Follicles ʁ Us

Things are really moving along now. My bone marrow and spinal tap biopsies came back negative for lymphoma, which is great news. I'm on Day 6 of injecting myself with FSH to stimulate extra eggs so that we can retrieve, fertilize, cryopreserve them next week. It's definitely nerve-wracking to have this potentially be our one chance to make our own biological babies, but I am grateful that we at least have this chance. It is certainly still possible that I'll come through chemo, resume my normal cycle, and that we could conceive naturally at some point- but there are no guarantees. Some women become menopausal after chemo, and some don't. Since I'm only stage II, the oncologists said it was reasonable to delay chemotherapy to go through this process, and we are participating in the Livestrong Foundation's Fertile Hope Program, which helps cover a large portion of the cost of IVF for cancer patients. I know that Lance Armstrong has gotten some bad press recently (which he deserved), but I for one am grateful for the work that his Foundation is doing- it's so much bigger than him. So by sometime next week, we will know how many embryos will be waiting for us once chemo is over and we are cleared to transfer one or more of them into my belly to bring them to the next phase of development. That idea will be helpful to hold on to when I'm feeling discouraged, tired, and hopeless over the coming months- my carrot on the end of the stick.

I have to say that I've become rather geeked-out on the science I've been learning about over the last few weeks, although it may be serving as a defense mechanism to keep me from becoming overwhelmed with feelings of fear, anger, and doubt that have been surfacing recently. It's tricky to accept that I have cancer when I don't have any symptoms besides a lump in my neck, and that the treatment to cure it may make me feel more sick than the disease itself makes me feel. That's been weighing pretty heavily on my mind recently. I try to funnel that into some sort of gratitude practice around how good I feel physically right now so that I can appreciate it while it's here, but some negative emotions still surface when I think about the pending treatment that is about 2 weeks away.

I am pretty excited about the photo project that I've started with a fellow art student and will be sharing images from that soon- probably as an external link attached to this blog. Just pulled some Chickpea Burgers out of the oven, so I'm off to eat good food from the Cancer Fighting Kitchen cookbook. Here's the recipe if you want to try them, too!