Surprise!

I had a surprise pop up back in September, a week before I was scheduled to have my breast implants exchanged.  I was anxiously awaiting the surgery, it was very close to the last step of my reconstruction.  I had been having issues for over six months, however.  (Get ready to cringe guys).  My periods were shortening greatly, only a couple days at a time, and they were much more frequent.  One month I had two, another I had three.  My gp arranged for me to see a gynecologist in at the IWK to see what was going on.

I had a lot going through my mind.  There was the less severe things like going into menopause early because of the chemotherapy back in 2010/2011.  Another much more terrifying thought was that cancer found a new home and had started up this change in my body.  My husband was trying to help me stay positive, but he's realistic like me, so he was trying to see all possible angles, as well.  Of course, the day before my appointment he says one possibility that I had not given a single thought, and quickly dismissed.  I'll elaborate shortly.

I have the gyno my history, the elaborate story of my cancer journey, including the birth of my daughter post cancer.  At the gyno's I had a test that was routine, just a precaution, that they had to always preform.  The gyno came in the room, preparing to do a scraping of my uterus to test for a few things, including types of cancer.  She looked at the test, so did the nurse.  My gyno says, "What does the second line mean?"  The nurse is still staring at the test, "It means she's pregnant."  My reaction?  "What do you mean there's a second line??  That wasn't there a second ago."

Sure enough, my husband jinxed me.  He had asked me the day before, "What if you're pregnant?"  I said to him that this had been going on for close to 6 months, if I was pregnant I'd be showing just a little by now.  Besides, we had been using protection.  I refuse to use birth control pills since cancer, but they claim that condoms are 99.9% effective.  Well, guess what, we're that magical 0.1%.

The funny thing, I was just 5 weeks pregnant.  I'm not sure what was causing my issue for the previous 6 months, but it had not been the pregnancy.  Everything medical got put on hold.  No surgery could happen after they knew I was pregnant.  Luckily, I could still get the injections for my back and shoulder while pregnant, so that was a lifesaver at least.  But, the reconstruction is on hold again, and I was not looking forward to how my injuries from the car accident would be paining me throughout the pregnancy.

This was a big surprise, we didn't plan on having more children.  We had talked about it for months and decided to leave our family at four, not five, just us and the two kids.  I had started gathering all my maternity clothes to take to my friend's consignment shop in Dartmouth, we were going to next start gathering the baby items and clothes to clear out.  As luck would have it we had not quite done any of that yet.

We're trying to figure this all out as we go.  Part of our reasoning before for staying a family of four had been my condition with my back and shoulder, but that is out the window, now.  I'll get to test my ability to withstand pain as I will have three munchkins to take care of.  Thank heavens I have my hubby, and my parents and siblings close by.

Let the next adventure begin!

Unexpected miracles

Friends and family are now aware, but I've experienced a miracle recently.  Despite having 6 rounds of toxic chemotherapy, I am giddily happy to let the interwebs now know that I am pregnant.  I have spoken to my oncologist about this, and they wish me all good wishes.  The fact that the egg could create an embryo means the chemo did not affect my eggs to the point of sterilization and should not cause any side effects.

I know what it is like to be on the other side of the fence, now.  I have friends that cannot have children, and for a while, I was counted among them.  Seeing posts of growing bellies and constant updates of "baby so-and-so" now doing this or that can tear at your sanity.  I was always happy for my friends, but so bitter inside because that was one more thing cancer had taken from me.  I find that I am holding back a lot with posts about the pregnancy out of respect for that feeling.  I do not want to have my friends come to the point of needing to block my posts in their Facebook news feed.  Which, in some cases, was a necessary step to be able to face my own news feed the past two years.

If anyone has questions, I will answer them as best I can, but for the most part I will be limiting my pregnancy posts from this point on.  Thank you for all your support.  And, for those of you out there facing cancer now: there is hope.  Cancer may take a lot, but I hope you always find one thing that you thought it stole from you and can once more claim it as your own.  xoxo

Animating

A friend introduced me to a free animating site.  I did some experimenting and came up with this.

CLICK HERE to view video

Displaced anger

I need to start this rant off with first saying, I am very happy for those that have been able to get pregnant and carry their beautiful baby to term.

That being said...

I find myself very, very upset at the abundance of pregnancy photos, fetus talk, and baby growth updates that keep popping up on my facebook newsfeed.  Yes, as I said, I am happy for my friends and their loved ones, but it's a kick in the face when I get reminded that there's a good chance that I will not be able to have any more children.  I might have gotten my periods back, but there's still a chance that my eggs did get hurt or destroyed in chemo treatments.  And if I am lucky enough to get pregnant I will always, always wonder if the chemo could have injured the egg somehow that will effect the child later in life.

