Excuse me, ma'am. Might I borrow your uterus?

Today I am having surgery. I get to have these rock hard tissue expanders taken out and replaced with soft, more natural feeling breast implants. That part is pretty exciting. I might wake up feeling like a real woman, and not someone that currently has huge cantaloupes strapped to her chest. On a less exciting note, I am having a total hysterectomy. Say goodbye to my uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and any chance at ever carrying another baby.  Even typing this I cannot see through the tears. My heart hurts and I am very angry. Angry that breast cancer has robbed me of the ability to chose when I am done having children. If it were up to me I would have a soccer team, or a small army. I have two beautiful girls and love every minute I have with them. I can't wait until they get older and we can go shopping, read books together, and dance around the house singing songs. If it were my choice, Emma and Bella would have a little brother, Rex. Or a little sister, Annabelle. Or maybe twins again. Yes, I may be crazy but I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Unlike other women in my position, I have 2 frozen embryos. I haven't figured out yet if this is a good thing or a bad thing. If they did not exist I think I would be able to move on with my life, but would also have no way of ever conceiving again.  Currently I am stuck in a rut.  I want nothing more than these 2 embryos to have names. Rex and Annabelle. Rex would be tall, dark, and handsome like his daddy and Annabelle would be a mix of Emma and Bella. Short, spunky, ornery. The only way for these embryos to ever have actual names is to find someone willing to be a surrogate for us.  I currently have a patient that is using a surrogate because she is unable to get pregnant for medical reasons. She is using a close friend and says that this will cost her around $30,000. To go through an agency and use an unknown surrogate costs around $80,000. Unless we win the lottery both of these options seem like impossibilities. What is the appropriate way to approach someone about using their uterus? "Hi, how are you? Can I borrow your uterus for the next 9 months or so?" "Wow, you look great! Would you mind if I wreck your body with my embryos?" "You look like you carry children well. Want to carry mine?" None of these sound quite right.
Who would be willing to carry my children? Who would I want to carry my children? This is a big deal. This is like the most important job interview of all time. Name, age, do you drink? smoke? Would you love my babies and take care of them the way I would?? This is a lot of trust to put in one person. I don't know if I am capable. There are only a few people in this world that I think I could trust with this, and I have no idea how to begin the conversation. Currently accepting advice, and someone willing to carry my babies!!

My week from hell...and the hospital stay to follow.

On Monday of this week I was still feeling really lousy from chemo and decided not to go to work. Well, I still had to go in to have lab done and get hydration but I didn't do any actual work.  My white blood cell count had dropped to a whopping 0.5 with this treatment. (Normal is about 5-10). So that explains why I feel like shit.  Throughout the week I continued to feel terrible. I had no energy, nausea, body aches, blah blah blah.  On Thursday I went to see the doctor and my white count was still low, I got some more hydration, and was sent on my merry way.  The new plan was that I wouldn't be getting my Taxol treatment starting on Monday as planned and it would be changing from every 2 weeks to weekly to help with side effects. I went home feeling lousy and like a huge pussy. Really? Is chemo really this hard? Why am I such a pain in the ass!
Thursday evening my nose began to run in mass amounts and my cough returned (that I seem to have had for about 6 weeks). My poor husband has stayed home all week to help take care of me and the girls (I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own) and I asked my mom to come help Friday afternoon and evening so that he could go to work.  I huffed and puffed the whole time she was there and after we attempted to eat dinner she ended up calling Gary home from work to take me to ER. I couldn't breathe.

So here I am at 530 in the morning wide awake sitting in my hospital room where I have since been admitted for pneumonia. I have not slept a wink, I am starving and there is no meal in my near future.  This pneumonia is apparently concerning enough that I have to have a bronchoscopy this morning.  I am slightly terrified, but more hungry than anything. I want something really greasy to eat, covered in some kind of sauce, and then some more sauce, with a side of Bloody Mary (or three).  I haven't threatened to kill anyone for food just yet but I was told not to eat my pillow.

