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Here’s a shout out to gynecological cancer month, you know the ones like uterine, ovarian, cervix but what about the other ones, say, vulvar, or placental? What? Placenta cancer? Is that what you read? Placental cancer, yes. You read that right. Cancer of the placenta. Yes, the same special organ that forms during pregnancy. The same organ that feeds and nourishes the baby, that is, in a healthy and normal pregnancy. What? What is this? The technical name is choriocarcinoma, a type of gestational trophoblastic disease or GTD. How do I know this, you may be wondering? Why, I am a survivor of this rare type of gynecological
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You only have 2 choices, and choosing the wrong one could be devastating. These two choices can be life-changing, life-altering.
“What are these two choices?” you may ask. As you’re sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, these two choices wander around in your head. The first choice is to go into the doctor’s office blindly, relying solely on your symptoms and blindly following the path that your doctor gives to you. The other choice is to go into the doctor's office with some insight, direction, and knowledge so that you can be your own advocate. How do you be your own advocate? Self-advocacy is looking out for yourself and respectfully standing up for your views, opinions, All I heard over a 12 hour period was that I was pregnant and/or miscarrying across several floors--from the ER to Labor & Delivery to Telemetry--until they tried to send me home. The last remark I heard before an actual diagnosis was that I was having a heavy period. As I was hemorrhaging. We're talking two buckets full, nearly-passing-out, horror-movie stuff. This was not just a heavy period. Give me a break.
Repeatedly, I refused their explanations for my four-month-postpartum intermittent bleeding. Repeatedly, I refused to go home. I was NOT going to bleed to death in my bed. I knew something was wrong and that  Social media. Some hate it, some love it. It is a love-hate relationship for many. But what if it could be used as a tool? A tool to sharpen the knowledge of others, a tool to erase the ignorance, a tool to engage needed support? A tool is a tool indeed.
Prior to my cancer diagnosis, I avoided social media with mixed feelings, only drawing out the negativity from it. As much as I wanted to open an account, I dismissed the idea several times. Upon my cancer diagnosis, I quickly found myself on Facebook connecting with family and friends, posting weekly updates of my cancer journey. It was much easier than trying to keep up with handwritten l It's hard enough to express you've had cancer, but explaining a rare cancer is even more difficult.
Most patients automatically expect to hear breast cancer, colon cancer or bone cancer. When I say choriocarcinoma they ask, "What's that?" When they hear placental cancer their faces drop, almost in dismay, disbelief. Some even change the subject. Besides, it's a rare cancer, right? The chances of getting Most women get a baby after pregnancy. My pregnancy, however, gave me a baby and cancer. Actually, what began as two babies and cancer. That's right- I got Choriocarcinoma, or cancer of the placenta, as a result from my pregnancy. Who knew such a beautiful milestone could turn into something life-threatening? A Molar pregnancy happens when the tissue that normally becomes a fetus turns into an abnormal growth inside the uterus instead. What I experienced, my twin Molar pregnancy, resulted in the
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