Michelle Kaba, 39, Ampullary Cancer

The day after my 35th birthday, when my first baby was just 22 days old, I was diagnosed with Ampullary Cancer on March 8, 2023. This is a rare cancer and even more rare for someone my age.

When I was pregnant, I was diagnosed with pancreatitis. I went through 4 different hospital stays in the span of 5.5 months and was placed on a strict, low fat diet. There was fear of the unknown, yet certainty that an end was in sight. After the birth, the pancreatitis was going to be gone for good and life would go back to “normal.” They said the growth they found while I was 20 weeks pregnant was benign and it just needed to be removed after our baby was born. The doctors weren’t concerned, so neither was I.

But during surgery, the surgery I had been waiting for, the one I had the baby early for, didn’t go as planned. My husband was called in to get permission to do another biopsy because the growth, the one that was benign just months earlier, grew larger and was no longer able to be removed. I spent two days waiting for the biopsy results. I said to my dad, “I don’t think it’s cancer.” Then the test results came into my online portal before the doctor even had a chance to call. I Googled medical terms I didn’t understand and I looked at my husband and said, “I think it’s cancer.”

The memories of the next few hours are a blur, but I believe they were very quiet. We Googled enough to know the diagnosis, but not enough to go down the black hole of fear the internet will provide. We sat next to each other, we cried, and we couldn’t focus on anything. Yet our newborn still required our attention. We anticipated the call from the doctor we knew would come the next day.

The following two weeks were filled with doctor’s appointments, tests, phone calls, 2nd opinions, and complete emotional breakdowns. It was all happening so fast. Nothing can prepare you for having to call all your loved ones to share the news, repeating it over and over again.

Waiting was the theme of those two weeks. Waiting for test results, waiting to find out if the cancer had spread, waiting to see various specialists, my husband waiting in the car with the baby while I had the appointments, waiting for the doctors to meet for what I learned were “tumor boards” to discuss my treatment plan. And after all that waiting we celebrated that the cancer had not spread. It was stage 1 and surgery will remove it, but chemo was still part of the plan.

On March 24 at 5AM, my husband, my parents, and my mother in law, while holding my now 5 week old, stood in a circle in our living room and prayed for my healing, a successful surgery, and for the family to be ok. I kissed my son with tears knowing that I wouldn’t see him while I recovered in the hospital. It was terrifying when I stepped foot in an operating room. It still remains a vivid memory. They need to prepare you for the tools and instruments you’ll see in the room prior to going under and for how cold it will be, all while assuring you that the nurses who help prep you for surgery are angels who will make you feel like you’re not alone.

My Whipple Procedure was successful. With part of my pancreas and small intestine removed along with my whole gallbladder, the tumor was gone and the pathology reports confirmed there was no longer cancer in my body. In a 3 week period, I was diagnosed and freed from cancer, all while becoming a new mom. It was a complete whirlwind that I still haven’t fully processed, even though I am a year and a half post treatment. Survivorship is a whole other story…

We celebrated with all the good news, but I was still recovering from major abdominal surgery, as I had 25 staples down the middle of my abdomen. Post surgery, I spent two days in the ICU unable to care for myself and the rest of the week was nothing but humbling. I needed nurses, my husband, my parents, and my sister to help me get out of bed, lay down, and pump breast milk for my son (or rather “pump and dump” the milk because I wanted to keep the supply, but the medicine was too harmful for my baby). The intimate details of that week are too personal for public sharing, but believe me, it was raw emotion and my body was exposed in ways I never imagined.

After a week in the hospital, I was able to go home. It took 4 more weeks to feel capable of doing everyday tasks. At one point, walking half a block and back was a major accomplishment. I was cleared to physically pick up my baby after 5 weeks post-op and it is still one of the best memories.

After a few weeks of healing, I had my first of 11 chemo treatments. They occurred every other week and the doctors called it my “insurance plan” just to be sure there were no longer detectable, cancerous cells. Some days I questioned if I should be doing chemo because surgery was successful and on other days chemo was the only thing that made sense. The side effects lasted about 4-5 days after treatment. It was bearable yet far from enjoyable.

All I remember is sleeping. I’d sleep off the side effects for days. I didn’t recognize myself because of the significant weight loss and partly because my drive and motivation just wasn’t the same. Hearing people say, “You look so good!” knowing I just had a baby triggered all the emotions of cancer. I fought the mental battle of “why me” and “this is not how I expected becoming a mom.” My go to thoughts on the hardest days were any variation of prayers, wisdom, worship songs, and encouragement people shared with me during those times.

This trial was and still is hard, emotional, complex, confusing, physically demanding, expensive, unfair, and some days doesn’t even feel like my story. And at the exact same time, I have so much hope.