Cancer & Prevention
My Two and a Half Centimeter Time Bombs
When my mother was dying of ovarian cancer, I was twenty-five. Back then, now more than a decade ago, I took advantage of the kind of freedom I would never know again; not yet married, without children, I was able to put my life on hold and focus completely on the end of hers. I took time off from work, left my boyfriend alone in our apartment, and moved back home. Under the same roof…
View Blog Post51 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Back in April on this blog, I wrote about my ovaries. I wrote about my fear, that one day, the same tiny nuggets that allowed me to give birth to my two young children, might actually kill me. This is not hysterical, this is my reality. Ever since my mother died of ovarian cancer in 1996 — when she was just 57 years old — I’ve been on high risk medical surveillance. I’ve been watched….
View Blog Post49 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Last night, I went to a support group for women who have tested positive for BRCA1 and BRCA2. If you didn’t know the reason we were coming together, you would have thought we were gathering for a book club or PTA meeting. We look just like you, except there’s this one little problem with our DNA: a mutation that makes it more likely that we’ll develop breast and ovarian cancer. The meeting takes place once…
View Blog Post44 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Why now? Since I started writing about my journey into surgery, people have been asking me why I chose to do the surgery now. It’s a great question, of course, because it’s a decision I didn’t arrive at quickly or without a great deal of research; I’ve been grappling with it since my mother died of ovarian cancer 11 years ago. My doctor had warned me early on that I should remove my ovaries after…
View Blog Post40 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
My public journey into surgery was inspired by a courageous young woman I’ve never met. I read about her, like so many of us did, in the New York Times. Deborah Lindner tested positive, like I have, for BRCA1, and decided to undergo a mastectomy to head off cancer before it had a chance to take hold. But in the process of ridding her body of breasts, she did so much more. By choosing to share…
View Blog Post33 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
As soon as I found out I tested positive for BRCA1, I knew I had some serious decisions to make. I ultimately determined, after many years of conversation and research, to have my ovaries removed and to undergo a hysterectomy. Today’s Blog is devoted to the best resources I’ve found that helped me make these very difficult choices. First, I joined a support group for women who have tested positive for the BRCA1 and BRCA2…
View Blog Post4 Days Post-Op: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
An enormous wave of relief flew through my body Thursday afternoon when I woke up from surgery. I was barely awake in the recovery room – still on morphine – and all at once I realized that I had not only made it through the operation (I was alive!) but I would never live in fear of ovarian cancer again. Laying down on that gurney, with needles and tubes in my arms and a catheter…
View Blog PostUpdate on My Surgery To Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Howdy – My name is Mark – and I’m Allison’s husband. As I write this, Allison is in her hospital bed right beside me. It’s 7pm in New York. The surgery went very well — as well as we could have hoped. With this type of surgery, the going-in plan is to do it laproscopically. The back-up plan is traditional abdominal surgery with a large incision (Think Cesarean) and days of recovery. Thank goodness everything…
View Blog Post1 Day and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Preparing for surgery these last few days has been like getting ready to go into labor. I’ve been nesting. My house is tidy and the fridge is full. I’ve also gotten a haircut, my nails done, and even indulged in a massage. The cleaning was going to continue this morning until I twisted my ankle and fell flat on my face walking my kids to the bus stop. Now I lay here in my bedroom…
View Blog Post2 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
There’s an open box of tampons sitting on my bathroom counter and I can’t get myself to put them away. Every time I pee or put on make-up, there they are, staring at me. The little blue carton has taken on illogical meaning these last few days – like the pack should be carefully placed in a glass case and observed – like an artifact. If archaeologists discovered them in the cabinet under my sink,…
View Blog Post7 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. My husband. My kids. My family. But as I prepare to get my ovaries removed and undergo a hysterectomy in exactly one week from today — it is my mother, who died 11 years ago, whom I am thankful for the most. My mom passed away from ovarian cancer when I was 25. Before I was married. Before I had children. And today, as I…
View Blog Post10 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
I just got off the phone with my doctor’s office and I have been officially cleared for surgery. The results of the pre-op blood work I did last week came back all fine. And, in honor of Thanksgiving, I thought you’d love to read the menu I was given for next Wednesday, November 28th, the day-before-my-operation: The patient (that’s me!) should be on a clear liquid diet the day before surgery. * Water * Apple…
View Blog Post13 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
This week I met with my doctor for the last time before my surgery. I showed up with my husband and a very clear agenda of what I wanted to discuss. I needed to figure out — once and for all — what we were going to do about my cervix. I had long thought that along with my ovaries and uterus, I would automatically take my cervix out, too. If I was going this…
View Blog Post17 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
My aunt called me the other day from Oregon and crushed me with some unexpected news. She told me she was canceling her plans to come to New York for my surgery. I reassured her that I’d be fine and that I understood. And I do, intellectually. But it’s easy to lie on the phone, and in truth, I felt abandoned. She offered explanations and apologies but her words dripped uselessly out of the phone….
View Blog Post22 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Big decision. I’ve decided to change hospitals and surgeons for my upcoming surgery. I know it’s last minute, but I had to do it. The doctor I was going to have the surgery with at New York-Presbyterian had been my mother’s surgeon 14 years ago when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. There was actually great comfort in going to the doctor who knew my mother and treated her, even though she ended up dying…
View Blog Post24 Days And Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Most women go into menopause, gradually, in their 40s. I’m in a different category. When I get my ovaries removed and undergo a hysterectomy in just a few weeks, I’ll wake-up from the operation 37-years-old and I’ll immediately be in menopause. It’s called surgical menopause, and I’m told, it’ll be unlike regular menopause. Because it’s not gradual, my symptoms might be worse than those experienced by women who go through it naturally. There are a…
View Blog Post28 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
I am now on my last pack of birth control pills. With my surgery now less than a month away, I knew there would be a “last,” but I wasn’t prepared — at all — for how it would make me feel to open that final, little package. My husband and I met right after I graduated high school. When I started college a few months later, I went to the cheapest clinic I could…
View Blog Post34 Days and Counting: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Once I made the decision to have surgery because of my BRCA1 diagnosis, the next challenge was figuring which procedure to have. At the very least, my doctors urged, I should remove my ovaries. That much was clear. It would reduce my chances of getting ovarian cancer by at least 90%. The other choice was to also have a hysterectomy. Now, everything was not so clear. This has been an agonizing decision. And, because my…
View Blog Post7 Days Post Op: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
I am “grossly unremarkable.” Those are the best words I could have heard yesterday when I went to see my doctor for the first time following my operation a week ago today. He didn’t actually say it about me — he was showing them to me typed out on a surgical pathology report. While I was under anesthesia, my uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, and ovaries had all been sent to the Mount Sinai Hospital Laboratory…
View Blog Post14 Days Post-Op: My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer
Today is two weeks since my surgery and I basically feel as if I never had an operation. The best news I can report is that I haven’t had a single hot flash. Not one. So far, surgical menopause is just something I was anticipating and fearing – but haven’t had to deal with — and maybe never will. I am not on any hormones and won’t be taking any unless my symptoms change. My biggest concern right now is getting myself…
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