Breast Cancer with a side of baggage. Part one: The Egg Freezing Experience

When I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, I was expecting either chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, or all of the above. With my specific type of cancer, chemotherapy before all else is recommended to shrink the tumor first. What I wasn’t expecting was everything else that comes along with the diagnosis. In my mind it basically went like this: “Hey you have cancer and since you’re going through chemotherapy, do you want kids in the future ? There is a big chance you will become infertile after treatment.”

Um… what? I may be 25 but being a college student along with my financial status, I cannot picture having kids of my own for AT LEAST 8-10 years. If I decide to have kids that is. I LOVE kids; I work with them and my career will involve working with kids- just the idea of having my own is way out of the picture currently. WAY*

As a sweet little birdie put it (boyfriend’s mom) freezing my eggs is like a “savings account.” It’ll be there if/when I need it.

So then the egg-freezing process started. Insurance doesn’t cover this because I am not proven to be infertile, nor have tried to get pregnant. Christ no I have not tried to get pregnant. So about 4500 dollars later, I had appointments with the specialists every other day to track my treatment progress. Internal ultrasounds and having my blood drawn every other day is as fun as it sounds; especially when the appointments take place bright and early in Evanston. But hey! At least I found out I’m allergic to one of the medications (Letrozole) It looked a little something like this:

Go big or go home amiright?

 

During the time of retrieval,  they retrieved a lot of eggs. After examining each egg, they keep the ‘good’ ones to freeze. Don’t ask me the exact amount because I have chemo brain and I don’t know what the exact number is LOL. Chemo brain is very very real, it can also be frustrating, but sometimes hilarious. Sometimes I can’t form words and stutter like it’s my job. Thanks chemo, or lack of sleep…or both.

Here’s some more baggage and how I saw it in my mind:

“OH P.S  your hair will fall out, this particular regimen of chemo can cause weight gain and can be very hard to lose and we are going to place a portacath in before you can start chemo.” “PS PS- You like dairy? Too bad, limit it to a very minimum.”

… To be continued on part ii of this blog, next week. I initially had the rest posted here, but it was WAY TOO LONG

❤ Until next time

(Here’s a song that I listen to on those tough days. I love allll types of music. For those of you who don’t know me well, I especially love Pretty Lights. Who knows, maybe this song will help you too. Listen here THANKFULLY I GET MY PL FIX IN CHICAGO THIS MONTH)