Of Dreams and Cancer

11 Aug

I’ve started writing this post a dozen or more times in my head, but today I’m actually going to sit down and type it out.

I’ve been pretty silent on here recently, and there’s a good reason for that. It’s been about a month since we found out that I have breast cancer. The initial shock has worn off a bit, I guess. We’ve been going to appointments with the various doctors that will be part of the treatment team for me in the coming months/years. In the next month or so I will be having a double (bi-lateral) mastectomy and reconstruction, followed by radiation treatments (possibly) and years of medication to, hopefully, keep the cancer from returning.

Those statements are all factual and somewhat detached…I realize that. How I really feel about this diagnosis is multi-layered and complex to say the least, and from moment to moment I’m either feeling strong or having panic attacks.

I’m 32, and I have breast cancer. Now, I know that there are young women (some even younger than me) that get breast cancer. I just never thought I would be one of them. I don’t have a family history of  breast cancer, and I tested negative for the genetic mutation, so the “reason” for my diagnosis is somewhat baffling. I’m over 30 and have never had kids…those are the only risk factors that I have.

My surgery is on Tuesday, and while I’m not loving the idea of mutilating my body, I am ready to get this tumor out. It hurts most of the time, and it’s a constant reminder that I have cancer. I don’t know how much I’ll update this blog… and when I do, it will inevitably be more about about my cancer battle than infertility. Our journey to starting a family has taken a major back seat to all this…at the earliest we’ll be able to start “trying” to have kids in another 3-5 years. The medication I have to take to reduce my chances of the cancer coming back also causes major birth defects, so attempting to get pregnant is a big no-no. I don’t know that I’ve fully processed that yet, but I’m sure I will post-surgery and I don’t know how I’ll ultimately react. Right now the goal is to be cancer-free.

I will still read all of your baby-related posts, and I will send positive thoughts to all of you still on the journey to parenthood. My journey has taken a severe left turn, but I hope yours leads you to become mothers many times over.

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Fade to Black

6 Jul

I truly don’t even know how to begin this except by saying that the MRI showed additional areas of concern and now I have to have a second biopsy (via MRI) in the next few days. We were so over the moon that my first biopsy was benign that we’ve been kind of assuming the MRI would confirm it, but apparently the MRI indicates that the chances of this next biopsy coming back benign are slim. All day yesterday we spent in relative shock, watching movies and just basically trying to zone out and not think about it.

While we were waiting for the doctor yesterday, I kept having this feeling that the results were going to be bad. Truthfully, I’d had that feeling the entire time…I’m not sure why. But I’d worked really hard in the last two weeks to ignore those feelings and believe that the MRI would show that everything is okay.

I have two simultaneous thoughts on my near-future:

1. I will do whatever I have to do to get healthy. I am prepared to hear the dreaded cancer diagnosis, and I will do whatever treatments I have to do get healthy again.

2. As I contemplate what got me here in the first place, I have to consider that the fertility treatments are not a good idea to continue for the foreseeable future. I am struggling with “giving up” on trying to have children, but how can I focus on that when my body isn’t in any condition to actually have children? I don’t know if this will be a permanent decision… I am really trying hard to listen to the lessons my life experiences are trying to teach me right now, and I’m getting the feeling in my gut that the message is “enough- it’s time to let it go”.   “It” being the dream of having a family.

Boy, that’s hard to say. After spending the last six years with the nearly-singular focus on trying to have children, it’s really hard to just …quit.

Ugh. I’m hoping to have the MRI biopsy early next week. It’s currently scheduled for Wednesday but I want to try to have it on Monday or Tuesday. Because, as we all are well aware: waiting sucks.

Any positive thoughts, vibes or prayers would be greatly appreciated… for the results to be benign, but mostly for us to be able to handle whatever comes with peace and grace and strength.

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And the survey says….

