A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked how I was handling my upcoming surgery, without hesitation I said, “Fine.” I mean, why wouldn’t I be, I made the decision to have this surgery, no one told me I had to. That all changed this week, during my pre-op appointment it took all I had to keep myself together while I was in the doctor’s office. I was able to make it out of the building and into my car before I completely lost it and cried the whole way home.
I was fine the whole time I was with my OB discussing the surgery but that changed once I met with the nurse to do my paperwork. I don’t know what happened but from the moment she opened her mouth I just wanted to cry. Maybe it was the fact she raved about my hair, how cute it was, and how she always wanted to cut her hair short but just couldn’t do it. I said, “thank you” with a smile but I really want to yell “I didn’t choose this hairstyle, it’s this short because I cancer and it all fell out.”
It could have also been the fact she told me I couldn’t eat solid foods starting the morning before my surgery and nothing the day of. My surgery is scheduled for 1pm, so that means 30+ hours with no food. I looked at her and asked, “no food for 30 hours?”, she smiled at said, “you can have jello.” Really? Was she serious? If you are worried that I might be a bit cranky after the surgery without hormones in my body, try being around me when I can’t eat, it’s not pleasant!
At this point, I had also been at the doctor’s office for almost 2 hours, which didn’t help the emotions I was feeling. Next, she scheduled my post op appointment for June 4th, the doctor said he wanted to see me 2-3 weeks after not 4 days, couldn’t she read the form? So I had to wait for her to reschedule that appointment.
When she asked me how I was going to pay my account balance, I said, “excuse me”. Since my oncologist and OB are both part of Physicians East, they require me to pay any outstanding balances prior to surgery. It wasn’t that my balance was extremely high (I have pretty decent insurance – one of the few perks of being a state employee) or that I couldn’t afford to pay it, I think it was more of a shock that they wouldn’t perform my surgery if I didn’t pay. As I handed over my debit card, I thought about patients who couldn’t afford to pay, would they be denied care? Besides, I’m still a patient being seen every 3 weeks for active treatment it wasn’t like I had owed them thousands of dollars and hadn’t been seen by the doctor in months.
It could have been any number of things that afternoon at the doctor’s office but, let’s face it … it was me just facing the reality of my surgery. We chose not to harvest my eggs, prior to treatment, for many reasons but mainly because it meant that I would have to delay receiving treatment for 3 or so months. With a fast growing tumor that had already spread to my lymph nodes we didn’t want to take the chance of waiting. What good would my eggs be if I wasn’t around to carry them? Even if my eggs made it through chemo and are still viable I would have to wait until after I finished my 10 year course of tamoxifen before I could get pregnant. That would put me at 44 with a 14 year old trying to have a baby… no thank you!
I thought I had made peace, early in my treatment, that more biological children were not going to be part of our future and some days I’m perfectly fine with that decision, other days I’m not. It’s not that I regret the decision we made, I have been blessed with the most precious, adorable, funny, sweet, little boy a mother could ask for, I’m just angry that I had to make a decision like that. No one should have to make decisions like that, cancer just sucks! And while I’m super excited for everyone that I know having babies, I’m also a little jealous because I know that won’t be me and I’m reminded again of this shitty hand I was dealt.
Cancer is an emotional roller coaster, as you can probably tell from this and some of my other blog posts. One day you are upbeat and positive, the next you are crying on the way home from a pre-op appointment, for no good reason! I try every day to have a positive attitude because that’s how I’m going to beat this but sometimes the reality of it all is just so overwhelming.
