Step-on-me vs. Ovarian Cancer

Have you pooped today?  Do you poop regularly?  The last time you went did you take a second to appreciate that you can poop?  I suggest the next time you are so lucky to take your browns to the super-bowl, take a moment to be thankful that you are able to do so in a healthy and regular way.   Narcotics, chemotherapy, surgeries, urine leaking in your abdomen, anxiety are all contributing factors to an unhealthy bowel.  Stephanie has been struggling in this area for the last several weeks.  This week has been particularly HARD (pun) for her.  She has reached what I describe as an obsession with poop and has spent an abnormal amount of time in our small bathroom at the house this week. Before cancer, Stephanie was extremely averse to discussing her experience with going #2.  So averse in fact, that I made it a regular habit of discussing the act with her just to see her reactions.  She is now so comfortable with discussing poop that she joked that she was going to take a picture of h

The Nightmare The fact that Stephanie has cancer and significant complications from surgery has yet to sink in.  The weekend before she learned about the mass, Stephanie and I celebrated the wedding of two close friends.  We were dancing, drinking, catching up with friends from all over, and generally doing what you do when you celebrate a couple getting hitched.  Everything was normal! Stephanie was nurturing her blossoming career in Real Estate and I was completely focused on growing the Engineering Search business at our firm.  We were focused.  We had plans to acquire real estate, travel, renovate, and start a family.  On that one Tuesday, many things changed.  Our focus shifted from work, success, and family creation to family preservation.   When I see friends or family they ask me how I am doing and I am not sure what to say because I feel as if I am in a state of purgatory.  I live every day with the awareness of what is going on with the love of my life but I don't t

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind.  I still have moments about 5 times a day where I question whether or not I am having a nightmare or imagining these last few weeks of occurrences with Stephanie.  My poor wife has been through so much.  We have been through so much. One incredible gift we have been given is the gift of my Mother, Karen Virgin.  The same woman who fought and sacrificed for my brother and I to have a normal life.  Stephanie and I are fortunate enough to live with her now because, imagine this, Stephaine the real estate mogul sold her house before she had a house to live in.  Not long after my mother moved in it became clear that she was a tremendous roommate!  I guess I took this for granted in my teen years when I could think of nothing else but the day I would move out on my own.  In my adult life, however, my mother is an A+ roomie.   It does not suffice to describe my mom as just a roommate.  On a daily basis she makes it clear to Stephanie, my brother Kevin

Stephanie is out of the first procedure now and she is recovering from anesthesia currently.  Once she recovers, we will go downstairs to the Interventional Radiology department where they will use CT to place the second nephrostomy tube.  The first procedure was to ensure an effective second procedure and to investigate what is going on.  (Warning: graphic update) Unfortunately, they found a hole in her lady parts from the original procedure and hysterectomy.  This is causing some of the leaking urine in her abdomen to discharge from places it should not be exiting. This is not the outcome we were hoping for because it will require more discomfort and maintenance for her at home. Stay tuned...

Today begins much like any other day in the Virgin household.  Steph wakes up to drain her tubes, my mother goes through her routine of showering, working out, and getting prepared for the day.  However, today is different.  Today Stephanie demonstrates her complete commitment to her Halloween costume - a spider. At the end of the day today Stephanie will have a total of 4 limbs and 4 tubes.  In another attempt to get her plumbing issues under control, urology team will attempt to relieve her bladder of urine completely by placing a nephrostomy tube in her left kidney.  (She already has a nephrostomy tube in her right kidney.) With all of these tubes she hopes her spider costume will be an award winning spectacle on Friday when she goes to the Brown Cancer Center on Friday in her costume for chemotherapy.   Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers as she has yet another tube placed today.  This is incredibly stressful for her and it is hard to see beyond the tubes t

I started my first day of "Chemo Lite" yesterday and Greg wrote a detailed post about everything that entails.  These temperary rounds of chemo are supposed to just go ahead and get some drugs in my body until we are able to transition to the very aggressive form of chemo that is supposed to have the "best outcome" for treating ovarian cancer.  Statistically, ovarian cancer does not have good survival rates - 7 out of 10 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer die within 5 years of diagnosis.  As much as the aggressive form of chemo sounds terrible, I know it is what we need to do as quickly and as many times as possible. "Chemo Lite" is lower doses of two drugs given more frequently than usually prescribed.  Because the doses are lower you can end up with fewer side effects after each treatment. Also, because they are able to give the doses weekly as opposed to every three weeks, I end up getting more of the drug overall.  The most common side effects are

Over the last couple of years I have diligently chronicled the adventures of Stephanie's North Face jacket.  This started as a joke between her and I about her cold nature and how impossible it often was to get her out of her favorite jacket at 75 degrees or below.  We persisted with this game on Facebook and people thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of her and her jacket.  For me it was a strange way of showing how much I love her little intricacies. Today is the day we knew was coming but never wanted to arrive and it represents yet another adventure for the North Face and Steph.  Today Stephanie receives her first chemo infusion.  I have mixed emotions about this experience and I can't even begin to imagine how Stephanie feels. When we arrived at the infusion center time seemed to slow down to a crawl.  I became hyper observant of the people in the waiting and infusion areas.  There was an elderly woman with her loving husband walking across the room joking with one ano

