Hope

2/15/22

"It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault."

These words have been echoing in my mind since yesterday. For some reason, I cried through almost the whole session with my new therapist. That never happened with my previous one. 

She said this at the end of our session, after I realized that I'd been blaming myself again. In the book "Radical Remission," there are several stories about c-word patients who knew they needed to change something in their life in order to heal. So I've been searching for the reason this happened to me. 

"Life is chaos," my friend Chelsea said. She was diagnosed with stage III Ovarian C-word a couple of years ago. She had a total hysterectomy, early menopause, and immediate treatment. 

The variety of opinions on this is confusing. Two of them completely oppose each other and are, in my experience, the most common beliefs. Either you have full control over your life, or you don't. 

If you have full control, the way you think dictates what happens in your life. Thoughts become things. This seems mostly true in my experience. Holding onto that belief gave me a renewed sense of control and improved my mental health. But after the MRI results I got on Monday, everything felt out of control again. I felt, in a sense, that I had betrayed myself. I had hoped that the MRI would show that the cyst they initially saw had disappeared, so when it essentially doubled in size instead, my heart felt torn into pieces. 

I felt similarly after my MRI in November. I had hoped, even believed, that my tumor was not going to grow. I spoke with a woman whose astrocytoma hadn't grown for 8 years, since it was first discovered, so she hadn't had any treatment yet. I hoped that would be the case for me.

On top of the heartbreak I felt, I wondered if I had been wrong to put off treatment in order to do the IVF. But Chelsea reminded me that I hadn't been, because motherhood was something I really wanted.

A week or so ago I spoke with my sister Jordan. I was doubting myself again, and wanted to ask her if she thought having children would be worth it (watching her with her kids hasn't always looked fun or glamorous.) "Yes," she said unequivocally. She said that it was hard to describe, but mentioned feeling things like butterflies in your stomach. Unconditional love. A whole new world. It was exactly what I needed to hear. 

I know that I need to stop doubting myself. Yes, the MRI didn't show what I'd hoped for. I had hoped that the cyst would disappear like the spot my doctor saw on my MRI after my surgery. It didn't work out that way, but that doesn't mean that trying to think positively isn't worth it. It still makes the majority of this process easier. 

The session with my therapist also may have been exactly what I needed. Yes, the crying gave me a migraine, but I think that I needed to cry. I have to let the sadness out sometimes. 

2/25/22

I feel I've experienced years of emotions in a week. As if it wasn't enough that my cyst grew, the fertility doctor called me a few days ago, right before Matt walked in the door. She told me that the embryo we thought we could use has an extra chromosome #21. It was listed in the biopsy report as low mosaic, which the educational modules they had us watch had told us are almost as good as "euploid" embryos. Euploid is what you want, ideally--it means that the embryos appear normal. But neither of the other embryos which made it to the freezing stage were euploid. They were not usable. 

"That's disappointing," I said, holding back the true emotions I felt, such as shock, disbelief, and even betrayal.

"My husband and I have decided that another cycle is out of the question," I told her. A "cycle" is about a two-week period where you inject the drugs they give you and then retrieve the eggs at the end, but a lot more goes into that. Actually, the most stressful part for me was not the side effects or injections, but the logistical stress--I had to drive about an hour during rush hour about every other day, and applying for and securing financial assistance involved a lot of calls and paperwork. I have to start radiation now, and although it technically can be done, it would be difficult to do both at the same time. She said apologized and referred me to a genetic counselor to discuss the odds that the baby would have down syndrome. I only started to cry at the end of the call, when Matt walked in. 

I told him the bad news, and then became hysterical. I broke down and cried out, moaning, releasing the emotions that erupted from my soul. Matt told me that he felt it too. That he wanted to cry, but didn't for my sake. It always makes me cry to see him crying. After a few minutes, I took an Ativan to calm down enough to prevent a migraine. Eventually, we agreed that we couldn't afford to dwell on it. My health was more important. 

It hurts much less to accept something than it does to resist it. I'm not going to secure an embryo right now, and that's ok. We can try again after my treatment, or go for the natural route. Maybe the chemo drug will damage my ovaries permanently, but maybe it won't. And yes, I will be older. But that's ok. My older sister conceived without a problem at almost 41, and my oldest sister did at 44, after two miscarriages. On top of that, my cousin, who now has two healthy children, recently told me she did around ten cycles, which I didn't realize before. So maybe we will have children, and maybe we won't. Either way, all hope is not lost.