I guess I should start off by introducing myself and explaining my story. My name is Amber, I am currently 31 years old, married to a wonderful man, and have a four legged fur child that is the center of my world. Before our life came to a screeching halt, we were moving along in life as we thought we should be; buy a house, get engaged, get a dog, get married, plan a family etc. And then...

Back in March 2013 I had started to have some strange pains in my abdomen, so I made an appointment to go see my doctor and given my history of cysts she sent me for an ultrasound. I'm one of those people that always reads into things too much, so I was trying to ask the ultrasound tech questions, read her facial expressions, basically try to get them to tell me what she was seeing but they're so good at keeping it all in! My doctor had previously unofficially diagnosed me with IBS (there isn't really a good test for that either) and so in talking with my family and friends I thought it was probably related to that and I should have nothing to worry about. Then I got the call that I needed to go in and see my doctor about the results - they had found a very large cyst - measuring over 10cmx10cm - on my left ovary. She was referring me to a gynecologist to talk about surgery. As luck would have it the gynecologist she referred me to was a family friend, who was very nice and always completely honest with me from the start. He said the cyst was very large but the issue was that it was intertwined with my bladder and other "objects" in there, so because of the complications he wanted me to see a gynecologic oncologist who would be able to remove it safely. Fast forward to after my first surgery - we got the pathology results back and it was not good - the large mass was a borderline tumor and there was a smaller mass which was classified as a serous carcinoma. I had stage III ovarian cancer. My oncologist was floored - he said I was too young to have suspected this, and to make things more interesting my cancer is VERY receptive to hormones - I scored a 7/8 for progesterone receptors and 8/8 for estrogen receptors. He said that is extremely rare for my type of OC. Yay me. They also found invasive implants in my omentum and one of my lymph nodes, plus the uterus and the other ovary. The second surgery to remove the remaining cancer was scheduled for July 10 and in the meantime I tried to handle things emotionally. The second surgery also went well, thanks to my amazing oncologist and after a few weeks of recovery from yet another major abdominal surgery we went in to discuss the next steps. I am currently going through chemotherapy, "they" want me to do 6 rounds total, one every three weeks and I am already halfway done!

So since September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, I have some stats for you: