My name is Dorothy. I diagnosed with cancer in the middle of May 2018. I had a golfball-sized tumor in my uterus. Surgery was scheduled at the end of May and I needed several weeks to heal. I started chemotherapy which wasn’t that bad; I wasn’t sick, but it did make me very tired. After chemo, I started radiation for 20 days. Before I started radiation, I developed what they called a tunnel in my incision. We had to pack and unpack the incision for months. After radiation, I started chemo again.
I had chemo one day when I was feeling really sick. I was weak, so my husband took me to the emergency room. They said that I had a hole in my colon and I was rushed into surgery. I was in the ICU for two days and in the hospital for one week. When I left the hospital, I was so tired and weak I could barely get from my chair in the living room to the bathroom or into the kitchen to eat. I thought, “I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.”
Some of my strength has since returned. The LIVESTRONG® at the YMCA program is helping me. We are at the end of the 5th week and I am feeling much better. I must say, I have had a lot of people to help me in this process. My husband and my children were a big help. Also, the people in my church were very encouraging. I plan to continue with more exercise at the Y after the LIVESTRONG® at the YMCA program is over.
–Dorothy
