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Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you, I'm trying not to focus on that but it's still hard, I go to all the worst case scenarios and have to talk myself down off the edge.  I fear they go in and decide I'm inoperable and there is nothing to offer me…..I think of my son and my husband and how they would handle this news….or not handle the news.  

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you, I'm trying not to focus on that but it's still hard, I go to all the worst case scenarios and have to talk myself down off the edge.  I fear they go in and decide I'm inoperable and there is nothing to offer me…..I think of my son and my husband and how they would handle this news….or not handle the news.  

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi@Meinvan

I completely understand how you are feeling pre surgery! I had deposits in rectum and peritoneal as well and had no idea what would be removed during surgery. I walked into the operating room terrified. I was fortunate and did not require a resection however I am aware that reoccurrence in this area is very likely. I asked my surgeon to be very aggressive and remove anything and everything that looked suspicious. Do you know if it is an open surgery or laparoscopic? Is your surgeon in Ontario? Will it be performed by a gynaecology oncologist? 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@flory yes my surgeon is a gene oncologist here in BC.  It will be an open surgery as she needs to see everything as my cancer was considered advanced when it was found.

Hi@Meinvan

I completely understand how you are feeling pre surgery! I had deposits in rectum and peritoneal as well and had no idea what would be removed during surgery. I walked into the operating room terrified. I was fortunate and did not require a resection however I am aware that reoccurrence in this area is very likely. I asked my surgeon to be very aggressive and remove anything and everything that looked suspicious. Do you know if it is an open surgery or laparoscopic? Is your surgeon in Ontario? Will it be performed by a gynaecology oncologist? 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan sounds like you are in very good hands. I completely understand how you feel. I struggle with my anxiety every day. I will keep you in my prayers and I really hope you do well with surgery ❤️🙏❤️

@flory yes my surgeon is a gene oncologist here in BC.  It will be an open surgery as she needs to see everything as my cancer was considered advanced when it was found.

Hi@Meinvan

I completely understand how you are feeling pre surgery! I had deposits in rectum and peritoneal as well and had no idea what would be removed during surgery. I walked into the operating room terrified. I was fortunate and did not require a resection however I am aware that reoccurrence in this area is very likely. I asked my surgeon to be very aggressive and remove anything and everything that looked suspicious. Do you know if it is an open surgery or laparoscopic? Is your surgeon in Ontario? Will it be performed by a gynaecology oncologist? 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi@Meinvan

Any uncertainty around what will happen during the surgery will cause anxiety, as if the surgery itself isn't enough to do that. If it helps at all, I too had to provide consent for a possible stoma as I had 12+ tumour and/or deposit sites through my abdomen so they weren't sure if a stoma would be done or not. They even had me go to a stoma clinic in advance, put an X on my abdomen to denote where it would be and sent me away with a kit on how to manage post surgery.  So I 100% understand the anxiety the conversation has caused. 
On the flip side, my understanding is that they try to prepare you for "everything" that could happen even if there a higher probability it won't. I know that's not the greatest reassurance but I hope it eases your mind a bit. 
Also you are never bringing anyone down by sharing your experiences and thoughts. That's what this forum is for. We are here for each other. Sending you virtual hugs. 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi@Meinvan

Any uncertainty around what will happen during the surgery will cause anxiety, as if the surgery itself isn't enough to do that. If it helps at all, I too had to provide consent for a possible stoma as I had 12+ tumour and/or deposit sites through my abdomen so they weren't sure if a stoma would be done or not. They even had me go to a stoma clinic in advance, put an X on my abdomen to denote where it would be and sent me away with a kit on how to manage post surgery.  So I 100% understand the anxiety the conversation has caused. 
On the flip side, my understanding is that they try to prepare you for "everything" that could happen even if there a higher probability it won't. I know that's not the greatest reassurance but I hope it eases your mind a bit. 
Also you are never bringing anyone down by sharing your experiences and thoughts. That's what this forum is for. We are here for each other. Sending you virtual hugs. 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi@Meinvan

Any uncertainty around what will happen during the surgery will cause anxiety, as if the surgery itself isn't enough to do that. If it helps at all, I too had to provide consent for a possible stoma as I had 12+ tumour and/or deposit sites through my abdomen so they weren't sure if a stoma would be done or not. They even had me go to a stoma clinic in advance, put an X on my abdomen to denote where it would be and sent me away with a kit on how to manage post surgery.  So I 100% understand the anxiety the conversation has caused. 
On the flip side, my understanding is that they try to prepare you for "everything" that could happen even if there a higher probability it won't. I know that's not the greatest reassurance but I hope it eases your mind a bit. 
Also you are never bringing anyone down by sharing your experiences and thoughts. That's what this forum is for. We are here for each other. Sending you virtual hugs. 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi@Meinvan

