Marilyn Claire Murphy

It’s been a little more than 100 days since my surgery. Wow! Some random musings:

I am an optimist, but even I would not have predicted how good I would be feeling at this point. Eight of 18 weeks of chemotherapy completed, and I feel great. No issues. No nausea, neuropathy, pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, sleep issues or any of the long list of potential effects of chemo.

I am grateful – so very grateful. For all the support, prayers and love that I’ve received from family, friends, colleagues, employees – I thank you.

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Going through old emails, I happened upon an audio file that my husband sent to me in an email. It was the recording he made of the conversation with my surgeon, just after the surgery. Although he’d briefed me on what she had reported that day, I’d never heard the actual recording before.

Going through old emails last week, I happened upon an audio file that my husband had recorded of his conversation with my surgeon, just after the surgery. Although he’d told me what she said about the surgery, I’d never heard the actual recording before.

It was a bit surreal to hear her speak about me in the third person:

“They said it could be cancer. But to me, visually, it didn’t look like cancer. More like a borderline tumor.”

“It was an easy surgery.”

“If anything, it’s very early. It was just in the two ovaries, I didn’t see it anywhere else. To me, this is very strange for an ovarian cancer.”

“It wasn’t stuck to anything. It was just floating free. The tumor had replaced the ovary and they were just bobbing around in there.”

My friend, Kathleen, asked if she could tell how the tumor had been growing. Dr. Axtell answered, “It’s hard to tell. If it’s a cancer, maybe a couple of months. If it’s a borderline tumor, it could have been there for years.”

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This past week, my white blood cell count was too low for me to get my chemo treatment. This happened once before, in September, and I knew my levels had been dropping again. So it wasn’t totally unexpected. They suggested that it’ll take four weeks to get three treatments. This will extend the duration of my treatments, but it’s okay. As long as I feel as good as I do, I surrender!

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