Pregnancy Health: Pregnant with Cancer – One Woman’s Courageous Story
Well last night’s interview with Sandi was amazing! She is truly one courageous woman and you could literalls feel her amazing positive spirit and strength just talking to her.
Anyway for those of you who missed it, you can listen again on the player below, but here’s a quick summary of Sandi’s story:
Sandi was just 32 and pregnant with her fourth child when she discovered the awful news that she had Hodgkins Lymphoma. Sandi had been feeling pressure in her neck since 2004 and it had progressively gotten worse over the years. Sandi had been referred to Endocrinologists time and time again who maintained that it was a thyroid problem and that it wasn’t serious enough to operate on from what they could see.
Then finally Sandi saw an Endocrinoligist who listened to what Sandi was saying about the location of the pressure which was lower than the thyroid the doctors had been monitoring. Sandi was sent straight to Oncology and after an MRI they discovered it was Cancer.
Sandi told me that she was offered a termination but her reply was,
“Will I die if I carry on with this pregnancy whilst I’m this sick?”
The answer was no and so Sandi was in no doubt about whether this pregnancy was going ahead or not.
Sandi started chemotherapy at 10 weeks pregnant and had chemotherapy every 2 weeks for 5 months. Sandi said that the chemo would bring on minor cramping afterwards but on the second to last chemotherapy, the cramping got worse and contractions started. Sandi was 30 weeks at this point.
Sandi was life-flighted to hsopital and put on a Magnewium drip for three days to stop the contractions which she says was worse than the chemo and gave her atrocious headaches and made her feel completely out of it for the three days she was on the drip, but on the third day thankfully the contractions stopped.
Sandi had her last chemo on October 23rd 2007 and was due to be induced at 37 weeks. However Gabriella had other ideas and at 36 weeks Sandi’s waters broke.
Gabriella was born healthy and happy weighing 6lbs 3oz and needed no special care whatsoever, (at this point its definitely worth listening to the interview on the replay because I cannot convey the emotion you will feel when Sandi tells her birth story – I had tears in my eyes!).
Sandi tells me Gabriella is seriously happy baby with an amazing positive spirit (wonder where she got that one from then…?) and as you can see for yourself below she’s a real cutie to boot!
If you want to hear more from Sandi, please visit her blog, Pregnant with Cancer
For help with Cancer during pregnancy visit the Pregnant With Cancer network
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3 Responses to “Pregnancy Health: Pregnant with Cancer – One Woman’s Courageous Story”
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Chinese Pregnancy Calendar on September 27th, 2009
Very useful post.
Thanks for sharing….
I’ve learned a lot from this article on pregnancy.
Nisha on September 28th, 2009
You’re very welcome, I’m glad you liked it!