I have had wonderful care here, from the ER people at St. Theresa to the EMS that transported me to St. Francis, to the wonderful nurses on 7N (some of which I used to work with when I worked here). I'm not a prayer person. I don't really understand it all but I'm currently accepting prayers. I'm currently feeling worse than I had ever thought I would feel through chemo. It's scary when you can't breathe and feel like you are dying and only 31.  I know this is just another kink in my road that will make me stronger but I'm getting really tired of kinks. I want a day of feeling good. And a greasy meal.  Please!?!

Without change there would be no butterflies.

So far this BAD pump is helping my nausea, although it comes at the cost of being sedated 24 hours a day. I have not spent a morning yet in the bathroom.  I have also eaten every meal and have a major craving for ice cream. So, I'm blowing through the Drumsticks that we have in the freezer and I'm not feeling guilty at all about it.
There are several things that have changed that I hadn't expected. Some are physical things and some are mental. For starters, water does not taste like water. It's more like drinking slime out of a glass. With this chemo I have had more problems finding something I can drink. I have tried Gatorade (too salty), apple juice (too sweet), lemonade (too tangy), and flavored water with lemon, lime and cucumbers (blah). I know I am dehydrated and I'm trying my hardest to get in enough fluids but I am failing. Big time failing.
Holding my girls does not feel like it did before.  I used to be able to feel their warmth against my chest and now my chest is numb. It feels like there is something foreign wedged in between my babies and I where my breasts were and my foobs (fake boobs) are now. The sad part is that this is probably never going to go away.
My hair hasn't all fallen out but it isn't growing either.  I shaved my head several weeks ago and it's still that short. I haven't shaved my armpits for weeks (which has been really nice). I guess I would consider this change to be more of a "perk".  It's nice not having to shave but it would be nice to have hair.  I keep seeing people with long pretty hair and it almost makes me cry sometimes. I have long pretty hair when I want to wear my wig but it's not the same.
All of the "moments" I have with my girls are more special.  I think anytime someone struggles with infertility issues has a new level of appreciation for the children that they are blessed with. I have felt blessed from the beginning to have these beautiful girls and I think I appreciate everything that we go through more than someone that hasn't had these struggles. When you throw cancer into this mix, every moment becomes special. Every smile, every laugh, every tear is special and has meaning.
I have always been a music lover. I like to sing and dance around the house when it's just me and my little girlies. I usually can sing most of the words but couldn't tell you what the song was actually about. I have noticed lately that when the radio plays I seem to find meaning in most songs. I actually hear what is being sung and understand the meaning whereas before I didn't really care.
I see the good in people now.  Before cancer I was very distrusting of people and it was hard to see the good in some people. Now I think I see the good a lot of times before I see the bad. I feel like I have been softened somehow.
Throughout my cancer journey I have tried to see the positive. There are a lot of obvious negatives but the positives are harder to see sometimes. I feel like I am becoming a much stronger person, I'm happier, I'm more positive, and I think I'm kicking the crap out of this little bitch named "cancer." I know that everything happens for a reason, and although I'm really pissed sometimes that this happened to me, in a way I am also thankful.  After all "without change there would be no butterflies."

Third times a charm.

Today is my third chemo. I have so far spent way too many days vomiting my toes up in the bathroom. I know the inside of our toilet well, and it needs to be cleaned. This time will be different, or so I tell myself. Since nothing I tried with the last treatment worked I am being forced to wear a 24 hour nausea pump called a BAD pump (benadryl, ativan, decadron). I'm not excited at all to wear this pump, but I am excited to see if it works.  I took this entire week off of work, since I knew how bad I felt last time. I don't like to call in sick to work and if given the option of calling in sick or coming in sick I always choose to come in to work. Therefore, I took the week off so that I wouldn't feel as bad not being there. They can plan ahead and just plan to miss me for a week.
The other thing that has changed with this treatment is that I will be trying some "alternative" nausea meds. (And by this I mean pot.) Mom, stop judging me.  If you were in my shoes you might decide to try it too. I am not a pot smoker. I have only ever tried this one time in my life and hated it. But I do vaguely remember eating almost an entire bag of chips after smoking. And since I haven't eaten much in the past month, I'm welcoming the munchies. I tried Marinol with my last treatment (which is Mary Jane in pill form) and I hated it. I would feel fine one minute and then all of a sudden, BOOM. Stoned. Really really stoned.  Not my thing. We shall see if the real deal is any better for me. It's funny what we are willing to try when we have no other choice.  The last pair of jeans I bought were a size smaller than usual. Those are now hanging on me, and my butt has disappeared completely.  I was comfortable losing weight in my legs, my arms, my post baby belly. But the butt was just taking it too far. It needs to come back. Now. So, Mary Jane, hopefully you will make me love food again and will bring my booty back.

