My Necrotic Ovary
It’s a good title for a grunge song, right? “My Necrotic Ovary.” Belongs as a lyric along with the other mediocre lines in “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Yes, mediocre. “A mosquito, my libido.” These words changed the face of music in the 90’s? Give me a break. At any rate, it’s not of importance cause no matter how I try, I only hear the music to “My Funny Valentine,” when I sing, “My Necrotic Ovary.”
I haven’t written in a while. Not that there hasn’t been a
lot going on. There was and is the
pandemic. Unprecedented and all that - home schooling, masks, gloves, Lysol, toilet
paper, vaccines, Delta variant, etc. We got a COVID dog. Penny. She’s a French
bulldog and her name on the adoption website was Paris. Would you have expected
anything less from this Francophile? She’s perfectly flawed with a crooked jaw,
a tongue that hangs out, deeply affectionate and pissed on our dining room rug
so many times we had to get rid of it. Not the classiest French lady. Maybe she’s
French Canadian.
On June 19, 2020, I got sober. Just quit on the spot. Some
of my metastases are in my liver, and my bloodwork wasn’t ideal, so I told my
friends to hold me accountable and I quit to spare the liver. I’d had enough to
drink for a lifetime anyway, and now I get invited everywhere because I’m a
free, sober Uber. I keep waiting for the cops to pull me over with my carload
of drunk concert-going friends. I’m dying to take the sobriety test, walk that
straight line and yell at the cops, “That’s right! I’m sober, bitch!” It’s my competitive
nature. I think law enforcement would appreciate the spirit, without having drunk
the spirits. (See what I did there? 😉)
I moved to a vegan/plant-based/anti-inflammatory diet in
July. So, I drink water and eat grass. Sometimes for shits and giggles I throw
in a grain. No, honestly, it’s not that bad. It’s more comical than anything.
The Parisian-wanna-be doesn’t do wine or cheese. Course when I do return to Paris,
I’m throwing out all these dietary restrictions for the duration of my visit. They’ll
go the way of my nipples, my first two sets of breasts and my right ovary (don’t
worry, I’m getting to that fickle, almond-sized organ).
In February, UConn Health loaned me out to the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute in Boston to participate in a drug trial that was aimed at
targeting one of the mutations in my tumors. The drug tore through my lesions,
decreasing them by 26% in the first six weeks. My tumor markers were the lowest
I had seen in nearly nine years, and I was posting numbers close to a healthy human
being. But cancer cells are smart little bitches, and the metastatic ones are
like Jeopardy!’s all-time champions. The metastatic ones are wicked smart. And I
do mean wicked. My drug was killing the cells with that one specific mutation,
but the other mutations caught on quickly, and caught UP quickly. They filled
in, where the dead ones left off. Less than four months later, I was back where
I started – same lesions, same size. On the bright side, I got to leave the
state of CT for the first time in over a year to participate in the study. Turns
out, not much had changed on I-90 in Massachusetts.
Mid-summer I reported back to UConn Health and started on my
newest drug. The first cycles of my bloodwork look good, the drug appears to be
working and aside from some painful foot and hand callousing and burning, the
side effects are relatively minimal. I’ve been going about my usual daily
activities, driving kids to and from every practice under the sun, and I’ve
felt really healthy and strong.
BUT clearly I did some nasty “eye for an eye” or crazy voodoo
shit to someone in a past life because I keep handing over body parts to the karmic
gods. Last Wednesday, I was going about my business, walking Penny, when I felt
such malaise that I actually contemplated calling Dave and asking him to pick
me and the dog up at the end of the block. Within two hours Dave and I were in
the emergency room, with me writhing in pain, hollering in agony and holding a death
grip on the bed rails of the gurney. I can tell you, but I can’t fully articulate
to you, the mind’s journey when you are admitted to the emergency room, with
the worst pain of your life, in your abdominal area (near the liver) when you
are living with stage IV cancer.
Of course, the story didn’t end there. And despite the
unbearable pain, middle of the night surgery, and inconvenient recovery, the
story’s end is a good one. I got my ovary in a twist, cut off all its blood supply,
and therefore it was removed. The nurses in recovery called it a “gnarly”
specimen. The doctor’s assessment was, “torsed, black and necrotic.” Also known
as twisted, dark and dead. Kind of like the karmic gods humor.
But I’m still laughing.
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