Happy Ending

When I first met Cathy she thought she was pregnant because she had missed a period. She was quite happy at the prospect of being pregnant, having one son, she was looking forward to a second child. Unfortunately, I had to tell her that she wasn't pregnant and in fact had a molar pregnancy, which was going to require me to do a D&C. (A molar pregnancy is an abnormal form of pregnancy where (most commonly) you have an empty egg that is fertilized by a sperm. This abnormal tissue continues to grow and can invade into the uterus and cause a cancer - choriocarcinoma). Her and her husband took the news well and although initially were not very happy about coming for their regular followups, they caught on rather quickly to how serious her condition was and came faithfully.

This condition required me to do regular pregnancy tests on her to see if the molar tissue is still present or not. (In the US you would do a blood test that would give you a real number, here we do urine tests and serial dilutions to come up with a number). As I was following her

urine tests I became concerned because her pregnancy tests remained positive after her D&C. This required me to give her chemotherapy for her molar pregnancy. This isn't something I had seen, treated, or read much about in my training, I am not an Ob/Gyn or an Oncologist, but the patients don't care, they are just thankful you are willing to try and help. After my initial rounds of chemotherapy failed, I had to talk to her and her husband about the possibility of doing a hysterectomy. They were willing, if necessary, but thankfully I was able to obtain some additional chemo meds and gave her a different course of treatment, which worked.

It has now been a year since she was first diagnosed and she is doing well. She continues to have negative pregnancy tests and is looking forward to maybe having another child in a yr or two. Praise God for this healing.