Merry Christmas!!

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!

I am sorry I haven’t taken the time to update the blog in the past week or so, but I was feeling pretty good about a week before my last treatment and spent my energy making cookies with Michelle and her girlfriend, Kristen, running a few errands (trying to get in the Christmas shopping mood) and laying low at home.

I honestly feel that I just didn’t want to blog because I was feeling ok and did not want to think about having to go back to treatment. But, back to Tucson I went for treatment on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The past couple days since have been a little rough. I probably pushed too hard to stay up to be with Bill and girls. This treatment felt a bit different in that I have been fairly nauseated off and on. The drugs given to me to prevent this worked much better up till now. However, I know this too will pass. I head back to Tucson tomorrow for my “day 8” treatment and then will head back to Phoenix. Bill and I are hoping to head to our house up north for a few days over the weekend.

If you watch the Fiesta Bowl parade, look for the Phoenix Children’s Hospital clowns. Bill will come down from the mountains on Friday to walk in the parade, dressed as a clown! Manny Molina puts a group of people together who not only donate to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital but who also get dressed up as clowns and visit children in the hospital, and then march in the parade. We had a lot of fun last year at the parade waiting for the clowns to come by. This is a wonderful fundraiser and a great time for everyone.

We celebrated Christmas on Sunday night here at the house with my parents, Bill and the girls (Chloe is now considered one of our girls), Pete, Billy and Carlos. The kids made a wonderful dinner and then we opened gifts. But the best gift of all was having our grandbaby here with us for her first Christmas. Wow, what a gift!

Today we are heading to my mom and dad’s for Christmas. I have 7 brothers and sisters so getting together is a huge event with all the nieces and nephews, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This year will be very special for my parents. It has been about 5 or 6 years since all of us have been together. I am totally grateful to Pete who lovingly agreed to let Michelle stay home for Christmas this year. Pete left yesterday to visit his family for the week and Michelle will be here with us today but will leave tomorrow morning to spend the rest of the week in Iowa with Pete’s family. My parents are very excited to have all of us together this year.

Just as a reminder to all of you and not to put a damper on the the holiday spirit, if you know of any women who have the following subtle signs and symptoms of: vague fatigue, backache or pain, bloating, frequent or urgent urination and indigestion – please encourage her to see a doctor and get ask for either a trans-vaginal ultrasound and a CA-125 blood test which measures protein levels in the blood. These symptoms are so vague and can occur at anytime. There is a reason ovarian cancer is often referred to as the “Silent Killer.”

As I think back to my symptoms prior to my diagnosis, I did have backaches…but I just assumed that because I exercised everyday and was getting older and just needed to stretch more – which is what I did. Fatigue, hey I work with Bill and he has energy plus, especially when we are in trial. During the month of July we were in trial for the entire month (with a great result for our client!), so exhaution seemed appropriate. Frequent and urgent urination, of course, I have had 4 children!

As you can see I was able to write off all these symptoms to something else. It was not until I was having major bloating and distention that I went to a doc. Actually, I went to three doctors, my GI, internist and GYN and each of them missed the diagnosis and never considered ovarian cancer. I don’t blame any of these doctors because I understand that ovarian cancer is rare and therefore doctors are often not aware of the symptoms. It is time for doctors and women alike to be more conscious of this disease. I know now where I will be putting my energy in the months to come (more about that later when I finish doing research about how I will accomplish this).

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my visit with Dr. Chambers at the Az Cancer Center. My CA-125 level (which is the tumor marker for ovarian cancer) was 15! Normal range is 0-35. When I was initially diagnosed my CA-125 was 3456…off the charts! We were all very excited, now the key is to keep this level very low and hopefully the chemotherapy will do just that.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Holiday season.

Love to you all,
Colleen

For additional information on ovarian cancer, please visit the following websites by cutting and pasting the link into your URL:

www.ovariancancer.jhmi.edu/OvarianCancer.pdf
or
http://www.ovariancancer.org/index.cfm?&stopRedirect=1