Any uncertainty around what will happen during the surgery will cause anxiety, as if the surgery itself isn't enough to do that. If it helps at all, I too had to provide consent for a possible stoma as I had 12+ tumour and/or deposit sites through my abdomen so they weren't sure if a stoma would be done or not. They even had me go to a stoma clinic in advance, put an X on my abdomen to denote where it would be and sent me away with a kit on how to manage post surgery.  So I 100% understand the anxiety the conversation has caused. 
On the flip side, my understanding is that they try to prepare you for "everything" that could happen even if there a higher probability it won't. I know that's not the greatest reassurance but I hope it eases your mind a bit. 
Also you are never bringing anyone down by sharing your experiences and thoughts. That's what this forum is for. We are here for each other. Sending you virtual hugs. 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@lbarr72. Thanks for your perspective.  Yes, most days I don't feel like a warrior yet, but as I go through this I'm sire there will be days and I will think, yeah I got this, I can do this. I'm glad you are feeling well and having this beautiful summer to enjoy.  I'm waiting for the day I can travel with my husband when this is all over.  All we have done is work all our lives, now we need to travel and create memories for us as a family.  I agree pre surgery is the scariest time.  Thank you for your insight, I'll try and remember your words when I'm sitting in my hospital bed feeling sorry for myself.

Hi@Meinvan

Any uncertainty around what will happen during the surgery will cause anxiety, as if the surgery itself isn't enough to do that. If it helps at all, I too had to provide consent for a possible stoma as I had 12+ tumour and/or deposit sites through my abdomen so they weren't sure if a stoma would be done or not. They even had me go to a stoma clinic in advance, put an X on my abdomen to denote where it would be and sent me away with a kit on how to manage post surgery.  So I 100% understand the anxiety the conversation has caused. 
On the flip side, my understanding is that they try to prepare you for "everything" that could happen even if there a higher probability it won't. I know that's not the greatest reassurance but I hope it eases your mind a bit. 
Also you are never bringing anyone down by sharing your experiences and thoughts. That's what this forum is for. We are here for each other. Sending you virtual hugs. 

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@FrogProf I thank you for your comment on the "living will". While not everyone is in the same place or state of mind relative to these types of things, it's always a good reminder as you said, that we can get control of some things. Post my surgery last year, my husband told me had been so stressed about not having our "final resting places" sorted out. While he knew my wishes and it's also outlined in my will, the actual thought of having to manage that in the event something unexpected did happen, was overwhelming for him. Once I recovered from surgery and during my 'good days' during chemo, we went and got our "final resting places" put in place. It helped to alleviate a huge amount of stress for him which I'm glad. It wasn't necessarily the most fun and uplifting thing to do, however it's done and assuming we both live to a ripe old age, it has reduced any uncertainty for my son as well.

Thank you again for raising the topic. 

#Supportandencouragement #Anythingbutcancer #Livingwills #Endoflifedecisions

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@FrogProf I thank you for your comment on the "living will". While not everyone is in the same place or state of mind relative to these types of things, it's always a good reminder as you said, that we can get control of some things. Post my surgery last year, my husband told me had been so stressed about not having our "final resting places" sorted out. While he knew my wishes and it's also outlined in my will, the actual thought of having to manage that in the event something unexpected did happen, was overwhelming for him. Once I recovered from surgery and during my 'good days' during chemo, we went and got our "final resting places" put in place. It helped to alleviate a huge amount of stress for him which I'm glad. It wasn't necessarily the most fun and uplifting thing to do, however it's done and assuming we both live to a ripe old age, it has reduced any uncertainty for my son as well.

Thank you again for raising the topic. 

#Supportandencouragement #Anythingbutcancer #Livingwills #Endoflifedecisions

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@lbarr72, I agree I'm just not there mentally yet.  I'm still trying to hold on for dear life.  I think I'm still in the anger phase….

