Mika

Hello Mika, I have been off the site for awhile. My recovery has been more rugged than I thought, and things are a little better now, although we are in the process of retiring from our main farm business. My physical and mental energy can not keep up and my husband is tired from doing the work of 2 people.

I dont' have any answers to your recent questions, but I hope the transition to your new drugs is ok for you. I'm thinking of you.

How are you ? You finished treatment in 2014? I'm now on thyroid med, misprint last post. I have had trouble with muscles, walking, fatigue and seem to have Irritable Bowel Syndrome now. But I am relearning how to stop working on the farm and periodically rest. That helps my anxiety too. I took a Reiki class, am new at it, but I do it to myself and listen to meditation music. And increased my dose of sertraline, so that all helps my anxiety, which you mentioned. When did you find out you had stage 3 UPSC? I was kind of confused about that. Did they give you the option of radiation following chemo? How are your follow up appts going? How often are they? I am about to have my 2nd, which will include a CT scan. Hope you are well

Banana has a Lot of potassium. So do avocado and dark greens & (not canned) beans. If you eat a banana or so a day it is less likely you will need potassium shots. Best to you.

Mika, in addition to answering your question I just wanted to add, that yes, it sucks to have your doctor leaving, but a good doctor will hopefully refer you to another good doctor. Makes sense. Take care.

Hi, I have Uterine Papillary Serous Carcinoma, stage 3C1 high grade. surgery July 2015, in 4th cycle of carboplatin/taxol. I will begin external pelvic radiation this winter (2 more cycles of chemo). Are we similar? cancer spread to ovary, fallopian tube, uterus, cervix, sentinel lymph node, and it is more similar to ovarian cancer than endometr. cancer. are we similar? I keep forgetting to ask about sandwich therapy, it was not offered to me. I believe I'm getting the max treatment as ovarian would....What are your experiences?

Hi Mika,

Saw your message and wanted to try to answer. However, the terminology and the statistics aren't really precise enough to know an answer for sure.

As you probably know already, the remission rate varies by lots of factors. The remission/"cure" rate for 3 years post-diagnosis is higher than the rate at 5 years, and so on. Nobody can really tell you which category you fit into.

I asked my surgeon outright what the 5-year rate was for me specifically, and she said it was probably in the low 70% range. That sounds good to me unless I land in the other 30% group!
Since it has already been 3 1/2 years since my diagnosis, things are looking pretty good for me.

There is a "nomogram," which will give you a prediction based on a few answers you can input about yourself. It's on the MSK website. However, I do want to warn you that the numbers that come back from it are much lower because they're based on history rather than being very current. If you think about it, you would have to use history to figure anything about 5 or more years anyway.

The nomogram asks for your FIGO staging. The FIGO staging label isn't very accurate. For instance, my surgical report puts me at stage IIIC, but the actual details from my pathology report are more optimistic than that. In the future FIGO may have to add some more categories to be accurate for some of us.

I've had followup scans, exams, blood work--all done quarterly since active treatment ended. This year was the first time we've stretched it out to 6 months instead of 3 months between followups. The reason we stayed with 3 month checkups so long is that I've had lots of strange results on scans, which fortunately turned out not to be cancer. We're getting used to the idea that my "innards" are abnormal and seem to change sometimes. Hard to describe but true.

According to an article in the NYT newspaper health column, now that so many people are having scans, doctors are finding that not many people actually have "normal innards." This presents a problem because doctors don't really know whether these abnormalities require treatment. Since we've been treated for cancer, I think the prudent path is to check out any abnormality to be sure it's not cancer, or if it is, to catch it as early as possible.

All that said, I hope your next checkups are perfect and that you live for a very long time. My next checkups are next week. Cross your fingers for me!

Hi Mika,
I am sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis. I also had the same drugs back in 2012. My side effects were not extreme at all.
Mostly fatigue, lack of appetite and sadly, the loss of all of my hair.
Eat well and stay hydrated.
I trust you will be in remission soon. Big Hugs and bet of luck on
your journey

I am loyal, responsible, active, responsible, loving, caring, sharing, kindhearted,warm, accommodating,compassionate,tolerant,laid back type,outgoing,welcoming to people generally,I like to sing,write poems,listening to music,swimming,playing Basketball,watching TV,Movies going to GYM and comedies,I love public intimacy and want a good woman with a good heart,one with good knowledge about love and who knows how a man is been treated,age or colour difference do not matter to me at all,as long as she loves me,I want a relationship that will last forever and won't fade no matter what

Hi mika, It sounds like you have an objection to chemo, who doesn't? So far, it's saved my life. I had an allergic reaction to the chemo, so really frightened after that. But, they took care of me. I hope you find an acceptable treatment and it works for you. I don't know if this is your first bout with cancer or recurrance, but it's more difficult to treat recurrance, so best to treat aggressively first time around.

Hello and welcome, we are happy to have you with us. Please feel free to join in the conversations. Here is a link to our cancer dx page for your type of cancer. Take a look at it to get you started on some information. You will notice at the bottom of that page 4 of our active users who have had that journey already, you may wish to contact them for their experience and wisdom. Also, I encourage you to go to the questions page now by clicking on the questions tab at the top of the page and post what is the most pressing issue you have right now. This will introduce you to the community and get you started on the help you need right now.

https://www.whatnext.com/conditions/cancer/endometrial-uterine-cancer

There are also subtypes listed on this page to narrow down the type of cancer to match your dx. Also, if you can take a few minutes and fill in some details of your journey so far, it will help others as they try to answer questions for you, it also helps others as they search through the data base to find someone like themselves. Confirming your email will allow you to receive updates and notices from the site when someone answers your questions or writes on your wall. Thanks for being with us and let me know if I can help you find any information on the site. After you have an opportunity to look the site over and see what great things there are here, we encourage you to invite your friends, family or anyone you know that may be helped by the connections on WhatNext to join the site also.

Just click this link to invite them to join.
http://www.whatnext.com/recruit-a-friend

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Hi Mika. Welcome to What Next. As you've seen, there are lots of great people here. I'm glad you found us but sorry for the circumstances that led you here. Good luck w/chemo. I was scared, too, but it really wasn't as bad as I thought.

Welcome to the WhatNext family! The WhatNext family is made up of people like you who are looking for help or looking to help others. To help you along your journey the WhatNext family has put together a Beginner's Guide to Cancer that I highly recommend you check-out here: http://bit.ly/10BQKCi. Also, please do not hesitate to reach out to others or ask for help.

Wishing you the best.

David
Founder, WhatNexter