Endometrial Cancer at 32

In late February of this year (2009) my cousin and his wife asked me to stay with their two girls while they went on a trip to Las Vegas. I figured I had the vacation time from work, I'd take it and play stay at home "mom." With both girl in school (one in kindergarten, the other in daycare) I scheduled some much ignored appointments. The dentist, eye doctor, a haircut. I also set up a physical, something I had avoided for some time now. I'm overweight, have PCOS and really didn't want to hear what I already knew in my head but I also knew I needed to get things together. So I went to my internist, had her do my pap and discussed my PCOS. She referred me to a gynecologist specialist and said at least your pap will already be done and you can come up with a gameplan for the PCOS.

I scheduled the appointment with the gynecologist, she took a look at my pap results (abnormal with some questionable cells) and said I'd like you to come back in for a colposcopy and a biopsy. In my head I knew what a biopsy looked for but never thought that was what would be found. So I go in for the biopsy, she briefly talked about a LEAP, which I was familiar with since my roommate has had a few and told me she'd call with the results the following week.

The next week I get a call from my doctor's nurse. She's insistent that I come in that day to discuss the results. A little nerve wracking to say the least. Then she lets it slip that the doctor wants to talk to me about a D&C. I'm thinking we talked about a LEAP but what's with the D&C? So I call my sister, ask her to meet me there and of course start googling a little. I found out that a D&C isn't that uncommon for PCOS patients as a way to clear the thickening out of your uterus. My fears are calmed a bit and I almost called my sister back to tell her that she didn't need to come with me. Thankfully I didn't.

I got to my doctor's office, they take me back and when my doctor came in I just knew it wasn't going to be good. Then when she pulled her stool up closer to me to go over the biopsy results, I really knew it wasn't good. The biopsy showed, dysplasia, hyperplasia and adencarcinoma. She wanted to do a D&C to get a better look and said she could do it as early as the next day. I simply said lets get this moving. She assured me that it wasn't a matter of mortality but of trying to protect my fertility. She also explained that once the results came back from the D&C that she would be sending me to a GYN/Oncologist.

The next step was telling my parents. They knew I went to the doctors and had some tests done but they were not expecting this. Thankfully, my brother in law is a doctor and he took alot of the pressure of explaining things off of me and took them on himself. My gradfather was kept in the dark as my aunt passed away at 32 from breast cancer and none of us could even utter that word to him.

I had the D&C on a friday, the following tursday the doctor called again and told me the pathology wasn't good and that she was scheduling the appointment with the Gyn/Onc. They had me in the next morning first thing. We all agreed that trying Megace/Megestrol therapy for three months was worth a shot as I really wanted to have children. I started on the treatment that day.

They had told me I might have some breakthrough bleeding while on the treatment but I started having more than just mild bleeding. At times, it was awful. I knew something wasn't right, I called the oncologist's office and spoke with the nurse practioner. She asked me to chart it and call her back in a few days. I did just that and when I called she said I think you need to come in.

I was supposed to have a biopsy on August 22 to see how the therapy was going. I had to have a biopsy in June because of the bleeding and found out the treatment was not working at all, not even a little bit. My only option was up and now it was time to schedule surgery. I looked into harvesting eggs beforehand and it just wasn't in my cards. So as I left the fertility doctor's parking lot, I called and scheduled my hysterectomy for the following week.

I was able to have a DaVinci Robot Assisted TAH/BSO on July 15, 2009. A week and a half later, I was back at work on half days and four weeks later I worked a street festival where my family has a restaurant.

When I was originally diagnosed, they graded it at 1A with all imagining showing it had not hit the muscle. The pathology from my surgery showed that it had pentrated the wall of the uterus and the staging was put at 1C. My tumor was massive (as the doctor put it) almost the size of my entire uterus. Now it's three radiation treatments just to be safe.

What I've learned... listen to your own body and head. Don't put anything off. Embrace your family and friends, don't push them away. Educate yourself. Going through all this with blinders on is not a good idea.

What I'm thankful for... my family and friends who were nothing short of amazing during all this. My doctors who never sat on anything. This site that has been a wealth of tips, knowledge and support.