What It's Like Having Ovarian Cancer, a Deadly Killer

My name is Kathryn and I am an ovarian cancer survivor. I have been cancer free for three years. This is my story. I had felt kind of bad for a few weeks, but thought nothing about it. I also noticed that I had seemed to have gain some weight. None of these things registered as being "wrong". In October of 2004, I was at work and my co-workers told me that I was not looking well. I fact, I appeared to be, literally, "green around the gills". I went and laid down (I work in a hotel) and slept for about two hours. MY boss and my daughter (Head Housekeeper) came in, woke me up and said they were going to take me to the emergency room at the near-by hospital. I protested, but the insisted, so off we went. The doctor that saw me, thumped, poked, prodded and drew blood. when all was said and done, I was told I had bronchitis and was given an inhaler and prescription for an antibiotic. I went home, happy they found out what was wrong.

I got home around five in the evening. Around eight p.m., I was very uncomfortable. It felt like I had a very bad case of indigestion. I took something to try and relieve the gas pains. By around eleven p.m. I was feeling no better and in fact felt even worse. I decided that I would drive to the ER at the hospital in my town and see if they could give me something to relieve the gas pains. The doctor did the same poking, prodding and even drew some blood. I waited to hear from the doctor why I had the gas pains. It was a long wait until the doctor came back and told me they wanted to run some additional tests. I thought, "Oh crap. I will be here all night at this rate." I was a bit ticked off as I did not want to spend a lot of time in the ER.

The doctor sent a nurse in with some barium for me to drink. Since I was complaining of indigestion/gas, they decided to check for any gastrointestinal issues that could be present. I held my nose and swallowed the nasty liquid. I was then taken for a ride down to the x-ray station had a bunch of pictures taken. I was given a return ride to the ER room to await the results of the pictures.