Now on to the medical oncologist appointment. Thankfully I really liked the oncologist since I will be stuck with her for the next 5-10 years! This appointment went as well as I could hope for, except I found out what my chemo treatment would be, and this unfortunately was not was I was hoping. No pill. No keeping my hair. No "easy" treatment. I would have to go through an aggressive two-round drug cocktail for chemotherapy that will last 20 weeks. For those of you who don't know (I didn't before this appointment) cancerous tumors are judged based on their "stage" (research terminology) and "grade" (how fast are the cancerous cells reproducing). My "stage" was good, 1A the lowest they could hope for. Awesome. But my body hates me and my "grade" on a scale of 1-3 (1 is the best, 3 the worst) my cells were a 3. Of course. My cancer had been caught early enough that it didn't have a chance to grow any larger, but they way my oncologist put it, I have "very angry cells" that are reproducing quickly. This is common in young patients diagnosed with breast cancer, it's usually a much more aggressive type.
The one good take away from this appointment is that I had a plan, no more hurry up and wait for me. BUT it would be more of that. The doctor asked if my husband and I wanted more kids in our future, my answer was YES. Colin keeps saying that he has his boy, so he's done, HA! Because of the answering being yes, my treatment just became a little more complicated. With this aggressive treatment, my chances of having children naturally after treatment would be very, very slim since the drugs they are putting me on are VERY potent. So here's another wrench.
For once though, my body was working on my side and after contacting the reproductive doctor we could go through the process (rather quickly) and do an egg harvest. My chemo treatment was going to start last Monday, December 1st, but with the IVF, it was pushed back to start on Monday, December 8th. So now only did I find out I had to go through chemo, I also found out that I had to go through IVF to have any more children. It's been a rough couple of months for me and my spirit. But thankfully my body was working in my favor and it was possible to start the IVF process in time.
I think the IVF process has been one of the harder aspects of me to deal with. While I am thankful that this process is available and I am able to do this, they don't make it easy. It's expensive, time consuming, and very counter intuitive (having to stab myself multiple times with needles twice a day). And when I'm saying expensive, I mean E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. My insurance doesn't cover any of the procedure and it includes over $7,000 worth of medications, with the doctor's fee of just under $5,000 too. So looking at these numbers, there is a total expense of roughly $12,000. That is just bat-shit insane. Who can afford that? Surely not me and my teacher husband!
While these numbers were hard to digest, I did get some good news from the doctor's office. Because we were not opting to go through this and because I have cancer and will be going through chemotherapy, one of the drug companies has a policy in place to give the $7,000 in medication free. Ok, we could do this, with some help of course. I am definitely not the most religious person around, but I knew in that moment that there was someone up there working in my favor and making all of this possible. I freaked out a little still, just about the remainder of the cost, but with so much of the cost covered, I could get through. Now on to the hard part, stabbing myself with a needle! I'm probably going to need some help with that.
On my to-do list: call my nursing friends!
Until next time.
You should set up one of those online accounts where people can donate to help with the expense.
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