I have friends that cannot get pregnant, cannot carry a child, and some that are just finding out that they need their ovaries removed.  I can only imagine the pain they hold in their hearts every time they see pictures of children or the "pregnancy log" photos that are splattered on the web these days.  And, again, I don't want those that are going through this cherished time to think I'm attacking them, this is a vent session.  This is something that cancer may have taken from me, and as a young woman, it hurts my heart a lot.  I love having my son and always intended to have at least one more child.  But now with the length of time I need to wait to try again, and after all the horror stories of how cancer treatments can affect your reproductive parts/cycles, it just so disheartening.

Hopefully, I will be able to have at least one more baby.  And, hopefully they will be completely healthy and happy.  But until then, don't be surprised if you do not see me posting on many of your weekly/daily updates on your fetus' progress.  It's not that I don't support you, it's that my heart hurts too much to try to be the support you need to hear.  I'm angry at the cancer, not you or your baby.

Eyebrows

Going to see 50/50 I didn't know what to expect.  Would they "hollywood" the cancer experience?  Would they make it a traumatic experience?  There was a lot of old emotions and thoughts stirred with watching the character "Adam" experiencing the life of cancer as a young adult.  One thing I got really picky on was that he kept his eyebrows through out his treatment.  I know we don't all loose our hair, but it seemed to be that they were conveying that he did.. but kept his eyebrows magically.

The feelings of not knowing how to express what you're feeling inside and the frustration that engulfs you is completely true.  One sentence in the movie is the one sentence you will repeat over and over and over again, I just want it to be finished.  You want to be able to continue with your life.  You want to be independent like before, you want to be free of appointments, treatments, checkups, medications...  You want to be a regular young adult for one more day at least.

One thing that I could not relate with was the rapidity that Adam seemed to gain his self image after surgery.  My hair is still short and wild, my chest is vacant one breast, and my calendar keeps filling with doctor appointments.  I look in the mirror and I don't see Julie, I still see some lion-esk monster with a very lopsided chest.  I'm there somewhere, I think... well I am as long as I do not look in the mirror...

Scene that I most related to was when Adam was waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up after chemo.  You have the camera pan out after he assures his new "chemo buddies" he'll be fine and all you see is Adam, alone, hiding everything inside him.  You feel the need to be strong and don't want to show "weakness" aka emotions like sadness and anger.  I was him, standing there looking at the people that you reassure as you feel like you are the only person around for miles.  As Adam later battles the steering wheel and the moment in the hospital before the surgery are other relatable moments, as well.

It was a good movie.  I don't know if someone that has not been touched by the decease can fully appreciate it but they can get a glimpse into their friends/families experience.  If you have someone that went through this, it'd be a good one to take them to see.  But be prepared for them to cry, show frustration, and even hold their breath at moments that they have trigger their past.  And not everyone is up to reliving those experiences right away.  Don't pressure anyone to see it, it is very hard to take at moments, being a survivor.

Overall not a bad movie, good acting, I just think they could have delved a bit more into what it's like to be the only young person going to treatment and oncologist appointments, and the question of fertility after treatment.  It hints at isolation, but it's like a car driving by at night, you get the flash of their headlights for a moment, but just as quick as it fills the room with its presence it's gone.  Unfortunately, with being a young adult going through cancer, isolation is not that fleeting.

Fertility. Period.

*For those that don't like discussing the processes females go through to be considered fertile, you won't care for this post - you've been warned ;) *

One thing that a young adult faces, that older adults generally won't bat an eye at, is fertility or rather the infertility that can come with cancer treatments.  Often times we're not even given options to conserve some of our fertility before treatment starts.  This was my case.  The word "menopause" became a jaguar hovering over head, just waiting to pounce on me and end my dreams of having at least two kids.

Now, I'm grateful for the opportunity that I had before this to have my son!  But when you had your heart set on something, it can be very hard to face the reality that you may never reach that dream and you cannot do a damned thing about it.  And it doesn't help when a certain doctor kept trying to use my son as an excuse to bombard me with any form of treatment under the sun, thankfully it wasn't his choice what treatments I went on.

Which brings me to the reason I actually thought of this post.  As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned in previous posts I said no to Tamoxifen.  I want to see if I can heal up fully, and perhaps be able to become a fertile female once more.  Well, I am well on my way.  I started my first period since my fourth chemo session, last Thursday.  That's almost 6 months to the day from my last period! ha!  What does this mean?  Well as long as my eggs are still in working order and not harmed by all the lovely chemo and meds, I have the potential to be one of those few "Family After Cancer Treatments" folks...  This lightens the load on my shoulders quite a bit.  Cancer may have taken my breast, and if I have reconstruction before we conceive I won't be able to breast feed at all, but it may not have taken my ability to create more lil munchkins like my boy.

I guess I'll make an acronym out of that, too... lol "Having kids after chemo, that's a F.A.C.T." ;)