u/Immediate-Return1388

Hi all, I'm 41F, diagnosed in January with endometrioid ovarian cancer, Stage 1C1, Grade 1. My diagnosis in January coincided with surgery to remove the mass (we didn't know it was cancer prior to surgery), which turned out to be a hysterectomy and BSO. I say "turned out to be" because it was a surprise hysterectomy, which nobody wants, but, that's another story!

I started chemo, paclitaxel and carboplatin, and after 3 rounds, when I went for a CT scan, got the good word that everything looked clear and no evidence of disease! Now, throughout the three rounds of chemo, I tolerated it very well, other than some minor nausea and fatigue, and in fact everyone commented on how well I was doing.

Because I was "tolerating" the chemo so well, my oncologist and my surgeon were both really pushing me to extend the treatment from 3 rounds to 6, so as to lessen the risk of recurrence (from 25% to 20%). I felt so so, definitely not great, about doing all 6 rounds, especially as my oncologist and I had agreed on 3 originally and I was feeling pretty good about it. During this whole decision-making process, my oncologist has been more of a "what would you like to do?" type doctor, whereas my surgeon comes off as more pushy and absolutist. I also didn't love the change of plans from 3 to 6 because I'd already had a change of plans, in the surgery that was originally supposed to just be removal of the mass, but then turned into a hysterectomy. Maybe a lil battle of wills taking place between myself and my doctor.

My dad sensibly told me to just go round by round and see how I felt after each one, rather than feeling the need to make a decision on all 6 rounds in that moment. So, I went in for the fourth round, left feeling like I normally did after each chemo round, and then, two days afterwards, was hit by the worst stomach pains, like 9 or 10 out of 10, that sent me to the ER, puking so bad from pain that I couldn't even keep water down for a whole day. My blood pressure also dropped way low for a few hours, inexplicably. I now feel better, but it was a scary few days.

Given my much worse response to the 4th round, I messaged my oncologist and said that I would like to stop treatment now, especially since I've already gotten the all clear on my scans. She said let's talk about it at our next appointment.

So, has anyone else had this, where they had a much worse response to a later round of chemo? Has anyone else stopped treatment early because of it, and, hopefully, were you ok, or did your cancer come back and did you feel like it might have because you weren't as thorough with your treatment? I'm strongly leaning towards stopping treatment, but would be curious to hear other people's opinions/ experiences. I just don't want to somehow permanently damage myself, if my body has now decided to have an extreme reaction to the chemo!