Kathy Manthey

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Kathy had a double hernia surgery on August 3, 2017.  It was after the surgery she was told that the surgeon noticed an abnormal amount of peritoneal fluid in her abdominal cavity.  The doctor proactively took a sample of this fluid plus blood to be tested.  Immediately after surgery, Kathy experienced a tremendous amount of fluid excreted from the incision site.  As a result, she had to remain in the hospital for observation for one day.  A few days later it was discovered that the fluid and blood both came back with confirmed cancer cells of the reproductive area.  Over the next week, several tests were done to locate the specific area of the cancer.  Many tests came back negative which made us hopeful for a false positive.  Unfortunately our positivity was short lived.  Ovarian cancer was finally confirmed on August 21 after seeing Dr. Al Niami, a gynecological oncologist from the UW Carbone Center in Madison, WI.


The whirlwind of appointments and additional tests continued.  It was suspected that the cancer had already spread, but was unknown the extent of its range.  On August 29, Kathy had exploratory surgery to determine the exact location of the cancer in the abdominal area and possible removal of the cancer.  After 45 minutes Kathy's family was called back to discover that the cancer had spread to her spleen and colon.  Dr. Al Niami decided not to attempt to remove the cancer at that time as it had spread to more of her colon than he wanted to remove.  The doctor wanted to give her three rounds of two types of chemotherapy (carboplatin and taxol) administered three weeks apart.  The goal is to shrink the cancer spots to reduce the amount of the colon to be removed during a future surgery.


Kathy is very highly sensitive to various drugs which all made us very nervous for her first chemo therapy session.  Luckily she was able to endure all three treatments with controlled nausea.  Eating of course is still a constant battle but with the devoted care from her husband, Harold, she has been able to keep her strength as best as possible.


Kathy is scheduled to have her cancer removal surgery on November 8, 2017 at the UW Hospital in Madison.   She will most likely need to stay a minimum of one week to recover.


Your kind words of encouragement and most importantly your prayers are greatly and deeply appreciated.  We will continue to post her healing progress on this site.