Eight days into chemo with ups and downs

First off, thanks to the literally thousands of people who've read my April 16 post revealing Amanda's cancer diagnosis and the circumstances around it. Thanks also to the folks who shared it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, plus Reddit and parenting forums.

If you missed it, the TL;DR summary: during C-section to deliver our first child, doctors found advanced ovarian cancer in my wife's abdomen.

The support we've received in the past few weeks has been tremendous. I can't express my thanks fully enough, nor will I attempt to list all the people who've helped, offered to help, or offered kind words. Everyone has been so great.

Today was the very first World Ovarian Cancer Day. I don't think most people know much about ovarian cancer, other than that it's pretty goddamned scary. That part's true. Statistically, it's far less survivable than breast cancer, which gets most of the attention in the woman-cancer sphere.

Part of the problem is that ovarian cancer symptoms are vague and easily dismissed. Also, breasts are frankly easier to touch and feel for lumps. By the time most ovarian cancer cases are found, it's already spread. This is sad and probably unnecessary. Let's try to change that.


Chemotherapy began last Tuesday. We went in for one last Q&A with our gyne-oncologist at the Nova Scotia Cancer Centre. Final briefings on side effects and a recap of the battle plan, then upstairs to the chemo floor.

Chemo Day One was long and boring, really. Well, aside from the terror and fear and "damn, this is really really real" moment when her IV went in. They emptied bag after bag of medicine/poison into her body. Steroids, Benadryl, Taxol, Carboplatin and a saline chaser.

She had a comfy chair, I had a ... chair. I ain't complaining. But next time we'll bring phone chargers and something to read. Both of our smartphones drained to nothing by the end of the long day. In total, we were there something like eight hours.

Amanda's last portrait before the Chemo Haircut.

We saw a variety of people getting chemotherapy there. Most much older than us -- I'm 39 and she's 34. I'm pretty sure we were the youngest there. One woman appeared to be in her forties, but most of the men and women would have had grey hair, if they'd had any hair at all.

A trip to Wal-Mart got us some buckets for barfing. They haven't been used for that yet. Nausea has not been the side effect.

I'm not going to speak for her, but the sudden halt to breastfeeding might be the most disturbing side effect so far. She was breastfeeding our child from the beginning and we intended to continue that if the chemo would allow. However, checks with nurses, our own online research and an inquiry at Motherisk, the drugs-and-pregnancy info center at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, told us the chemo drugs would be found in the breast milk for weeks.

The plan to pump-and-dump, then resume feeding, had to be abandoned immediately. She had to go from feeding every few hours to no more feeding. We'd banked a few days' worth of milk for the freezer.

But now she'd have to wean off feeding by pumping milk that was technically cytotoxic -- it was so dangerous we couldn't touch it. It had to go down the toilet and she had to flush twice with the lid down.

The process has been painful and looks to me to have been emotionally tough, too. Cancer has taken one more thing away from the baby. Yes, formula feeding is fine. Yes, if we were hell-bent on breast milk, we could have arranged something with donors. It's just hard.

Several days after the treatment, she began feeling crippling pain in her feet, knees, hips, pelvis, legs and lower back. This was predicted but that didn't make it easy to tolerate.

Imagine something making its way into the core of your bones and poisoning your bone marrow, and your bone marrow crying out in a pain that echoes through your lower body but cannot be treated. It was hard to see.

Now her scalp is tingling and starting to itch. We await the hair loss.

In anticipation of the baldness that's coming, she ordered some headpieces from softhats.com and got a couple from the Sunshine Room at the hospital.

She also went with her best friends to her favourite aesthetician for a shorter haircut. She'd been growing her hair as long as I've known her. She had short hair when we first met and it's been getting longer ever since.

She came home and looked so good. So hot. Younger, even.

The sexiest cancer patient I've ever heard of is my wife.

Gorgeous. My wife has cancer. She's going to lose her inside lady parts. She's about to go bald and get sicker and sicker for months. But man, she looks sexy as hell.

One more picture here, and this echoes the one from the original post. You're welcome to compare the changes.

The baby's bigger. Her haircut is smaller. She's getting through this so far.

What's next?

Another two weeks and we'll be back for another round of chemo. Another three weeks later. Then about a month, I think, and she'll have the complete hysterectomy. A little recovery, then they're planning three more rounds of carbo and Taxol injected through a port in her abdomen, straight into the peritoneal cavity.

They tell us it's much harder to tolerate than the IV method, but could provide the best chance at wiping out any remaining cancer cells.

Thanks again to everyone who's been spreading the word. This is a difficult process and I'm virtually certain it's all going to catch up to me eventually.

I hate that this ends up sounding like an aside, but: Our baby, Gordon, is fantastic. I'm loving the dad stuff.

Amanda said it and I'm glad she did: She's not going to fight this in the dark. Thanks for being part of this.

