Neyna Whitney

On October 20, Matt, Kamea and I were at the OB office, anxious to see the newest member of our little family!  It was just a little jelly bean! The midwife then told us that she saw a dark spot. She confirmed that it wasn't in my ovaries or my uterus, but in my intestines.  We left that appointment not feeling very concerned because we were just so thrilled that we had another little miracle on the way. On Monday I went alone to a follow up appointment with Dr. Moore to figure out what the midwife saw. He took a sample of the spot and said he was going to have a biopsy done. The next day I got a call from the doctor confirming that it was cancer. I had no idea what to think. What would happen to my pregnancy? Would I have to have chemo, radiation, surgery? Would I lose my hair? How did this happen to me, why me?

After that appointment I had a CT scan, an MRI and blood work done to help determine what stage my cancer was. Stage 3 colorectal cancer. It is the third most common cancer amongst people over 50, but very rare for someone my age (24) to have it, and be pregnant at the same time. Now that we knew what we were dealing with we had to come up with a plan. We had meetings with the OBGYN's, a fertility doctor, a genetics doctor, and an oncologist. The plan that they thought would be most fitting and safe for my pregnancy was to do chemo, deliver baby, chemo/radiation, and then surgery. The main concerns from my OB were that it would be very exhausting for me to grow a baby and fight the side effects of the chemo at the same time.

Like many other things in life, there is no way to know what is going to happen. There are no guarantees that everything will go perfectly as planned. I do know that I have the BEST team behind me though! With all the love and support from Matt, Kamea, my family and friends, I will stay motivated and strong .  I have so much to fight for, so many memories left to make. 

This is the beginning of my fearless fight.