January 12 - October 13, 2009

Jenny's last chemo treatment was January 12, 2009. What a relief it was to have that come to an end -and a successful end at that. Her CA125 (the blood test that is a marker for her particular cancer activity) was low, and very normal. This continued on for months. In fact, she was starting to feel pretty well, when.....

On June 15, she became very ill. The next day we went to emergency (deja vu), and the long and short of it was that they ran some tests and found that she had a bowel obstruction, which turned out to be caused by a hernia.
She was in hospital for a week, had the hernia operated on and now has a big piece of mesh as part of her abdomen.

As you probably know, Jenny and I were married on October 11, in the beautiful gardens of our friends Marg and Sandy (our bridge partners). My sister Jacquelyn came from Ontario, and it was a lovely family event.

Two days later, as Jenny and I were headed to Kingfisher Inn near Courtney for three days of relaxation, we went to see Dr. McMurtrie for Jenny's scheduled checkup. We were astounded to learn that her CA125 had gone up to 416 (normal is under 25). We were shocked and upset. But - Jenny had no symptoms, and Dr. McMurtrie's exam was normal.  Therefore, nothing would be done. She explained that you only move to chemo when you get symptoms, or if the doctor has found something.

On October 22, we went to see the naturopath who specializes in cancer, the same one she saw before. Her put her on quite a sophisticated protocol that we had known about but had not opted for.

By November 2, her CA125 was down to 301 (Dr. McMurtrie had said it never goes down without intervention). November 26, it was at 389.

She saw Dr. McMurtrie on December 1, and she was very pleased with these CA125 results. Her exam was fine, and Jenny had no symptoms.

Within 5 days of that though, symptoms did re-appear, and through this past week they escalated quickly. On Friday morning (December 11) we called the cancer clinic to ask that this message be given to Dr. McMurturie. The next thing we know they were calling to tell her to get down there.

The doctor could now tell there was fluid in her abdomen, which was not detectable 10 days earlier. She had terrible bloating, gas, and discomfort. She set up an appointment for Monday the 14th for Jenny to have an ultrasound and to have the fluid drained.