SASKATOONEXPRESS - September 4-10, 2017 - Page 1
Saskatoonʼs REAL Community Newspaper
Volume 16, Issue 35, Week of September 4, 2017
Oncological pharmacist became cancer patient
Amy Smith-Morris was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer not long after her wedding and honeymoon. (Photo by Joanne Paulson)
Joanne Paulson Saskatoon Express my Smith-Morris’s life was by most measures moving along beautifully. Young, fit and healthy, Smith-Morris had embarked on a great career as an oncological pharmacist with the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, armed with an undergraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan and a doctorate in her specialty from the University of Toronto. And she was getting married. After the September wedding, she and her husband embarked on a honeymoon in Italy and Greece for two weeks. “The perfect honeymoon,” she said. “I love food, and so does my husband, so we ate a tonne of pizza; tonnes of wine. We had a really great time. So when I came back, I had gained some weight. Go figure; pizza twice a day, that’s going to happen. “But then the weight gain kind of continued. Even though I got back to my regular schedule, I kept gaining weight. I was a bit bloated; it was pretty marginal, though. But it just never went away. It was a bit tender to the touch. It wasn’t anything I was overly alarmed about.” But she just wasn’t feeling right. “My number one symptom was I had really bad heartburn. The worst heartburn ever; I couldn’t eat anything. I was taking Tums all the time, so I kind of thought I had an ulcer.” Wondering if planning her wedding had created enough stress to cause an ulcer, she went to her family doctor, who originally thought she might be pregnant based on how her abdomen looked. That was quickly ruled out. She had an ultrasound very soon after the appointment, and was informed that she had an ovarian tumour. Because of her age, now 30, it was unlikely to be malignant. But it was. Surgery followed, and then chemotherapy. “From the time I started having symptoms, to the time I saw my GP, was about two weeks. Everything really escalated quite quickly,” she said. “I was diagnosed around Remembrance Day, had my surgery Nov. 25 and started chemo in December.” (Continued on page 6)
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