I would much rather be writing about my interpretations of Ginuwine's song "In Those Jeans" but given our situation I think it may be more appropriate to discuss how Genes potentially impacted Stephanie's development of this disease. When we first learned she had a mass we were quite optimistic that her mass was benign.  We felt this way because ovarian cancer is a disease primarily afflicting women above the age of 40.  The median age of the largest research study done of women with ovarian cancer is 60 years old.  Given the fact Stephanie went into this surgery as a young healthy woman without symptoms, statistics seem to favor a benign diagnosis. When we learned her diagnosis we started searching for answers.  Why did this happen?  Too many Totino's pizzas, too much white queso, too much snuggling with Momo? Too much HGTV?  We quickly learned that there was a 15-20% chance that Genes / Genetics could be a root cause of this disease.  We were then referred

With all of the complications from surgery and extra procedures, we have not had much time to speak or even think about treating her overall disease.  This past week's doctor visits were the first steps toward aggressive treatment for the cancer.  Sometime this week she will begin the process of chemotherapy. Because of the plumbing issues caused by Stephanie's 'debulking' surgery, she will have to delay the most important treatments of intraperitoneal chemotherapy (IP chemo) until after they are fixed and healed.  For those that aren't familiar with IP Chemo or Chemo in general, I will provide a quick lesson.  (Both Stephanie and I knew almost nothing about this topic 4 weeks ago and we are still learning every day.) First, it helps to understand that there are two different methods of chemotherapy used to treat Steph's type of ovarian cancer (low-grade serous adenocarcinoma).   The first method is the more traditional where they give the chemo drug intra

As you may have read on Greg's previous post, we had an unexpected hospital admission to figure out why my tubes have been collecting more fluid as opposed to gradually declining.  The doctors planned to put me to sleep to get a detailed look at my "plumbing" and put things back together.  Prior to this, and most other procedures and surgeries, I am given medication the help me relax. I'm not sure what this medication was called that they gave to to relax, but holy cow it worked! Within 15 seconds of the IV medication I felt "Step-on-me Runny Dunn'ed" and "Insta-drunk" (both terms used to describe me when I've had one too many glasses of wine and get really giggly).  I insisted that my friend Kara put make-up on me before the procedure and the whole pre-op area was laughing at everything I was saying.  Greg was kind enough to get some of this moment on video. Here is the video: https://youtu.be/NxrWOqo4BaY

When we scheduled surgery on September 19th with the gyno-oncologist we were told to expect a 3-4 day stay in the hospital.  This turned into a 12 day stay due to constant nausea and vomiting and tubes.  Here’s a little more detail about that hospital stay and what we are expecting moving forward. During a major abdominal surgery like I had, it is not uncommon to develop what’s called a post-op ileus.  This is where you stomach and bowels can become temporarily paralyzed from the trauma of the surgery and being moved around (at least that is my non-medical explanation of what happens).  Typically, the "resolution" for a post op ileus is to try to walk as much as possible to tell your organs to wake up.  I've been told that it can take up to 7 days for an ileus to resolve on its own.  If you've ever had surgery before, you may know that walking is not the first thing you want to do.  But my sister Julie, my husband Greg, my cousin Sarah, and many friends and family a

Get comfortable because this is a monster update from a very busy few days... We had two doctor appointments yesterday with our new Oncologist and our new Urologist.  Things were going well until we started discussing some acute changes in the production of one of Stephanie's tubes – the pelvic drain to be exact.  About one week ago the drain was declining production, which is expected.  After that the drain began to steadily produce more and more each day.   Both of our new doctors instantly collaborated and decided that there could be another leak in her urinary plumbing causing more urine to enter the pelvic cavity and ultimately the drain.  The good news is that Stephanie is not sick and is feeling well or as well as you can feel with two drains attached to bags on her leg and a port in her shoulder.   We are now admitted at University Hospital.  The resident for the Urologist, Dr. Edwards, visited us and explained to us the plan for her stay. Early this morning (S

Today we had a full 8 hours of doctor appointments and a procedure.  We first learned about what her experience with Chemo could be and then she had a procedure to place a port that will allow for a longer term, more comfortable way to give medicine and take blood.  We have two more appointments tomorrow morning that should solidify what her next few weeks look like from a treatment standpoint.  She was tough today as she learned how challenging her chemo will be and had yet another artificial thing added to her body.   I expect to prepare a more thourough update on what we learned the last two days.  Stay tuned.

For those that were not aware of what has been going on with Stephanie over the last few weeks, I felt that it may be helpful to provide a synopsis of what has occurred.  On September 16, at a routine visit to Stephanie's primary care physician, a large mass was found in her abdomen.   She had an ultrasound and a CT scan the next day.  Before the end of the day we learned her mass was remarkably large and indicative of ovarian cancer.   On Friday September 19 we met with a Gynecologic Oncologist who specializes in the surgical removal of masses from the female reproductive system.   We scheduled an exploratory surgery for the following Monday, September 22.  The surgery took place and the result was the discovery of Low Grade Serous Adenocarcinoma, a form of ovarian cancer, which had reached stage 3A.  Upon discovering the disease the surgeon performed what is called a debulking procedure which removes as much of the disease that can be seen and safely removed.  The surgeon

Stephanie and I created this blog as a way to keep our friends and family updated on her fight with cancer.  The outpouring of love shown by our family and friends has been awesome and we appreciate your support moving forward.  All of this is very new to us and I know we will need your continued love, energy, and prayers. Together we will help my beautiful wife get through this time. Stephanie and her best buddy (our nephew) Jackson Steph being sassy at MAM! Fest (one of my favorites)