How This 24-Year-Old Finally Discovered She Had Ovarian Cancer | ELLE Out Loud

how long has this been going on for but I've had a feeling something was wrong what is growing inside of me where is it growing you hear cancer you think you're gonna die [Music] you are you know gonna get through this and you just have to fight as far as I could remember back from high school I would always get this like stabbing pain in my lower right side but I never really thought anything of it and then more recently when I was in college it would get a little bit worse I can't even explain it was just like a sharp jabbing pain and right in my lower right side in August of 2017 that was when we were walking on the boardwalk and it was really bad they buckled over we had to stop walking and my boyfriend Joe was just you had he told me you have to go see a doctor a month later I had my annual visit with my gynecologist and I told her I was like listen this might be nothing but I'm getting this weird stabbing pain in my lower right side I just lost 15 pounds but my stomach is still sticking out and she was like well it's probably unrelated you know you should just try not to eat so many carbs make sure you're eating lean protein I was full all the time so think about that feeling of when you've had like a gigantic meal and you can't even move but I hadn't even had anything to eat yet and I just felt like lethargic and just I just didn't feel right and I knew I didn't feel right and I was looking for someone to believe me but I didn't feel right I eventually went to an urgent care where this doctor palpitated my stomach so just push down on my stomach and I almost jumped off the table when he pushed on my lower right side and he was like listen there is something in there I don't know what it is you're not people to tell without a scan the ultrasound tech was over my stomach and then she went in and then she went over and ang did that like four or five times each way and it just seemed like she wasn't seeing something she was looking for or she was seeing something scary but the ER doctor came back out and said oh this is a normal cyst women get these all the time usually these just rupture some women don't even feel them at all but it can be quite painful it'll rupture your body will absorb it and it'll just correct itself I felt like an idiot I was like wow I've been in the ER all day you are the second doctor I've seen today cancer was never something that was on my mind the next day I was laying in bed and I got a phone call from just like an unknown number and I answered and it was the ER doctor himself and he called me he was like hey Amanda I just want to check in on you and he goes yeah I just wanted to let you know I had actually I think that I had misread your scan it wasn't a three centimeter cyst it was actually a 13 centimeter cyst and anything this large is quite alarming and could be concerning for cancer I called my gynecologist I had an appointment for a couple days later I was like they told me it's cancer at the ER one of the staff members at the gynecologists office was like you know what the ER doctors they they're known to scare you they they panic you know they just want to cover their own asses they come in we'll do our own skin we'll take a look for you she read my scan and she was like there's definitely something in here it looks like it's bigger than 10 centimeters it's probably something called a dermoid cyst it's benign it's something like a tumor but it's not necessarily serious it's pretty common chances are we're just gonna need to remove it will remove your ovary it's just it's normally we will just remove it it's gonna be fine this isn't the end of the world the chance of it being cancer is less than 1% I eventually saw my primary gynecologist the following day and she told me the same thing she was like this is probably a dermoid cyst we'll just remove your ovary and we'll remove the tumor or the cyst the dermoid cyst that they said and it'll be fine I didn't want to wait to have my surgery I couldn't leave my health in other people's hands anymore so she got on her phone and found me one of her colleagues who was willing to do it the following Monday she just had to do a couple blood tests too as she said sure we'd do it by the books so I get there I check in for my surgery go to a hospital it's like a whole thing I get my wristband I go down to the operating floor and then this nurse comes up to me and he's like don't change just sit on the bed then another nurse comes to me he's like your doctors on the phone for you like what I don't remember anything about that phone call besides him telling me he got the results from my blood test and I need to see an oncologist and he told me all of these numbers were elevated his voice sounded so serious and I just was like hysterically crying because like I'm just like what are you talking about he just went to get some cancer an oncologist and you're gonna be fine I'm like you guys keep telling me I'm gonna be fine and then you keep finding something else wrong that sounds like it's not fine my best friend's mom made a phone call and she got me an appointment at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center I remember walking into the it was the sixth floor the women's it was like the women's cancer floor or something and I remember checking in and I remember they were so nice there but I also remember looking around and being like I am the youngest person here by a long shot like people when I was checking in I'm pretty sure the woman thought that I was checking