis like that. Some relief came because I knew I wasn't totally losing my mind - there WAS something wrong with me. I remember looking at her, and crying of course, and she had tears in her eyes. She said, "I promise you - this is an early diagnosis, and we have some of the best doctors here...this is curable." I was her last appointment that day, but she told me & John that she was going to give us some time alone to talk and think of any questions we had, which she did and then she came back in and answered them all. She referred me to a GYN Oncologist, who would see me later that same week.
We drove back to Oxford that afternoon in mostly silence. I think I was just in shock. Mainly, I wanted to get home and google "endometrial cancer", just to see what I was facing. Even tho I had heard her say "early diagnosis" and that it was "curable", I still was facing that word C.A.N.C.E.R.
