Met with my gynecological oncologist today (my surgeon). She wanted to see me one more time before we started up the chemotherapy to make sure that everything is healing as it should be and there are no complications that I am experiencing. She was very interested to take a look at my incision site. When I lifted up my shirt to show her, she was surprised to see that I still had some steri-strips on the incision. She said, "Oh, you don't need those on anymore" and proceeded to rip them all off of me! It looks weird now having this long red scar down my whole abdomen. She was really impressed with how the incision site looked and also kept commenting on how flat my belly looked. She was pleased that there were no signs of fluid collecting there in my abdomen, especially considering how much discharge was coming out of my JP drain. She also did an internal exam and there are still a few stitches inside of me that aren't completely dissolved.
She gave the okay for my chemotherapy to start up again and she also gave me the okay to start lifting things over 10 pounds. She just cautioned me to take it easy and don't go immediately from lifting only 10 pounds to lifting 50 pounds. She said if it hurts to lift something, to back off and take it a little easier. (It is really nice to be able to lift my baby again!)
I asked her about my arm and if there was anything that happened during the surgery that may be causing the pain that I am experiencing. She didn't think that it was related to the surgery since it took so many weeks afterwards for it to exhibit itself. She thinks it is more likely just a strain from compensating for my healing stomach muscles. She said to try and avoid doing too much with that arm and just try resting it as much as possible (which is easier said than done when you are right handed and have 6 young kids to take care of).
The doctor was a little surprised that my CA-125 number wasn't lower but then she told me to not stress out over it too much because the surgery on my liver may be playing a part in the higher reading. She said that she had a patient sent to her because her CA-125 number was so high (over 4000), but she had no cancer anywhere in her body. She was in complete liver failure which was causing the number to be so high. The hope is that my CA-125 number will drop back down to the normal range after my liver is healed completely and I go through the rest of my chemotherpy sessions.
The doctor wants to see me again in about 3 months after my chemotherapy is all done and then she will see me about every 3 months for the next year just to check up on things and in case we need to do anything to manage my menopause symptoms.