20 Jun

EVERYTHING IS BENIGN!!!!!! We just got back from the follow-up boob appointment (follow-up to the boob biopsy), and the news was so good that I burst into tears in the middle of the doctor giving the results. I’ve been crying (joyfully) on and off in the last hour and a half because I’m so relieved/thankful/happy.

I’m especially relieved because everything was pointing to cancer. During the biopsy last week, I could tell by the way that the doctor and all the nurses were talking/interacting with me that what they were seeing wasn’t good. I could read their eyes and in everything they weren’t saying. The specialist even said in going over the results that she was really surprised because she wasn’t expecting benign results. What the biopsy results showed is so rare that she wants me to have an MRI next week just to be sure that everything really is okay.

So for now I’m CANCER FREE. I still feel like I could freaking break dance I’m so happy, but I won’t because my boob is still so sore…and also because I can’t break dance.

Reason number two that I’m so happy (secondary to NOT having cancer) is that I don’t have to worry about how this will interfere with fertility treatments. I had an appointment with my RE on Monday and everything we’d discussed was “tentative” to what my test results said. Not only that, but everything in our lives was put on hold for the foreseeable future. All our summer plans were waiting until we knew if I would have to have surgery/radiation, etc.

Honestly, in the last week I’ve had thoughts of just wanting to be healthy even if I could never have children. The very real and present possibility of cancer made me really just want to be able to live a long life with my husband. Of course I still want children and will continue to work on having them, but at the moment I’m just so effing happy to be alive and in love with my most amazing husband and soul mate.

Needless to say, this month’s fertility treatments were put on hold, so I kind of get to relax for the next few weeks. I got a bunch of blood drawn Monday to figure out if I have a number of autoimmune disorders (I already have two and I’m wondering if there might be a 3rd that’s interfering with hormones/conception, etc). That will be the extent of my baby dreams for this month. Next month (assuming the MRI comes back clean also), I’ll be undergoing the gauntlet of ultrasounds and blood work to determine if I am, in fact, ovulating each month.

Seriously right now I don’t even care if I’m ovulating (what? I can’t believe I just said that). I’m just over the freaking moon that everything (for once) worked out in my favor.

Halle-freaking-lujah.

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“In your head, In your head, Zombie”

5 Jun

I haven’t written in a while. It wasn’t necessarily intentional; I wasn’t taking a purposeful “break” from writing. I think I just wanted to escape for a little while. I don’t know if others feel this way, but sometimes I get so tired of thinking about infertility/pregnancy/doctors appointments/bloodwork/medications/cervical mucus/peak days/charting…etc, etc, etc. On top of that, it’s also been the end of my school year, and things at work have been insane. I barely have enough energy or brain cells left to figure out what to make for dinner let alone writing any coherent thoughts out in complete sentences.

I’ve also been mired in a relatively newfound lump in my left breast. I found it a few months ago, and the husband (D) wanted me to get it checked right away. I realize I probably should have, but I didn’t. I procrastinated a little bit…probably out of fear. I went two weeks ago for an ultrasound and when the results came back I could barely get past the first word: MASS. Not cyst, which is what I was expecting it to say, MASS. Basically the results said that it’s not a cyst, and that it could be an infection, a tumor (benign or malignant), or something else. Of course, it didn’t say this in English; they used medical terms, many of which were completely foreign to me. Thank God D had the sense to look up the terms and translate them for me. I freaked out about it for a few days until I could get back to my doctor to make a plan for what to do next. The day after tomorrow I go to a specialist for more tests to hopefully determine what this is and what we do about it. I’m feeling pretty anxious about it to be honest, but I know there’s no use obsessing about it until after I have more information.

Nagging at the back of my mind, of course, is the knowledge that because I’m over 30 and have never had children, I’m at an increased risk for breast cancer. Awesome, right? Because dealing with the shit storm that is infertility isn’t wonderful enough, the icing on top is an increased chance of cancer. So I’ve kind of tagged-out of life recently. I’ve spent many, many hours on the sofa watching stupid TV and less-stupid PBS miniseries. I know that this journey has many ups and downs, and I generally try to ride them out as gracefully as I can, but all I want to do lately is run away.

