Surgery was scheduled that Friday to have the tumors removed. We were admitted and met the surgeon that would be conducting the operation. She assured us that from the CT scans it looked like ovarian cancer and that she would do her best to get in there and clean up everything she could see, then hit it with chemo, and we would go on to live a happy life. We felt a little calmer and ready to tackle this mountain.
The surgery came. My mom prayed over Elizabeth as she was put under anesthesia. And then we waited. Six hours later, I was talking with Elizabeth’s brother when the surgeon called us into the consultation room. As we sat down, the look on her face said everything to me. She began to tell us that it wasn’t what they thought it was. That it hadn’t originated from the ovaries, but from the lining of the uterus and was a type of smooth muscle cancer called Leiomyosarcoma and it had spread to the abdominal cavity. Though the tumors were removed, the cancer would grow back and metastasize to other areas of the body. I asked if she would survive this disease. She shook her head, ‘No.’
Elizabeth, my soulmate, my best friend, my partner, had stage 4 cancer and it was going to kill her.
