Two days ago I saw Dr. R, the oncologist who’s monitoring my progress after having surgery for ovarian cancer a year and a half ago. I am one of the lucky few who were diagnosed so early that I didn’t need chemo or radiation therapy. Mine was called Stage 1A cancer. That said, I still have to go for testing every three months to make sure nothing changes.
Ovarian cancer is scary, because it has no symptoms. By the time it is discovered it has more often than not run rampant in a woman’s body. This makes me doubly lucky, since mine was discovered at such an early stage. And if the next battery of tests is good, then I get to move to six month visits with my oncologist.
According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for Stage 1A cancer is approximately 94 percent. Even so, it’s weird to have one’s future doled out in various increments, and my visits with Dr. R always remind me of the tenuous nature of life.
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