We always hear “live life day by day” or “live life to the fullest” because “you never know when the day will come when it will be your last”. To be honest, I didn’t really know what this meant. As a child I remember the days would be so slow and I would need to find things to do to fill my time. Then as the years progressed, time was moving faster and you reach that age where you don’t have enough time to do anything. We all lose track of time because we are so occupied with worrying about the past, the future, the people we care about. Our society has taught us to think ahead like, “should I go to university, buy a house, have a certain job, find a compatible partner, have a family”. We aren’t taught to live in the present, to live in the moment at that place, and at that time. We forget about what’s really important, and it’s ourselves.
There was a time in my late teens when I honestly thought I was invincible. As ignorant as I was back then, I didn’t understand how healthy I really was and how precious life would be.
It wasn’t until my early 20’s that I had pains stemming from my lower abdomen, which I later found out I had cysts the size of grapefruit growing on both of my ovaries. I was surprised that I would need to go through a minor surgical procedure to have them removed. I was scared but prepared for what was about to happen. It was at this moment, I didn’t feel as invincible as I was before. Then a couple of weeks prior to my consultation with the surgeon, the cysts miraculously disappeared. I thought to myself, my body was capable of healing itself without any surgery. I was stronger than I thought. My doctor at the time, strongly suggested I go on birth control pills to manage and prevent this situation from happening. So without a doubt and without doing my research (google wasn’t really around back then), I did what was suggested. Little did I know what was in store for me.
The day came when I decided to have children with my husband, and that would mean to get off birth control 13 years later. The feeling of worry and stress came over me because of the issues I had in the past. Previously the doctor suggested I may have PCOS, but the diagnosis wasn’t definite. I felt the same pain in my ovaries and got them checked regularly via ultrasound, but my family doctor found nothing. She said this was all normal, and cysts disappear after every cycle. She referred me to a gynecologist to determine my options for fertility as I thought it was a concern based on my history. Upon following up with my gynecologist, she recommended “clomid”, a fertility drug. Although I heard it helped many people, I had uncertanity due to the number of side effects that came with it, especially the serious ones. So I did more research on more natural ways to get pregnant. I tried acupuncture, and even chinese herbal medicine. Finally after 1.5 years of trying, I got pregnant and it wasn’t with the clomid. But here’s the kicker, the pain was back but specifically on my left ovary, and upon doing blood work, my hormone levels were through the roof. They thought I was having twins, then they thought I had an ectopic pregnancy. Then finally they decided they were only able to see 1 fetus in my uterus, and a dermoid on my left ovary. Throughout my pregnancy, my gynecologist advised they would need to check and make sure the dermoid doesn’t grow, and to not be concerned as it would be a minor procedure to have it removed. Never underestimate the information you receive.
Fourteen months later after giving birth, I noticed a change in my body. I just finished doing a 6 week challenge with a local gym in attempt to shed off the rest of my pregnancy weight. It was a high protein diet and the easiest thing to make in the mornings were eggwhites which I wasn’t a big fan of. But I felt like the change in my body was different. I felt off. I was being guided by the angels to avoid allergens, that diet was key, and to ask my body for a message. They wanted me to change physicians and ask for a second opinion. They even wanted me to go vegan. This message was ongoing for a couple of months. I did little changes to my diet and booked an appointment with a naturopath I found with really good reviews. However I wasn’t able to see her until 2 months later. By this point, I was doing my regular day to day activities, until one day my son decided to climb over me and thought it would be funny to sit on my belly. The feeling I had was “what is that?” It felt like a small bag of coal moved around as he sat on my belly. I decided to get an ultrasound, but because it was a long weekend, my only option was to go to emergency at the hospital. I’m definitely glad I followed through. The gynecology/oncology team advised this was a dermoid, but it was abnormally large and posed concerns. More testing needed to be done, and the consensus was to have it removed due to its size and appearance. At this point, they couldn’t advise if it was cancerous or not until it was removed and assessed by a pathologist. Then I realized what it meant to live in the moment.
After the major surgery, my surgeon (gynecologist) advised that it went well and the initial dissection appeared to be a dermoid, just an abnormal form of a dermoid. She still needed to send the referral to the oncology team at the hopspital as it did show to be abnormal, but advised the worst possible thing that would happen was a hysterectomy if they weren’t satisfied with the procedure. To my relief I was happy that there was no cancer cells. My goal was to recover from the surgery, change my lifestyle on eating foods to replenish my body, and to spend each moment doing what I love and spending my time with the people I care about. Going into the surgery, I knew I was going to recover quickly, which I did. What I didn’t realize, is that “What I didn’t know is what could kill me”.
I received a phone call from the oncology unit wanting to follow up with a consultation about the pathology results. I was previously advised by my surgeon the options and didn’t think anything of it until I received a message that completely threw me off. They said I would need to do chemo as soon as possible as they had found germ cancer cells in a small part of the dermoid. They also said upon removing the dermoid, one of the cysts on the ovary popped and they’re not sure if there were cancer cells in the fluid that went back into my abdominal cavity. As the doctor was telling me all of this information, I was in shock. Shocked that I may have cancer cells in my body and shocked that regardless, I would need to do chemotherapy that would kill the cancer cells but also poison my own body. Cancer is such a strong word, and cancer didn’t run in my family, and the doctors said it was because I was “unlucky” and that this specific cancer happened to 1% of the population and I was the 1%. I was merely a percentage on a statistic and the cancer they found was aggressive. How is this possible? Why did this happen and where did it come from? The doctors couldn’t answer any of these questions all because there hasn’t been very much research done on these questions. The research done on cancer was based on the different stages, and the treatment is the aftermath or when it’s affected the person. How could this be? More and more people are getting cancer and there’s limited information out there to help people. What I’ve realized after looking into ways to help my body is that the information is there, it’s just a matter of finding it and how determined you are to help yourself, even if it’s against all odds.