PART II
Still believing. by Billie Whitehouse
Billie is back for Part II of her story. Like all stories, there is no “ending;” just a series of one foot after the other when it comes to the female experience and healthcare. A navigation that has no map and must manage without the support of a system.
Thank you, Billie, for sharing what you have with us in this space. We are so grateful.
Xx Katrina
In 2024, there was blood in my stool. I knew something was wrong. The cancer was back.
Like every sucker on the internet, I wanted to believe that if I ate right and did the “non-toxic” therapy options, I could shrink the new tumour. However, that was not the case. After taking three weeks to review all my options, the tumour was larger than before.
The day I flew back to New York for the MRI, they asked me to come back the following day. But I insisted that they do my MRI that night. I arrived at the hospital at 2pm and I think I got an MRI around 7pm — but with my oncologist on holiday, no one would explain the results to me for another two weeks. The results suggested that the tumour had already invaded my uterus.
My timing for these things has always been comical. I had just gotten two very interesting professional opportunities — neither of which I felt like I could take, knowing that I would need to have two very invasive surgeries. Saying no to work opportunities while fitting in a fertility treatment before surgery was very stressful. The egg retrieval was tough, but we got one egg. And one embryo.
My red blood cells and hemoglobin were starting to drop; I was bleeding internally. I was unable to look at lights, so I was trying to do my last days of work with blackout sunglasses in between urges to vomit. Not chic, you might say. I received a blood transfusion prior to surgery, and again after surgery.
Two years to the date, surgeons went in again. This time, it was excruciating: They removed my uterus, left ovary, part of my rectum, and part of my small intestine. I was in so much pain, and having a reaction to the epidural which caused me to itch non-stop. To suffer every indignity means having an ileus — a condition when your intestines stop working — and yet, that was not even the worst of it. I spent nights vomiting, an act so painful after you have been cut from chest to pelvic bone and still have staples.
The sliding doors for what could have been still haunt me: if our baby had survived; if the first doctor had taken me seriously and performed a colonoscopy in 2022; if I had listened to the warning signs that were likely there for well over 10 years. I still have a right ovary, now attached to another part of my body because I have no Fallopian tubes. But I no longer have the chance to carry a pregnancy.
I so want a family and for me to be cancer-free. I have to believe it’s possible — even at 38, with no uterus and half a colon. I could not be more indebted to the people that donate blood — you saved my life. And I am grateful to be alive, trying to stay positive even when fits of anxiety come on with every 3-month scan. I am sometimes able to forget. And then I remember that it’s all so fleeting.
I hope that someone who reads this will remember to give blood. Get a colonoscopy. Do your fertility treatments early, if that’s what you want. Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. Ask your doctors for multiple opinions. Enjoy your fucking life.