@FrogProf I thank you for your comment on the "living will". While not everyone is in the same place or state of mind relative to these types of things, it's always a good reminder as you said, that we can get control of some things. Post my surgery last year, my husband told me had been so stressed about not having our "final resting places" sorted out. While he knew my wishes and it's also outlined in my will, the actual thought of having to manage that in the event something unexpected did happen, was overwhelming for him. Once I recovered from surgery and during my 'good days' during chemo, we went and got our "final resting places" put in place. It helped to alleviate a huge amount of stress for him which I'm glad. It wasn't necessarily the most fun and uplifting thing to do, however it's done and assuming we both live to a ripe old age, it has reduced any uncertainty for my son as well.

Thank you again for raising the topic. 

#Supportandencouragement #Anythingbutcancer #Livingwills #Endoflifedecisions

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan you be wherever you need to be in this journey. If you want to vent...we are here. We have all done it. We all continue to do it. The steps you take each day are the ones that are always right for you. I know the surgery days are getting closer. Stay connected. Let us help are you navigate emotionally. We will do our best even if it's just to listen and let you know we are here.

@lbarr72, I agree I'm just not there mentally yet.  I'm still trying to hold on for dear life.  I think I'm still in the anger phase….

@FrogProf I thank you for your comment on the "living will". While not everyone is in the same place or state of mind relative to these types of things, it's always a good reminder as you said, that we can get control of some things. Post my surgery last year, my husband told me had been so stressed about not having our "final resting places" sorted out. While he knew my wishes and it's also outlined in my will, the actual thought of having to manage that in the event something unexpected did happen, was overwhelming for him. Once I recovered from surgery and during my 'good days' during chemo, we went and got our "final resting places" put in place. It helped to alleviate a huge amount of stress for him which I'm glad. It wasn't necessarily the most fun and uplifting thing to do, however it's done and assuming we both live to a ripe old age, it has reduced any uncertainty for my son as well.

Thank you again for raising the topic. 

#Supportandencouragement #Anythingbutcancer #Livingwills #Endoflifedecisions

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

🙏🏻 Thank you

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

🙏🏻 Thank you

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@hgtv no questions are silly.  I haven't had any surgery done yet for the ovarian tumor I had to start with chemo first to shrink my tumor as it was too large to operate on when we first found it.  It was 15cm x 12cm and now with chemo is 8.7cm x 8.7 cm, so now is the time to go in, in between chemo cycles.  My ca125 was 675 when we found it, after 4 rounds of chemo it is now 14, so yes first time in normal range since diagnosis.  But the tumor and it's peritoneal deposits are still there.

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@hgtv no questions are silly.  I haven't had any surgery done yet for the ovarian tumor I had to start with chemo first to shrink my tumor as it was too large to operate on when we first found it.  It was 15cm x 12cm and now with chemo is 8.7cm x 8.7 cm, so now is the time to go in, in between chemo cycles.  My ca125 was 675 when we found it, after 4 rounds of chemo it is now 14, so yes first time in normal range since diagnosis.  But the tumor and it's peritoneal deposits are still there.

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

You've got this @Meinvan. The prep is gross but it means you are one step closer to getting through this step. Sending big positive vibes in your way!!

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Alwayslearning thank you🙏🏻. Half way thru prep.  Just waiting to find out check in time tomorrow.

You've got this @Meinvan. The prep is gross but it means you are one step closer to getting through this step. Sending big positive vibes in your way!!

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

That is very good news Meinvan. I am glad that the surgery went well and you are on your feet. I know that passing gas is important post- surgery, but I have never had anyone be so interested in my flatulence as the surgeon was. He would ask me, "Did you fart today?" and we would both laugh at the way he said it. I must admit that there were some humorous moments during my hospital stay. 

I hope your hemoglobin improves and you get home soon. The food will be better at home, I am sure of that, and your surroundings will be calmer. Wishing you a speedy recovery! 

Leslie 

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

That is very good news Meinvan. I am glad that the surgery went well and you are on your feet. I know that passing gas is important post- surgery, but I have never had anyone be so interested in my flatulence as the surgeon was. He would ask me, "Did you fart today?" and we would both laugh at the way he said it. I must admit that there were some humorous moments during my hospital stay. 

I hope your hemoglobin improves and you get home soon. The food will be better at home, I am sure of that, and your surroundings will be calmer. Wishing you a speedy recovery! 

Leslie 

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan you did it!! well done Teal Warrior. I'm so glad you are home and surgery was successful and no bowel resection. Yeah!! Plus your incision was relatively small (mine was just under my boobs and straight down all the way to my pubic bone - 64 staples!!). I'm always so impressed when they can remove so much stuff with small incisions. I'm very glad for you. I also remember the gas pass test. Glad you got past that, got the transfusion & are home so quickly. Your body is responding so well. Amazing. 

