How to deal with pregnancy and cancer at the same time? My personal story

Member

By shadowcatto
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(12 Ratings)

How my daughter and I beat cancer.

I've been pretty unfortunate when it comes to health. It seems as though every year, there is some new health crisis that I have to deal with. I have been on disability since I was 19 years old. I am now 29 and diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, Diabetes, and
Depression just to name a few. As you can imagine, becoming pregnant was not a complication that I needed.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Open heart
Strong will
Faith in yourself.

Step 1

About a month before I became pregnant, I was going through an MS relapse that was causing me to be numb from the waist down. My doctor sent me to have x-ray's of my back to rule out other issues that could be causing my problem. I received a phone call a few days later to let me know that there was nothing wrong with my back, but a mass was discovered on my right kidney. I was told that it was probably just a cyst and I was sent for further tests. Weeks later, after having gone through several blood tests, two cat scans and an ultrasound; I was told that the mass was solid and most likely a tumor. The doctor's tried to reassure me by telling me that it was probably nothing, that renal cancer was virtually unheard of in women my age. I was terrified nonetheless.
Step 2

Two days later, I realized that my period was late. I became sick at the thought of being pregnant and having cancer on top everything else I was going through, so I decided to take a pregnancy test. The test came back positive immediately and my heart just sank. I just didn't know what to do. I had just found out that I may have cancer and now a baby? Would I even be able to survive the pregnancy? Would the baby? I had all of these questions and concerns swirling around in my brain, driving me crazy.
Step 3

I contacted all of the important people in my life with the news and the response I received wasn't very good. Everyone was telling me that I had to abort, that it was the right thing to do because I was so sick. They're thinking was that it was impossible for this pregnancy to end well, that either the baby or myself would die in the process or even if we didn't, I could die of cancer later on leaving the child without a mother. Though they all had valid points, I couldn't consider abortion. It just wasn't a choice that I could make.
Step 4

I continued on with the pregnancy even though it seemed like everyone I loved was against it. I began seeing an Obstetrician that specialized in high risk pregnancies, and was referred to many specialists including a urologist to deal with the possible cancer. I was told that if it
was indeed cancer, the pregnancy hormones could make it grow uncontrollably. They couldn't biopsy the tumor because it posed too much risk to the baby, so they asked me to have yet another cat scan in 3 months to see if the tumor had grown. The results were not good, the tumor had grown about a third of an inch and it was in the core of my kidney, making it impossible to just remove the tumor. My kidney had to come out.
Step 5

When I was four months pregnant I had surgery to remove my kidney. I was so scared that the baby and I were going to die, that I had gone through all of this just to lose the baby that I loved so much and possibly lose myself in the process. Several hours later, I awoke in agonizing pain to find out that we had both made it through without complication. I was so relieved upon hearing this that the pain didn't even matter. Tissue samples of my tumor were immediately sent away for testing. I was notified a few weeks later that it was Renal Cell Carcinoma and that it had been caught in time with no sign that it had spread elsewhere. I felt as though I had dodged a bullet and I was so thankful that these doctor's were able to save my baby and myself.
Step 6

The rest of my pregnancy went on without complication, though I was still categorized as high risk. I had to have weekly sonograms performed to make sure everything was alright because of all of the drugs, tests and procedures that I had gone through. I didn't mind though because I loved seeing my baby on that screen. In one of the last sonograms I had, they discovered that the baby was starting to get too big so they decided to induce labor early. My original due date was Christmas Day, so I was a little disappointed that I couldn't give birth to my miracle baby on the perfectly miraculous day that she was due. After 12 hours of labor with no pain meds, I was told that I was not dilating enough and that they would have to perform a c-section. On December 17th, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and she was perfect in every way.
Step 7

Happy.

Today, well over a year after surgery I am still cancer free and my beautiful 10 1/2 month old daughter is thriving. I couldn't have gotten through this without her. Together, we beat cancer and we are truly blessed.

Comments

paulusgrandis said

Flag This Comment

on 11/22/2009 WOW!! Thanks for sharing such a wonderful story!! 5* and rec'd!!

zoegus said

on 11/20/2009 What a great story, I am so happy for you and your little girl. You have been blessed. 5*

walker7 said

on 11/19/2009 Great story...thank you for sharing!

goldiec said

on 11/16/2009 Thanks for the great article on How to deal with pregnancy and cancer at the same time! 5* God Bless you and I hope you have family close to help you in your daily life.