Hi guys, thanks for visiting! Your support means the world to us, and we will take as many prayers as we can get.
Here's the gist: on Thursday, February 2, 2017, I was diagnosed with small cell ovarian cancer (SCCOHT). It's an extremely rare, and very aggressive form of cancer. I'm very tentatively staged at 1C (eta: on Friday, February 10, 2017, my stage was changed to 3), but we don't have full staging completed, and with this kind of cancer, staging doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
I'll likely be going to MD Anderson in Houston soon, as there is no real consensus on how to treat, and no one in Nebraska has seen it. We'll be updating this page regularly as we find out more.
Am I scared? Hell yes. I'm terrified, down to my very core. But I'll tell you what - I have been so blessed in this life, I have an amazing husband, two BEAUTIFUL babies, wonderful family and friends, and so much love surrounding me. This is not where my story ends, it is just another chapter in my book.
xo,
Taylor
(Background on initial surgery and diagnosis is below)
In the early weeks of January, 2017, I was having some lower abdominal discomfort. Nothing too bothersome, but during the week of January 16, the discomfort became slightly painful, enough for me to call my OB for a check. I had an IUD placed after our daughter Penelope was born, and I thought maybe it had shifted, or something else random was going on. They got me in for an ultrasound on the morning of Thursday, January 19, and my OB's nurse called me just after I had left to tell me that I had a large mass on my right ovary, and that my OB would like to schedule me for surgery to remove it. I called Jim, and we headed back into the office late that afternoon to discuss.
Turned out that I had about a 12cm mass on my right ovary, and my OB wanted to get it out sooner than later. Could have just been a cyst, but due to size and complexity, they wanted to do a mini-laparotomy (think c-section incision) instead of a laparoscopic surgery. So, we scheduled surgery for that coming Monday, January 23, 2017.
On the morning of surgery, I was super nervous, but Jim was my rock, and was still confident that it was just a big dumb thing that just needed to get outta there. We went in, surgery went well (hey, anesthesia is kind of fun!), but I came out of it to Jim stroking my hair and looking at me in a way I hadn't seen before. I simply asked "is it cancer?" and he shook his head yes. We were scared, but hoped it had been contained, and was treatable. Recovery from the surgery began, and then the diagnosis finally came.
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