Get lots of rest. Also feel free to ask lots of questions as you recover. There is lots of wisdom on this site about recovery mode. 

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Alwayslearning. Thank you. Glad to be home and get on the recovery road again.  Yes I was lucky to have a relatively small incision compared to what I was expecting.  Next step is getting the staples removed in 8 days.  I know I'll be nervous about that too.  But I've gone thru all this already so I know I will get thru that too.

@Meinvan you did it!! well done Teal Warrior. I'm so glad you are home and surgery was successful and no bowel resection. Yeah!! Plus your incision was relatively small (mine was just under my boobs and straight down all the way to my pubic bone - 64 staples!!). I'm always so impressed when they can remove so much stuff with small incisions. I'm very glad for you. I also remember the gas pass test. Glad you got past that, got the transfusion & are home so quickly. Your body is responding so well. Amazing. 

Get lots of rest. Also feel free to ask lots of questions as you recover. There is lots of wisdom on this site about recovery mode. 

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Alwayslearning. Thank you. Glad to be home and get on the recovery road again.  Yes I was lucky to have a relatively small incision compared to what I was expecting.  Next step is getting the staples removed in 8 days.  I know I'll be nervous about that too.  But I've gone thru all this already so I know I will get thru that too.

@Meinvan you did it!! well done Teal Warrior. I'm so glad you are home and surgery was successful and no bowel resection. Yeah!! Plus your incision was relatively small (mine was just under my boobs and straight down all the way to my pubic bone - 64 staples!!). I'm always so impressed when they can remove so much stuff with small incisions. I'm very glad for you. I also remember the gas pass test. Glad you got past that, got the transfusion & are home so quickly. Your body is responding so well. Amazing. 

Get lots of rest. Also feel free to ask lots of questions as you recover. There is lots of wisdom on this site about recovery mode. 

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Alwayslearning. Thank you. Glad to be home and get on the recovery road again.  Yes I was lucky to have a relatively small incision compared to what I was expecting.  Next step is getting the staples removed in 8 days.  I know I'll be nervous about that too.  But I've gone thru all this already so I know I will get thru that too.

@Meinvan you did it!! well done Teal Warrior. I'm so glad you are home and surgery was successful and no bowel resection. Yeah!! Plus your incision was relatively small (mine was just under my boobs and straight down all the way to my pubic bone - 64 staples!!). I'm always so impressed when they can remove so much stuff with small incisions. I'm very glad for you. I also remember the gas pass test. Glad you got past that, got the transfusion & are home so quickly. Your body is responding so well. Amazing. 

Get lots of rest. Also feel free to ask lots of questions as you recover. There is lots of wisdom on this site about recovery mode. 

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

So happy to hear you did so well. You can do this. It is all uphill from here. 

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you my teal sisters for being here.  My hgb was still only 76 this morning so I got my transfusion done prior to be able to come home.  Passed the gas test and did so well this morning passing gas didn't make it to the toilet in time! 😂. Just pain in my sides and little in my pelvis.  Glad to be home don't think my boy would manage much longer without me.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan I am glad you have had your surgery, I am sure you are relieved you did not need a bowel resection!. I remember being beyond scared they would find all sorts of other tumors once they opened me up, thankfully that was not the case. I have read many ladies talk about how they were prepared for the possibility of needing a stoma, nobody had that convo with me.....

Dont worry about staple removal, Its part of my job and patients hardly ever express that it  is uncomfortable let alone painful.

Hopefully you have had some form of a BM by now, I myself was horrifically constipated by surgery then chemo so I took a mix of laxatives a few times a week. In my experience, glycerin suppositores worked like a charm to get things going.

Like others have said please feel free to ask questions, we have all been there.

Happy healing

Mel.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan I see you've gotten some good input on dealing with constipation. My advice is to speak to your medical team before trying anything (if they haven't already given you their counsel).  While I see some used enemas or glycerin suppositories, I was told to not use those. Rather I was guided toward either Restoralax or Senokot-S. Both taken orally. I believe what to use is dependent upon each of our situations so best to have your medical team clear whatever may be best for you  

I hope you are getting lots of rest and feeling stronger each day  

@Meinvan I am glad you have had your surgery, I am sure you are relieved you did not need a bowel resection!. I remember being beyond scared they would find all sorts of other tumors once they opened me up, thankfully that was not the case. I have read many ladies talk about how they were prepared for the possibility of needing a stoma, nobody had that convo with me.....