So that’s where I’m at. I’m not dead. …Just more like a zombie.

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A trip to get my hair cut that ends in tears…

10 May

…and not because I got a bad hair cut.

I love the woman who cuts my hair. She’s cut my hair since I was about 10, and we have a good relationship. She has a ten-year-old son and she and her husband have been trying to have a second child for the past four years or so. She had some health issues  a few months ago, and during one of the treatments she had to get, she asked for a blood test because her period was late. Low and behold, she’s pregnant. She’s 40-something and pregnant. I’m very happy for her; I’ve listened to a lot of her struggles with trying to have her second child, and so I’m honestly excited for her.

Today was just a really crappy day to have to sit through and hour-long haircut, listening to how she told everyone (husband, son, parents, etc) about this wonderful surprise. It sucked because I got my period today. Five days early. Cycle fail #73.

I held it together really well during the haircut. I only almost burst into tears three times, but I pulled it together. She doesn’t know my whole story, and I really don’t feel the need to get into it with her, so I just have to sit there and be understanding and sympathetic and excited when really all I’m thinking is “please, god, don’t let me start crying here”. I cried in my car on my way home.

I just don’t get it. I don’t get the “why” of this whole thing. I’ve worked so hard for six years trying to become a mother and I have nothing to show for it except for less money than we would have and several scars on my abdomen from the three surgeries I’ve had. I have this horrible feeling that it’s never going to happen. That I’ll be that sad old woman stuck in a nursing home with no visitors because I never had children and so I have no one to take care of me. Every holiday I’ll sit and stare out the window and wish I had someone to come take me to a family dinner. And when I die, I’ll die alone.

Wow, that’s depressing…sorry. It’s been a bad day. I’ll cry it out and feel better tomorrow.

I realize this is irrational…(Warning: Debbie Downer Alert)

28 Apr

So, I’m a relatively intelligent person. For the most part I’m pretty pragmatic, and I’m not what you would call superstitious.

However.

There’s a woman I work with who is a few years younger than me, has PCOS and had been trying to get pregnant for about a year or so. She opened up to me about it, and I shared my story with her (spoiler alert: it’s a long story that includes a diagnosis of Endometriosis). For a few months it was really nice to commiserate with her on all things infertility related. I thought to myself “why did it take me so long to talk about this with people?” Then, about two months ago, she got pregnant. She’s working with an RE that I’d seen about two years ago (who failed to diagnose my endometriosis OR successfully knock me up). And now she’s pregnant.

So. Am I happy for her? Sure, I guess a little. As part of the infertility community part of me gains hope from others who get pregnant after  a year or more of trying.

However.

I also have a completely irrational thought: Every other woman who gets pregnant after struggling with infertility leaves one less chance for me. As if there’s a finite number of women who this can happen to. Each time it happens to someone else makes my chances slimmer.

Is that crazy? Am I alone in thinking that way? I am currently in my “fertile window” for this month …whatever that is. Which means taking 20+ pills/supplements a day and all the other fun stuff that comes along with “trying”. This is another cycle where I’m trying to be positive, think that it’s possible for us to get pregnant, all the while preparing myself for another failure. And when I hear of another pregnancy announcement, I feel a little bit of my chance slipping away.

I feel guilty for thinking this way. I want to be genuinely, wholly happy for others when they get pregnant, but I don’t. And then I feel bad for not feeling happy for them. Ugh. Infertility sucks.