Oh, and the blog colour? I changed it to teal. Apparently that's the "colour" for ovarian cancer. More on that another time, I guess!

She went in to have our baby and came out with a cancer diagnosis

It's been two weeks since my wife and I welcomed our son Gordon into the world. It's also been two weeks since we found out Amanda has cancer.

We went into the IWK on Tuesday, April 2nd for a Cesarean section prompted by an ultrasound earlier in the pregnancy that showed the placenta dangerously close to the cervix. Too close and she could bleed to death during delivery. An ultrasound closer to the due date showed the placenta in a slightly safer place, but now blood vessels were blocking the way out. An emergency C-section was in order.

So we went in, three weeks early. The delivery went smoothly. Our baby Gordon was frank breech, pulled out buttocks-first. I went over and cut the cord. I brought our first child back to Amanda to let her see. It was better than I'd expected!

Then the surgeon started talking about finding bumps. Instead of stitching her up, the team was finding trouble inside her.

They had to page the oncologist. I went into shock, sweating and heaving on the operating room floor. Nurses wheeled me out, crying, as doctors talked about knocking my distressed wife out and removing organs.

An oncologist arrived from the nearby VG hospital. She found Amanda's omentum caked with cancerous tumours. Amanda begged them not to put her under as they removed most of that organ and explored for more malignancies. She wanted them to take out what they had to take out, but she wanted to be with our son in his first minutes of life.

Our boy was perfect. The moment was not. As nurses watched over her recovery in the hours that followed, we did our best to sit calmly with the mysterious discovery.

Bonding with the baby was interrupted by visits to mammography and CT scans. The tests found nothing, which was not good news. The doctors needed to know where all this cancer began. Otherwise they had no way to treat it.

The nurses and other staff at Halifax's IWK Health Centre were gracious and helpful and accommodating beyond belief. They were wonderful throughout our stay.

A phone call days after our arrival home told us the rush-ordered pathology revealed an "ovarian type" cancer at stage III-C on a scale to four. Amanda was unable to talk, wailing and dry-heaving on the floor as I finished the call with the doctor.

Today we went to the Nova Scotia Cancer Centre to find out what's ahead. The current plan is to drop an atom bomb on this invader with three courses of chemotherapy over nine weeks. Then surgeons will perform a complete hysterectomy. After that, another three courses of chemo.

A week ago, we were expecting a new baby. Now we await months of sickness and hair loss, followed by a vibrant 34-year-old woman being sent into surgically-induced menopause. Then more sickness.

They tell us that even if this treatment knocks the cancer out, it could return one day, and if so, we would only find out when new tumours are large enough to make themselves discovered.

This cancer was really only found because Gordon was delivered three weeks early. That happened because doctors found the blood vessels in the way. The final ultrasound would not have happened if the previous one hadn't shown the placenta in a dangerous spot. And none of it would've happened if we hadn't tried for a family.

It looks like Gordon will be an only child, and his parents are already off to a difficult start. But without him, Amanda's cancer would have gone undetected for much longer.

I want to thank so many people, but I won't even try to list them all here in case I forget anyone. We've had nothing but positive vibes from all of our friends, family and colleagues. Thank you.

I look forward to getting back to work and continuing to grow Maritime Morning Weekend Edition alongside the new producer. News95.7 continues to grow and just won another pile of industry awards.

Most of all, I look forward to making the most of my time with Amanda and little Gordon. Being a dad is more fun than I even expected. I expected it to be terrifying, but not for the reason it is now.


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Postscript, Tuesday night:

Thanks to everyone who saw this via Twitter or Facebook or Google+ and came to read. Thanks also to the dozens of people I've connected with through the years through social media -- and so many who I've never exchanged a word with -- who've offered their kind thoughts and even offered help. Thank you!

I know how helpful it can be to find other people who are going through the same thing as you. I know search engines can help find those people.

So, just for the record and so Googles and Bings can help people find this story and any chapters hereafter, I'll make official note that we're talking about a Grade 1-2 serous cancer, ovarian type, Mullerian origin, stage 3C. Planned treatment is three courses of IV Carboplatin and Taxal, then total hysterectomy and oophorectomy, then three more round of chemo, perhaps intraperitoneal.

As Amanda said, we're not going to fight this in the dark. Thanks for lending your lights. She's now interested in starting a blog, and I'll see what I can do to get that happening.

Little Ass Superstar rocks out and learns the Force

Ontario-bound friend +Jenn Howell gave us this "LITTLE ASS SUPERSTAR" onesie at Amanda's baby shower, and my goal on Friday was to do a little photo shoot of him wearing it.

I don't have the baby-soothing finesse or technical prowess of a pro like talented and fabulous Halifax shooter Shannon Bower but I did get about two shots out of one hundred that were decent before giving up due to crying and peeing. Baby Gordon also put up a fuss.