my mom in but doctor then came in she said she had gotten to take a look at my medical records all my scans that had been taken and within a couple seconds she told me that I had a germ cell tumor it was malignant which means it was cancerous and she would need to operate to remove it and so I was just kind of looking at her and I was like are you sure this is cancerous she was like she goes yes but this is a curable cancer this is a cancer that we can get rid of she also told me that the hospital was that like a hundred and five percent capacity so I was probably gonna sleep in a hallway that night but I needed to go directly to the hospital to prep for surgery I was officially diagnosed with cancer on November 1st 2017 November 2nd 2017 they did my surgery in the early afternoon and then I made an appointment with a new oncologist a week later she went through the pathology with me I was stage 1a which is the earliest stage grade 3 which is the highest grade which means it'll spread really fast she told me what my 5-year prognosis would be if I chose to not do chemotherapy and I was like well am I gonna lose my hair and she said yes you will lose your hair but it will grow back and I say I can't lose my hair the other half of it was okay you're gonna be injecting me with intravenous chemo you're telling me it's one of the highest doses of chemo that you prescribe what's that poison gonna do to my left over ovary you know I you're telling me that my other ovary will kick in action but will it be able to make eggs will I be able to have kids one day I don't want to lose it opportunities so I wanted to freeze my eggs I had done all my research and I read that that was probably my best option I honestly didn't think I was going to do it even sitting in that appointment at that fertility specialist I was like mmm I don't know I feel like this isn't good this feels too surreal I'm not gonna be able to inject myself beautiful [Music] that's the last shot I have to get myself ever hopefully yeah after I harvested my eggs that was like all right take a breather now I have to start chemo on day three of chemo I remember I was working kind of late I had gotten home my boss sent me a link to a video that he wanted me to upload to YouTube and I was a little bit annoyed but I was like of course I wanted to do it I didn't want to fall behind at work that was one of the most important things to me and so I clicked on the link and on there was a video of Kim Kardashian it was one of my favorite people hey Amanda I just wanted to reach out to you and just give you all my well wishes I know this journey that you are going through right now is really tough you are you know gonna get through this and you just have to fight and just have a really you know positive attitude as much as you can so just know that we are all my whole family we support you and I'm really glad I had that because that was when I started getting really really sick it wasn't until the end of my first cycle so the third week that my hair started falling out I was shocked at how much hair was coming up I always had thin hair and I was shocked at how much hair was coming out it was everywhere just keep it up [Music] okay this is kind of part of it every Christmas I go down the shore to my boyfriends family's beach house it's like a weird thing we love to do in the winters and when I went down there I didn't think I was going to shave my head but I knew that my hair was falling out [Music] it was really really hard but after I did it after all the hair was gone I put my beanie on I feel better like I felt like the hardest part of this is over my very last dose of chemo was on January 30th 2018 I still live everyday with kind of just reminders everywhere that the chemo happened and that the cancer happened have the scar running down my stomach I have just bruising on my arms from where all the IVs went I had a little bit of neuropathy which is just nerve pain that happen I mean the chemo like I said the chemo is there to kind of like kill stuff and and there's some damage along the way so I had to I had to heal now so the chemo was healing me from cancer I felt like I had to now heal from the chemo cancer is depressing and you face depression you deal with depression it's not easy it's also not talked about I don't think enough but you have to cope with it and you have to accept it and you have to also kind of embrace it in a weird way I wanted to get back to life as normal but also there's no normal there's life before cancer there's life after cancer and it's they call it a new normal which is one of those annoying cliches but I am figuring out my new normal and I am building back my strength and eventually there's gonna be a point where the cancer is just gonna be a thing that happened to me it's not gonna be a thing that affects my everyday life it's really important to listen to your own body nobody knows your body like you know your body and if something feels wrong say something and the worst thing you can do is get a test and the results come back confirming that you're fine and I wish that my doctors listened to me sooner but I also wish that I was a little bit more aggressive nothing nothing is more valuable than your health [Music]

Channel: ELLE

Views: 926,500

Rating: 4.9220667 out of 5

Keywords: elle, elle magazine, elle video, elle magazine videos, cancer, ovarian cancer, freezing eggs, in vitro, cancer diagnosis, misdiagnosis, Sloan Kettering, ELLE, women with cancer, beating cancer, chemotherapy

Id: L_GYn7a8oBE

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019