When I’m feeling low

22 Apr

Over the past few years, I’ve realized that I can’t be angry/depressed/sad/lonely all the time. It’s a really horrible place to live. So, One of the ways I’ve found to help myself out of my (many) please-God-give-us-a-baby funks is to list all the things I’m thankful to have in my life. Usually this happens while I’m walking my dog or crying into a glass of wine. The list usually contains a lot of the same items, but depending on the day (and my mood), other random things get thrown in. Since I very often post more angry/sad type rants, I thought I should balance out my blog by posting something somewhat more positive. So, here is  my ever-growing, ever-changing list of things in my life that I am thankful for:

1. My husband. I know it’s a cliché way to start a list, but he is always at the top of the list because he is so kind, thoughtful, funny, understanding, and, well…he’s just a good man. I don’t know how I got so lucky that he saw something in me and wanted to marry me. Honestly, it’s what makes this whole infertility thing the most difficult. He would be an amazing father, and that I can’t give that to him is the most painful part of this process…but that’s another post altogether.

2. Lilac bushes. Walking out on our back deck and inhaling the scent of lilacs on the slight spring breeze always makes me smile and feel that life is good.

3. My beagle-mix pup. He’s seven this year, and he brings me so much love and joy. I love watching him throw himself down and roll in the grass, chase squirrels, chew sticks, and twist himself upside-down in his corner chair and snore the day away.

4. Our house. We’ve only been here for two years, but I love our little house. The two fireplaces, the big yard, the wood floors, the gardens, the built-in bookshelves in the living room, my husband’s art studio in the basement…everything about it is perfect for us.

5. My job. I’m a school counselor at a private school where I work with kids in grades K-8. Before I got my masters, I was a middle school English teacher. I’ve always loved working with kids, and my job is the greatest…80% of the time.

6. Being able to sleep in. While I do long to have children, there is one thing that I secretly love about not having kids: sleeping in. I truly hope there will be a day when I can’t sleep in because my kid(s) wake me up early, but for now, one of the perks of not being able to have kids is sleeping however long I want.

7. Doing whatever we want, when we want. Perk #2 of not having kids is being able to do whatever, whenever. Dinner, movie, day trip, you name it, we can do it. And we don’t have to pay for a babysitter.

8. Sweatpants. Whoever came up with the idea for stretchy, comfortable pants that you can lounge around in is a freaking genius. If I could live in sweatpants I would.

9. Books. I can get lost in books for hours/days at a time. Nearly every other activity bores me at some point, but not reading. While I do enjoy libraries, and I do get books from them, I really love to own books and fill up my bookshelves. I re-read my books over and over, so I feel like I get my money’s worth.

10. Going for walks and hikes with my family and all our seven dogs. We try to go once a week with everyone for a long hike on one of the many trails around where we live, and it’s fun and relaxing to be together and get dirty and sweaty with our dogs leading the way.

I’ll leave it at ten for now. Each day I add something different to the list, sometimes it’s silly things like a favorite pair of shoes, and other times it’s something important like family stuff, but these 10 are pretty representative of what I love about my life right now. No, life isn’t perfect. I still am desperate to be a mom, but there are many other parts of life that I am so thankful for. And when I’m feeling low, I remind myself of the things I love, and (usually) it’s helps me to feel a little brighter.

How about you? What would your list contain?

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Fail #72

14 Apr

Warning: This post is going to be about periods. And I don’t mean the punctuation.

So. I got my period this morning. Nothing exceptional about that since I always get my period right. on. time. Nothing noteworthy about this cycle except that it’s Cycle Failure Number Seventy-Two. Six years of getting my period right on time. Every month.

And I know this. I know that my period will arrive, as scheduled, each month. Even though I’ve had three surgeries, seen 4 RE’s, taken every medication you can imagine, and have had timed-sex ad nauseum (un-timed sex is awesome. timed sex? eh.) for these past six years, I know that my period will arrive right on time.

But it’s amazing the tricks your mind can play on you when you really want to be pregnant. I’ve been EXHAUSTED for the past few days. So tired, in fact, that I actually slept in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. This might not mean much to anyone else, anyone who has actually taken naps before, but I literally NEVER do that. And I was not feeling right…like headache/sick in the stomach not right for the past two or so days. And there were other little things over the past week or so that could have been interpreted as “I might be pregnant” stuff. Despite all these  things, I still mentally tried very hard to maintain my “there’s no way I’m pregnant” thought patterns. It helps with the crushing disappointment of actually getting my period if I deny the possibility of pregnancy all month long.