Gnarly Neon 5K

Before I was diagnosed I had signed up for my first 5K. I never got to run it, or walk it for that matter.  Before I started chemo I decided to sign up for a 5K to run with a group of my coworkers. We signed up for the Gnarly Neon. What better way to spend a Saturday than getting splattered with neon paint while running. Well...lets be honest. We ran for about 5 minutes total and walked the rest. I ran what I felt like I could, which was disappointing at best. But at least my posse walked with me, instead of leaving me in their dust.  We walked, and talked, and watched all of the other crazies that were out with us.
My plan is to continue signing up and running what I can, until I can run the whole thing.  This was a goal I had before cancer and cant see any reason why cancer should change this.  I have a vision of me and my little princesses spending the weekends at races getting in shape. Bring it on 5Ks. Im ready.

Premonitions and Mary Kay

I saw Dr. today and will get my next chemo as scheduled on Monday.  Tonight I am planning to relax and pamper myself.  The past 2 weeks have been rough. Im not looking forward to the next chemo at all.

One of the girls I have known since middle school, Hannah, came over tonight for a Mary Kay party. She had asked if she could come pamper me and I agreed. Who doesn't need pampering? I invited one of my best friends Suzy over and we had a good time talking and getting our makeup done.

After Hannah left Suzy and I talked about her new job, her old job (with me), and our kids.  I don't talk to people about the fears going on inside of my head because to even think about them makes me cry. For whatever reason I felt like I needed to tell her what I was thinking and I'm glad I did. It felt good to get those thoughts out.

I have known since I was little that I would get breast cancer at a young age. Maybe it was just because my mom had breast cancer young and I thought I would follow in her footsteps or maybe it was something else.  I knew when I had my BRCA testing that I would have the gene mutation.  I knew when I had my breast MRI in February that something was on the left side. I have feelings sometimes that I cant explain. Premonitions.  

One of the feelings I have had for several years is that I am going to die at a young age from breast cancer.  I know that my cancer was caught early and that I will be fine.  I also know that I have a high  risk of it coming back, in which case I might not be fine.  What if this feeling is not just a feeling? What if it really happens? I have a huge fear that I will die from this and will not get to see my kids grow up.  

I remember when I graduated from high school my mom was very tearful. I thought she was just being emotional but she told me that when my sister and I were little and she was going through chemo she had asked God to let her live long enough to see us graduate.  That day came and went and she is still alive and healthy. I never understood why she was so emotional until now.

I don't believe in a God. Who do I ask to let me live? I want to see their first day of Kindergarten, their first school program, their first soccer game. I want to see high school graduation, college graduation, their wedding days, the births of their children, and then all of the above events for my grandchildren.  What if all I get is a few years?  I'm loving every smile, every laugh, every new development. I just cant imagine not being around for many many many years to come. I put on my big girl panties when Im in public. But inside my head are all of the "what ifs".  I don't know how to turn them off.

Im currently accepting feedback...

Marinol? Really?

Today I came in to the office for hydration. I have eaten basically nothing since Monday night, despite my arsenal of nausea meds. Dr. Truong came to see me in the treatment room and suggested that I start taking Marinol. I laughed at him and told him he was crazy and then he told me I have tried everything else.  So...after my hydration was done I went to the pharmacy and picked up my Marinol. For those of you that don't know, Marinol is marijuana in pill form.  I guess if it works it works!!