I decided to write about this tough topic, the loss of fertility: this is one of the most feared possible long-term side effects of chemotherapy, especially for those who face this disease at a young age and not having children yet.
As usual, I don’t want to talk about the medical part but, just keep in mind that there are various solutions to this problem: from an injection to protect the ovaries to the freezing of your own eggs, either fertilized or not.
Having a child wasn’t a priority at the time of the diagnosis, and it is not my priority now; yet, it goes to demonstrate that, sometimes (more often as of late, cursed menopause hormones), even I can be sentimental: last night I started to cry by looking at a video of a child birth.
Since I pretty much always have to deal with issues head-on, I decided to write about this.
What I realized yesterday, watching the moment of birth and the joy of mom and dad is that, regardless of whether or not I would want to have a child, I don’t know if I can ever experience this. I felt a lot of sadness.
Obviously, then, my rational part took over with technical explanations over the subject, proposals and solutions to the various issues, going from common sense things such as adoption to the point of getting lost to the idea of opening a kennel or a cattery… eh sorry! Well… trying to be serious for a moment, I carried my tears throughout most of the evening and I still have a little sadness this morning as I write.
Shortly after the diagnosis, among the various scheduled appointments, one of the first of them was the visit to the “Fertility Clinic”. I still was in the initial phase of the tests, and during this visit I was angry with the whole world, and annoyed because I could not answer most of the questions that the doctor was asking me, from the type of tumor to its stage, to which were the following steps supposed to be.
Various possibilities have been exposed to me (some for a fee, but honestly not so expensive as you might imagine), but my decision in the end was: “I will take what comes, if the treatments compromise my fertility I will deal with it”.
I don’t regret this choice, there are people who struggle a lifetime to have a child and unfortunately sometimes there already is infertility without the intervention of the chemo… who knows whether I am one of these?
Personally and selfishly I did not feel like facing another surgery to remove the eggs as well as I did not feel like slowing down the whole program of treatment, but if fertility is important for you, take your time and keep in mind that there are many possibilities.
I would make my choice again, as it was conscious and reasoned, considering what I felt at that moment; this being said, I don’t deny that I sometimes think about it.
It’s okay to cry, sometimes it’s just what you need to release tension and sadness, it is ok to have bad days and bad thoughts. The important things are both not giving up and letting go but also and above all accepting these bad moments. I already am in love with this blog because it gives me the opportunity to write what goes on in my head, and it also is a good way to exorcise my fears a little, to process them out loud. It is strange how once put down in black and white and re-read, these issues already are a little less scary. However, give yourself a self-pat on the back and start with more strength and fierceness than before.
I trust my ovaries in the end, they already proved to be anarchists during the first cycles of chemotherapy when, unperturbed, they kept doing their job (they didn’t want to understand that they had to take a vacation), and again at the end of the treatments when, to make them understand that they had to temporarily go into forced menopause, we had to switch to heavy medicines 😉
So, I hope that, if and when they have to get back to their job, they will work again 🙂