Some of you already know that Norene was scheduled for surgery for a complete hysterectomy on Friday, March 29th and they suspected it could be ovarian cancer.
We received bad news and good news.
When the surgeon went in, she discovered that it is a pervasive form of cancer. They removed a liter of fluid, but didn't remove anything else but a small biopsy since the tumor is infiltrating everything. This was sent to the pathologist immediately. The cancer is Stage 3. She has probably had this for 6 months to a year.
The good news is that the cancer is gynecological in nature and it is chemo sensitive, which means that they will start chemotherapy asap, and if, as expected, the cancer shrinks (chemo can normalize the surfaces of organs and allow removal of the disease) -- they will do a follow-up surgery to remove the cancer.
Plans are now to have her recover from this surgery and in 3 or 4 weeks, they will begin chemotherapy. The treatments will occur every 3 weeks for a total of 6 times. After that, they will do the surgery again.
This is one of those "weird" cancers that the doctor sees only a couple of times a year. The doctor stated there is an 80% chance of responding to treatment. She also said that she had an 81 year old patient with the same type of cancer. After chemo they were able to remove the cancer, and she is still cancer-free several years later.
At the present time, her first concern is when she can drive!
If you would like Norene's address, please contact either Sue Delago or me.
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