Trina Rinke

Here's the story in Trina's words as sent to her Gustavus soccer team...

Hello teammates!

I hope you are all having a great, relaxing summer so far! 

I have had some changes to my health recently and I wanted to update you all on what I know so far. In the last few weeks, I have been experiencing stomach pains and gastrointestinal issues. This past Wednesday, I developed chills, a headache, more stomach pain, and a fever so I decided to make a trip to Urgent Care. While I was there, I had blood drawn, gave some samples, and had a CT scan done to my pelvic region. The results of the CT scan showed a tumor (his name is Harold) about the size of a small nerf football located over my ovaries in my pelvic region. 

Yesterday, I went into Minneapolis Children's to meet with a gynecological oncologist. After meeting with her, we still don't know the nature of the tumor. It will either be benign (cancer free) or it will be malignant, which would mean I would most likely have ovarian cancer. Either way, Harold needs to get out of my body. 

I have a surgery scheduled at Children's hospital on Monday the 10th at 10:45 am. The surgery will most likely last around 2-3 hours and I will spend time recovering in the hospital for 2-4 days post surgery. During this surgery, they plan to remove the entire tumor (bye bye Harold), and from that, they will be able to determine whether it is benign or malignant. By the end of the day on Monday, they should have a 90-95% accurate idea of the tumor's nature.  

Once these results are in, we will have a better idea of a plan of action for moving forward. I will then send out a follow up email with more details of my condition and plans for the future. 

If you have any questions at all, please please please feel free to reach out to me. I am very comfortable talking about the situation and I want you to feel comfortable as well! I am very hopeful that Harold is just a little (or not so little) bump in the road that I can get past. I am trying to keep a positive mindset through all this and I hope you can all stay positive through this with me! Prayers are welcome and seriously feel free to call, text, fax, FaceTime, send snail mail, dm me, airdrop, email, or snap chat me at any time!!

I love you all from the bottom of my heart,

Trina Joy Rinke
P.S. My mom, Marit Rinke, will be my temporary secretary during my recovery and will be scheduling any visits people would like to make. You can text or call her with any questions you may have because I will be on drugs post surgery. Her number is 612-735-8900.