Dont worry about staple removal, Its part of my job and patients hardly ever express that it  is uncomfortable let alone painful.

Hopefully you have had some form of a BM by now, I myself was horrifically constipated by surgery then chemo so I took a mix of laxatives a few times a week. In my experience, glycerin suppositores worked like a charm to get things going.

Like others have said please feel free to ask questions, we have all been there.

Happy healing

Mel.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan I see you've gotten some good input on dealing with constipation. My advice is to speak to your medical team before trying anything (if they haven't already given you their counsel).  While I see some used enemas or glycerin suppositories, I was told to not use those. Rather I was guided toward either Restoralax or Senokot-S. Both taken orally. I believe what to use is dependent upon each of our situations so best to have your medical team clear whatever may be best for you  

I hope you are getting lots of rest and feeling stronger each day  

@Meinvan I am glad you have had your surgery, I am sure you are relieved you did not need a bowel resection!. I remember being beyond scared they would find all sorts of other tumors once they opened me up, thankfully that was not the case. I have read many ladies talk about how they were prepared for the possibility of needing a stoma, nobody had that convo with me.....

Dont worry about staple removal, Its part of my job and patients hardly ever express that it  is uncomfortable let alone painful.

Hopefully you have had some form of a BM by now, I myself was horrifically constipated by surgery then chemo so I took a mix of laxatives a few times a week. In my experience, glycerin suppositores worked like a charm to get things going.

Like others have said please feel free to ask questions, we have all been there.

Happy healing

Mel.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

Thank you.  My bowels are working well, still a little loose I attribute it to the crap load (no pun intended) of antibiotics pre op I was given. I usually don't have issues other then a few days after chemo so I have gotten into the habit of taking Metamucil daily too.  Hoping the bowel issues will settle out soon because of course I go to the worst case scenarios as usual.  😂 

@Meinvan I see you've gotten some good input on dealing with constipation. My advice is to speak to your medical team before trying anything (if they haven't already given you their counsel).  While I see some used enemas or glycerin suppositories, I was told to not use those. Rather I was guided toward either Restoralax or Senokot-S. Both taken orally. I believe what to use is dependent upon each of our situations so best to have your medical team clear whatever may be best for you  

I hope you are getting lots of rest and feeling stronger each day  

@Meinvan I am glad you have had your surgery, I am sure you are relieved you did not need a bowel resection!. I remember being beyond scared they would find all sorts of other tumors once they opened me up, thankfully that was not the case. I have read many ladies talk about how they were prepared for the possibility of needing a stoma, nobody had that convo with me.....

Dont worry about staple removal, Its part of my job and patients hardly ever express that it  is uncomfortable let alone painful.

Hopefully you have had some form of a BM by now, I myself was horrifically constipated by surgery then chemo so I took a mix of laxatives a few times a week. In my experience, glycerin suppositores worked like a charm to get things going.

Like others have said please feel free to ask questions, we have all been there.

Happy healing

Mel.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days

@Meinvan I see you've gotten some good input on dealing with constipation. My advice is to speak to your medical team before trying anything (if they haven't already given you their counsel).  While I see some used enemas or glycerin suppositories, I was told to not use those. Rather I was guided toward either Restoralax or Senokot-S. Both taken orally. I believe what to use is dependent upon each of our situations so best to have your medical team clear whatever may be best for you  

I hope you are getting lots of rest and feeling stronger each day  

@Meinvan I am glad you have had your surgery, I am sure you are relieved you did not need a bowel resection!. I remember being beyond scared they would find all sorts of other tumors once they opened me up, thankfully that was not the case. I have read many ladies talk about how they were prepared for the possibility of needing a stoma, nobody had that convo with me.....

Dont worry about staple removal, Its part of my job and patients hardly ever express that it  is uncomfortable let alone painful.

Hopefully you have had some form of a BM by now, I myself was horrifically constipated by surgery then chemo so I took a mix of laxatives a few times a week. In my experience, glycerin suppositores worked like a charm to get things going.

Like others have said please feel free to ask questions, we have all been there.

Happy healing

Mel.

