SASKATOON — Time is not on Starla Fiddler's side. She knows and has accepted the fact that ovarian cancer will consume her, leaving behind her family, including her seven-year-old son. She has started explaining the concept of death to him, where she says that everyone, like her and his grandparents, will not live forever.
She spoke about her cancer journey during the Ladies of Harley-Harley Owners Group Teal Ride for Ovarian Cancer Awareness on Saturday, Sept. 7, at Redline Harley Davidson on 71st Street East. The fundraising event was organized with WHO-HOG's J.M. Bernier and Ovarian Cancer of Canada National Program Director Stephanie Gosselin.
"I try to live the best of my life with him as much as possible. I want to make as many positive memories with him. So, we travel a lot in the summer because that's what he likes. He likes road trips. So, we go to Calgary, and we've gone to the mountains and Drumheller several times," said Fiddler, whose son just started second grade.
"Like I said, I want him to have positive memories. Because, honestly, at this point, my future is kind of up in the air. It's tough, but I will do my best to be positive for him and as realistic as possible. I know that, eventually, the cancer will take over. It's tough to accept, but keeping it at the back of my mind makes it easier."
Fiddler was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was 23 years old, being the first from her family to have the dreaded disease. For over 10 years since her diagnosis, she has undergone chemotherapy and other forms of treatment. She has also been operated on a couple of times to remove tumours and is now taking medication to slow down having tumours grow back.
"The symptoms of ovarian cancer are common to most women, like abdominal bloating, lower back pain, and things like that. For me, I was diagnosed without any symptoms. The only thing I had was that I didn't have my period for over a year. So, my doctor, because I was young and healthy, never thought of cancer," said Fiddler.
"He had me see a gynecologist, who then discovered the cyst in my ovary. They did a biopsy, and it was positive for ovarian cancer. That's where my cancer journey began. I was 23 years old, and I went through chemotherapy for the first time. At that time, they didn't know how to treat my type of cancer, so they gave me the strongest type of chemotherapy available."
Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment that uses powerful chemicals to eliminate fast-growing cells inside the body. Cancer cells grow and multiply more quickly than ordinary cells.
She added that she proceeded with the chemotherapy even without the assurance provided by her doctors that it would work. The chemotherapy worked, and she was cancer-free for almost five years before the disease came back.
"I was on a treadmill at the gym when I felt a ripple across my lower abdomen. I just knew it was back. I called my oncologist, and he scheduled a CT scan, and that's when they found that I did have a large tumour that was growing under my rib. Then, they did a biopsy, which came back as ovarian cancer," said Fiddler.
"I decided I won't do chemotherapy again because it was too hard on me; my quality of life was more important at that time, so I just opted to do the surgery, and then I would just go from there. They removed 17 tumours between my sternum and my pubic bone, including one that was about seven pounds tucked under my rib."
She lost the chance to bear a child because of the disease but became a mother after a relative of hers asked her to adopt her son, as she did not have the means to take care of the boy. They arranged the adoption, and she cared for the baby like hers. However, almost one year after adopting her son, she again felt pain under her right rib.
"I informed my oncologist. They did another test, and then that's when they saw that the cancer was back again for the third time. They did a biopsy to confirm, and it was back. I decided that I needed to do chemotherapy because I needed to spend as much time with my son as I could. After all, he was just a baby, and he needed me. I underwent chemotherapy for a second time, and it was even worse on my body that time; not only did I have all the typical side effects from the chemotherapy, but it also burnt my skin from the inside out, so I wasn't able to hold my baby. I had to move back in with my parents so that they could help me with him," said Fiddler.
"I remember vividly sitting on my bed, and my mom was sitting next to me, feeding him his bottle, and I was just, you know, rubbing his head because he needed me so badly, but I wasn't able to hold him because my body was burnt from the chemo. So, I went through the chemo again. I finished it. I was optimistic that it would give me more time with my son, but unfortunately, less than a year after finishing the chemotherapy, the cancer came back again."
She had run out of options after that, and having chemotherapy twice took a significant toll on her body. At the same time, the surgery was so extensive, from her sternum to her pubic bone, that there was too much scar tissue, and they were not able to perform another. She was left with no other real answers.
Despite having a total hysterectomy, the cancer came back a fifth time and had more areas affecting different places of her body, like the midsection, rectum, and spleen. However, she has shown courage in this challenging part of her life and starts preparing her son that his mother will be gone for good.
"I didn't know what to do because I was all out of any treatment options. And because my cancer is so rare, it was kind of like grasping at straws. I'm preparing to try to figure out how do you prepare to tell your son that you're not coming home from the hospital because I was so sick. I ended up trying a drug called letrozole, and that one's for breast cancer patients. They give it to breast cancer patients because it stops estrogen growth," said Fiddler.
"That medication would prevent my body from producing any more tumours, and then it would slow down the growth of the ones already there. The letrozole worked for about a year, but things started slowly growing again. [The doctors gave me] Lupron, which is meant for testicular cancer, I believe, because, as well, it's blocking the hormones."
She's been getting Lupron injections once a month, and so far, it has kept her condition stable with no new growth that gave her hope of having more time to spend with her son and her entire family.
"I'm living with the disease. It's there. I'm aware that it's there. I do my routine scans and blood work. This is where I am right now. That is why we need fundraising events like this for ovarian cancer research. Right now, there is no screening tool for ovarian cancer, and the survival rates haven't changed in over 50 years," said Fiddler.
There is a 92 per cent five-year survival rate for stage 1 ovarian cancer patients and about 73 per cent for stage 2 and 3, where the disease has spread to other parts of your body. Fiddler is hoping that getting her story out to others who are battling the disease would help increase awareness of ovarian cancer.
"Sharing my story, whether in person or online, is like therapy to me as well. Being able to talk about it and share it with other people. Telling my story may also help somebody along the way; you might have a family member or a friend who thinks something's wrong. And then you could be like, well, you know, I talked to this girl, you know, a couple of years ago, and she had that symptom as well. Maybe we should see the doctor-type thing," said Fiddler.