So the reality? I’ve gotten a cold AND I have my period. Which, of course, totally explains why I’ve felt like such crap for the past couple days. And while I pretty much banked on this being the case, it still would have been really nice to have been pregnant this month.

In the last month I’ve decided that I won’t become crushingly depressed each month when I get my period. Who can live like that? Instead I’ll be sad, maybe cry a little, then make a plan for next month. So that is what I will do today. Now I’m going to go put on my sweatpants and remain in them all weekend.

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But I don’t feel strong

30 Mar

In reading some other bloggers that I’ve come to follow, and in talking to the (very few) friends I have who are struggling/have struggled with infertility, I’ve become a lot more conscious of the seemingly impossible task of remaining positive in this whole process. The mostly-defeating,  hope/hope crushed/despair/recovery/hope again cycle is soul grinding and it wears a person down after a few years… or at least it has for me.

About half a year ago, my sister-in-law commented on how “strong” I am to be able to go through this. A few days before she’d just announced that she and my brother were going to have their second child. I didn’t handle that announcement well internally, but thankfully I was able to pull myself together outwardly, congratulate them, and then sobbed like an idiot the entire car ride home.  A few days later I wanted to talk with her so that she would know for sure that, while I’m happy for her and my brother, I probably won’t ask about her pregnancy and I’ll probably basically ignore the fact that she’s pregnant. That was when she made the “You are always so strong” comment.  And while I was somewhat proud that she saw me that way, in my head my only thought was “But I don’t feel strong”. Which, of course, gave way to an inner dialogue about the meaning of strength and how I define the word itself.

Having been on this journey for over five years, I know that there are “normal” days and “I want to crawl into a hole and never come out” days. The latter kind are more frequent in the beginning, becoming more sporadic with each passing year. The former kind of “normal” day truly does become the norm, and while that brings a certain kind of stability, it also brings its own grief because it has to do with the letting go of control over the future. And I guess that’s what I’ve been learning to do: letting go of my (perceived) control over things: my body, my hormones, my daily, weekly, monthly understanding of what my body is doing, and essentially, letting go of what my plans for the future will be.

Please don’t misunderstand. I still have my out-of-nowhere, break-down-and -cry moments. Just last weekend I was in the car with my mom and sister. They were in the front talking about her three children and all the crazy/cute things they do, and in the midst of the conversation it just hit me: I will probably never be able to have any of these experiences. So I cried. Silently. And then I pulled myself together to enjoy the rest of the evening. Four years ago the whole evening would have been lost to my despair, but now, at year six, the turnaround is much faster.

I don’t know…I don’t think that makes me strong. Realistic? Sure.

But strong? I’ve definitely had to BE strong, but…no, never in this process have I felt strong.

“Helpful” People

10 Mar

Sometimes I really don’t like people. The following is a list of actual comments I’ve received from people about my not having any children: 

1. When are you guys going to have kids? I mean, you’re not getting any younger (Thank you, new neighbor who I’ve literally known for 6 months. I’ll get right on that now that you’ve suggested it.)

2. It must not be in God’s plan. (Well it must be in His omniscient plan for me to punch you in the mouth because that’s what I’m about to do.)

3. Maybe God knows you wouldn’t be a good mother. (Yes, someone actually said these words to me.)

4. Well, have you tried….(IUI, acupuncture, IVF, etc, etc, etc)

5. You should adopt. Then you would get pregnant (followed by the story of a friend of a friend who this happened to).

6. Why don’t you just adopt? (Oh, is it that simple?!? Why didn’t I think of that???  Better yet, why don’t I just put diapers on my dog, put him in a stroller and call it a day?)

AND, although this one was never said directly to me, one of the wives in our group of friends has been telling people:

7. They don’t have kids because she (me) doesn’t like children. Even though he (my husband) really wants kids, SHE doesn’t.

Anyone else have any of these gems to share? 

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