I Have To Face My Disease

Monday August 17, 1992

Up and off to get my nails done at 10:45. I don't feel very well today. I ate a big breakfast, last meal til after my CAT at 2:00. Then at 8:00 a.m. I drank 1/2 of the medium. I hate drinking that stuff. It's thick and creamy and tastes a little like tangerine.

At 12:45 Frank and I leave for Kaiser Woodland Hills. I drink the rest of the medium at 1:30 and 2 p.m. I'm on the table waiting 1/2 hour for the nurse to come put the IV in my arm. It then takes another 30 minutes. I don't like getting a CAT. I have to face my disease. At home I rarely think about it.

I'm hungry for Mexican food so we eat out in Simi early dinner. Later we dress and go square dancing. We have a great time. Frank fixed the air conditioner this morning, a fuse!

It sounds like the reason Mom doesn't like a CT scan is not because of the endless waiting at the hospital, the claustrophic feeling of having your body in a small tube, or even drinking the nasty-tasting thick contrast medium. The reason is that it makes her admit that she has cancer. Mom had a very busy social life with lots of travels, adventures, dances and fun, but I imagined she was always conscious of the fact that she was battling a life-threatening disease. It sounds here like she never gave it much thought. Positive thinking or denial?

God is Working Through Me

Monday June 24, 1991

I awake at 7:20 ready to get up. I am sleeping very well these days, and feeling very positive about my cancer. I feel so well it's easy to just know I am getting better every day. I know the tumors are shrinking daily. My thoughts are constantly positive. Actually, I rarely even think about my cancer, but somehow I seem to find a reason to share it with most everyone I meet. I don't do it for sympathy. I seem to just want to share my good news about how God is working through me. My story is so positive and good. People seem drawn to me and truly like me. It's always been that way, all my life. Maybe that's just because I'm so positive about life. Life is good, but there are always challenges.

We take our walk in the morning and go square dancing in the evening.

It has been 4 months since I began reading mom's journals and posting to this blog. I'm always excited to see what she has to say next. It has taken me almost 20 years to begin reading her journal. This journey has been an adventure for me, part travelogue, part medical education, but most importantly a spiritual journey. Her attitude is always positive, trusting God through the power of prayer. It takes alot of courage to share her story with friends and sometimes even strangers. I love her statement that she wants to share the good news about how God is working through her, about how life is good, but there are always challenges. It reminds me of Romans 8:28 which says "We know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to his purpose." Mom did not view her cancer as a catastrophe or a crisis, but simply all part of God's plan to do good in her life.

Cancer Diagnosis April 11, 1991

Thursday April 11, 1991

Today I learned that I have ovarian cancer. I thought the nausea for the past 10 days was the flu but then my belly began to fill with fluid. I had been having little sharp shooting pains occasionally for months above my belly button and the doctors had run all the tests looking for a gastro problem., We never suspected this. Oh, now and then there was a slight pain in my ovaries if I sat down hard.

When the doctor left, Frank and I held each other tight and we cried. Our retired life is just beginning. We have so many plans for the years ahead. What now?

I have agreed, eagerly, to be a part of a study to determine if results with Stage III ovarian cancer are better with surgery first or chemo first.

My mom and my stepdad Frank were supposed to come up to Northern California to visit me for my birthday 2 days earlier and I was so disappointed that she was not feeling well enough to make it, and even more devastated to find out that she had cancer. I felt so helpless being so far away and so very sad at the prospect of losing my mother. She was 56 when she was diagnosed with cancer, the same age I am today. My brother encouraged me to drive down to Southern California (Simi Valley) to visit her and see how well she was coping with her diagnosis. I did that and it helped. She was incredibly strong and determined. She told us right up front that with Stage III ovarian cancer, her chance of surviving for 5 years was only 15%, but she was determined to be in that 15%. I remembered that I had given my mom Gilda Radner's book a few years earlier about her battle with ovarian cancer, and how Gilda had fought the disease but eventually died. I felt somehow there was a connection.