Susan Gubar

For that month.

Ah, well, I guess what is 42 days like?

Well, no, I think it's a good question.

I think ethically it would be to the good of patients and doctors to have this conversation.

This is Susan.

Susan Gubar, writer of the Living with Cancer blog for the New York Times.

Back in 2008, Susan went to the doctor.

She hadn't been feeling well for a while.

They thought it was some sort of bowel issue, but then the doctor walked into the room and said she had advanced stage ovarian cancer.

Most ovarian cancers are diagnosed at a late stage, and it's basically incurable.

It can be handled, it can be managed, it can be kept at bay and for longer periods of time, now we hope.

But you're given a diagnosis of three to five years.

Yeah, it's a big shock.

You sort of enter a zone where you're not quite aware of what you're doing.

So I went the next day to Indianapolis.

And the day after that, I had the debulking surgery, which takes out the ovaries and the uterus and the fallopian tubes and the spleen and sometimes the cervix and sometimes the appendix and sometimes the bowel.

Are you serious?

Yeah, it's called the mother of all surgeries.

And then, just like that, she was doing multiple rounds of chemo.

Chemicals that are used, they destroy all quick-growing cells.