I am setting this go fund me up for my mom, Melissa McAdams. Her world was rocked on August 4th when she went to the ER thinking she had a stomach ulcer, and ended up finding out she had ovarian cancer that had already spread to her omentum on her stomach. On August 14th she went to her Gynecologist Oncologist appointment where they told her that her CT scan did in fact look troublesome, her stomach was full of fluid from her cancer “weeping” and that she would be scheduled for a chest CT scan. They scheduled her surgery date for August 29th. They also did a tumor marker panel on her (CA125). Normal range is 0-35 and her was 1082. Her chest CT scan was August 23rd, and thank the Lord her lungs were clear, they could just see even more fluid than before. If you know my mom, she is one tough cookie. Throughout this process she wouldn’t ever say she was in pain, but you could see it. That all changed on Saturday August 26th, day after day it was hard for her to do anything, she barely got out of bed. Monday August 28th, she got out of bed for only an hour the entire day. She was in excruciating pain, no medicine was helping. She called her clinic and they said her pain and hot flashes were from her “tumors twisting”. They said they would see her the following morning for surgery at 5:30am. She ended up telling my dad on the way to the hospital she couldn’t have made it 24 more hours at home. She went into surgery with a positive attitude and just ready for everything to be out. They took her into surgery at 7:20 and they finished around 11am. During surgery they seen the cancer in her ovaries, and omentum, but they also found cancer in her cervix and a large baseball size tumor in her colon. Due to the removal of the large tumor, an ostomy bag was placed. They are hoping that is temporary, and they will reverse once chemo is completed. That was extremely unexpected to say the least. There are a lot of small spots still in her colon that they said if they tried to remove they would’ve been there for over 8 hours, they said that would be handled with chemo. We wasn’t able to see her until 2:30 that afternoon, and she knew something just wasn’t right. She kept asking us what was going on since no one ever relayed to her what they found, or the reasoning behind the ostomy bag. Her hospital stay hasn’t been easy at all, she is still there now. It has been set back after set back. Although, she did have a great birthday Thursday. She has dealt with acid her entire stay here, and Thursday night she ended up vomiting bile on two different episodes and they ended up placing an NG tube in Friday morning. Her intestines are taking a long time to wake up from the anesthesia, so she hasn’t ate since Sunday 8/27. Doctors are hoping she will be able to come home soon depending on when things start to change for the better.

Thank you all for your support through this process, she has a long road ahead of her. According to the pathology report, this is Stage 3C ovarian cancer, and she will start chemo in about a week. They told her it’s a very quick turnaround, meaning she will not be healed from surgery before she starts treatments. She will do 18 weeks of chemo, two different variations of chemo at each injection. She will lose her hair with this type of chemo. Her oncologist team told her the kind of cancer she has is usually very responsive to chemo therapy. They will do another CT scan after the third treatment to make sure the cancer is responding. They also told her their preliminary findings are that this is genetic. They are sending the tumors and her blood for genetic testing. Initially, she was to be out of work for 5 weeks, but after how major her surgery was and what they found, I’m not sure if that’s still the case or not.

This fundraiser is to help my mom not stress. This is for mounting hospital bills that have already started, trips back and forth to the hospital for chemo (parking, gas, food), and any supplies she needs for healing that her insurance will not cover (specific ostomy supplies, prevention of hair loss supplies if she would like). If any one has any questions, or would like to help in another way, please contact me directly. Please continue to pray for her throughout this journey. Thank you all for your continued love, support, thoughts, and prayers for our family during this difficult time.

Update 9/4:

They have clamped her NG tube this morning, we will wait 6 hours, then she will be hooked back up and they will measure the output. This is the first steps at having the tube removed. IF all goes well, she may get to go home Wednesday. We are cautiously optimistic.

update 9/5:

The removed her NG tube last night, she is so thankful to even be able to have water now. She’s on clear liquid, will be moved to full liquid, then regular diet. Once she actually eats and has no issues, she can go home. Hopefully tomorrow morning thank you all again for all of the support! She’s ready to close this chapter of this experience, and get ready for another one. She will be starting chemo in approximately a week. Please continue to pray for her

update 9/6:

She is HOME. She surprised us last night and came home. We are all so excited for her to be home. Her Dr came in to talk to her yesterday about treatments and she has become pretty nervous, and scared. She starts chemo Sept. 18th, and goes sometime next week to have a chemo port placed. Please send up some prayers and some words on encouragement to her. She knows the hard part starts now but also that God willing, this will save her life

update 9/8:

Y’all Mom has been admitted to the hospital. She has a fever, her heart rate was over 170 when she arrived at the ER, and her WBC is through the roof. They are checking her for sepsis, along with a bunch of other things. PLEASE PRAY FOR HER!!!! She is so upset. Definitely the wind is taken out of her sails after having two great days at home, now she’s back at UNC.

update 9/10:

They have found a softball sized abscess. They will be placing in a drain, hopefully today if they can get everyone in here.

update 9/12:

Update on mama

The team had everything ready to go Saturday to do the procedure but in the last minute literally they realized the ER gave her blood thinner Friday night. So that pushed everything back. They did the procedure Sunday morning, everything went great. They placed a drain tube in the abscess. Sadly they told her she cannot leave the hospital until a culture of the abscess comes back, so they know what antibiotics to send her home on. Yesterday, they blew 3 of her veins and busted one. Her poor arms look pitiful. Hopefully she can come home today, fingers crossed. She is past ready to leave. As of now, this isn’t going to effect her chemo start date (9/18). She is still scheduled to have her port placed tomorrow. Continue to pray for her during this journey.