Evening ladies,

well I'm still alive!  I'm day 2 post op, was going to go home today but decide they wanted me eating and passing gas before they discharge me.  Surgery went fairly well, had a radical hysterectomy, cervix, uterus,tubes,ovaries, omenteum and appendix.  Managed to only need a small incision below my belly button, tumor was about 7 cm baseballish size.  Right ovary still looked totally normal so it was all originating from the left.  The cyst attached to the tumor was attached to my bowel also but the surgeon managed to get it off without needing a resection.the peritoneal and pelvic deposits were all necrosed and removed. The appendix had some disease on it so it was removed.  They left 2 peritoneal deposits that were seen on my upper back, behind my diaphragm as they would need a larger incision and longer recovery if they took those out. The hope is that they are necrotic too from the chemo. Surgeon said there may be micro cancer cells in abd still but the chemo should take care of that.  I spent awhile in recovery 12hrs because I couldn't stay awake.  Been up walking today still sore but getting better.  Trying to pass gas, lots of gasIness  from that but not coming out yet.  My main concern is my hgb was 103 pre op, then yesterday 79,83, and this morning 75, so waiting to see what tomorrows is and make sure no transfusion is needed before going home.  I think that's about all for now,  falling asleep

@Meinvan sending out HUGE positive vibes for today. You are a warrior. You've got this. 

Hi ladies,

'tomorrow I start my bowel prep!  Yeah!

lab work today is ok and holding Ca125- is 14!

t-2 days till surgery🙏🏻🤞🤞

@FrogProf, thank you for sharing your experience.  I'm going to keep prayer for no resection or ostomy needed when we go in there.  Thank you for speaking about the living will, something that is important to have to alleviate the stress on our loved ones.  At this time my husband and I have not talked about this. We don't even have wills yet, even though we should so that someone watches over our son should we both pass.  And you think being a nurse I would have all this ready but I've never thought I would be in this situation that I'm in.  I think post surgery once we have more info about how far this has spread it will make us and me look more at preparing for that time.  I'm just not there yet.

Hello, Meinvan and other Teal Sisters

I, too, faced the possibility of a bowel resection and colostomy bag.  My wonderful oncologist is excellent about giving me options, telling me her recommendation, and then letting me decide.  She left the decision up to me: be aggressive and remove all the cancer she sees--even if that means removing part of the bowel--or leave some cancer to preserve the bowel and hope that the last rounds of chemo take care of it.  As always, I went with her recommendation, which was the former option. It was a very difficult decision, and she told me I could tell her how I decided at the last minute, if I wanted to.  I was fortunate enough not to require a bowel resection.  I'd even met with an ostomy nurse at the local hospital (something I would NOT recommend, as it merely increased my anxiety).  

This may be a strange thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway.  Probably everyone in this forum knows that cancer robs us of our sense of control.  One thing that really helped me right before my surgery was handing a nurse my living will.  Forgive me if that's too morbid, but I had brought it with me, assuming that it was so important that I'd remember it, but when the nurse asked me about it (I'd forgotten I had it with me), I nearly cried as I thanked her.  Handing over those papers was one last act of control before I surrendered my life to the doctors' hands.

I'm thinking of you, Meinvan, and wishing you the best.

@asatino thank you.  Yes I'd like to turn my thoughts off until after the surgery.

Sending love and positive energy your way. And of course it is totally understandable that you  are scared. The mind is a powerful  tool.

Evening ladies,

Well my surgery is approaching in 13 days, I'm nervous of course.  My surgeon called today to see how I'm feeling and doing as I didn't see her at my surgical consult the other week as she was away.  Today she had to ask me to consent to the possibility of having to do a bowel resection and stoma during surgery.  She said she is basing this on what she saw back in April when she did my Lap, so I guess the peritoneal deposits were seen everywhere including down by my rectum. I know on my most recent ct scan/MRI there was mention of a "cyst" near my rectum.  So not sure if that is cancerous or not and that's what she is talking about or if there were cancerous looking deposits on my colon that she saw? She is hoping because I have responded well to the chemo so far that it's working down there too.  Either way this kind of brought me down today thinking there could be more cancer there that I didn't know about.  I know it was in my peritoneum but on my recent scans it wasn't visualized…..maybe I was feeling too optimistic that the chemo was working well.  Now I'm left worrying until I get out of surgery and know what I'm dealing with.  Too stressful, when you don't need stress in your life.  Being a nurse having ovarian cancer and a bowel resection have truly been some of my biggest fears because I have seen the horrible things that happen with both these diagnosis.  And I always go to the worse case immediately……Anyways thanks for reading my worries, don't mean to bring anyone down.  Just feel lost some days