When my good friend Ade who lived in different city texted me regarding her overdue period I joked saying that she was probably pregnant with her third child. In my circle of young moms it has been always fun to tease each other about getting another pregnancy. Almost any one of us doesn’t feel like having it again and we feel content of what we have now. For me and Ade, raising two boys means enough of pregnancy. Not even a second the imagination of the pleasure for having a girl has a good effect on us. Particularly for Ade she just had her second son last year. That was why she quickly dismissed my joke with laugh and said that she was on pills.

Well my doctor said that using pills as your birth control can affect your hormone. So when Ade texted me again couple of days later we both agreed that her delayed period was as a side effect from her pills. Especially after she bought a test pack and got a negative result.

“But I think you still need to see the doctor and have a proper pregnancy test, just in case you know. Sometimes those test packs can be inaccurate” I replied to her. She agreed and said that she had already set an appointment that week to have her checked.

Her later message almost got me chocked. “I got stromal tumor” she wrote. Her doctor had arranged for an ultrasound and they found the tumor on each of her ovary. According to the wikipedia, a stroma of ovary is a peculiar soft tissue abundantly supplied by blood vessels, consisting for the most part of spindle-shaped cells with a small amount of ordinary connective tissue. If you are a doctor or from medical major you probably know exactly what it is. Ade’s doctor had implied that it could be (or not) aggressive and danger. In other word there was a possibility that it could transform into deadly cancer. The only way they would find out was by cut her open.

“I am scared” she texted me. I totally got her. This would not only be her first major surgery but also a point when the doctor would decide whether they could save both of her ovary, or to take one or both, or even worst, to take away all of her ovary and her uterus. Scary isn’t it? She was only 34. Although now she didn’t feel like having another child she could always change her mind and when he did change her mind how would she conceive without those woman’s tools?

Knowing that she didn’t have any choice, the mom of two, put a brave face for her coming surgery. The fact that she finally came out from the operation room and could still text me with positive attitude was a relieve. “So this is how caesarian feels huh?”. She knew I had caesarian birth with my second son.

“So how are you feeling?” I asked her.

“Incomplete” she replied and then continued, “I feel like I am not a man not yet a woman”.

We laughed. She had a point. The doctor had taken both of her ovary. One ovary had swollen as big as an adult fist, the other one had hardened like a stone. Luckily they didn’t have to remove her uterus. But what uterus can do without the ovary?

“Well at least, now I have a permanent birth control”. She was right. It saved her condoms, pills and lots of worry that the birth control she was using failed. And above all, afraid that the tumor could come back in the other area, she had to start taking her food more seriously. She has been struggling with her body weight issue before but with this ordeal she must start living healthier. She has had lost 3 kgs already few days after the surgery.

Oh well…there is always a rainbow after the rain, right?

Have you ever been in the same situation as Ade’s? How did you deal with it?

• 
  IUD: Pregnancy and the Risks

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  Postoperative Hematoma in Cesarean Birth

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  The Tell-Tale Signs of Labor