A Sharp Scratch
Sincere apologies for missing last week’s blog post, the last few weeks have been incredibly stressful and have involved copious amounts of needles that left me a lot more upset than I’d like to admit. Following the amazing news that my most recent MRI scan post-radiotherapy came back completely clear, I was given the difficult decision to decide whether or not I wanted to go ahead with fertility treatment in which my eggs would be collected and frozen if my chemotherapy made me potentially infertile. As someone who has a horrific fear of needles, the prospect of injecting myself daily to get my currently dormant ovaries out of a deep sleep wasn’t exactly how I wanted to spend the next few weeks. Yet, after a lot of crying at the kitchen table, crying in the nurses’ offices, and crying over the phone to my best friend and boyfriend (can you see the pattern emerging here?), I decided to grit my teeth and go ahead with the whole fertility process.
I’ve spent many hours regretting my decision while I mixed the multitude of medicines to inject into my tubby little stomach, the most recent being Saturday as I cried at the size of another needle for another injection I’d have to take daily. On the worst days, there will be a maximum of three needles, on the ‘best’ there’s two, so either way I’m not happy about it. To some, the possibility of becoming infertile leaves a clear choice: ‘Save my eggs so I can have children of my own in the future,’ but given I’ve spent all my sexually active life trying not to get pregnant, I’ve never thought about if having children is something I genuinely want to do; but then we throw a brain tumour in the mix and I’m fully stumped. For those who aren’t following, your risk of developing a brain tumour is higher than other people in the general population if you have a parent, brother, or sister diagnosed with a brain tumour, with the risk currently standing at around 5%. Not only was I deciding if I wanted to have a biological family of my own in the future, but now I had to decide if I wanted to risk giving my own children an unfair diagnosis that would flip their world on it’s head. I’d already been unlucky enough to be that 1 person in 200,000 to develop a brain tumour, and that’s not even looking at having a rare type of brain tumour, so the thought of passing that along to my children plagues me with guilt.
The next issue came with a brand new diagnosis (I know, ANOTHER one) called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS for short. This causes some problems when going through fertility treatment, as it means my ovaries are likely to produce a LOT of eggs, which while improving my chances of having a healthy collection of eggs to be used in the future, does put me at risk of hyper-stimulation, meaning I will produce too many eggs which will lead to a hospital admission. This fun diagnosis also pairs with the fact I already have an insane amount of eggs naturally (the average woman’s follicle count stands at around 20/30. Mine, however, stands at over 100). The end result? Frequent blood tests and internal scans. So my options weren’t looking too bleak: go through fertility treatment and it’s multitude of needles to preserve my eggs, risk not going through treatment in hopes chemotherapy wouldn’t make me infertile, potentially risk overstimulation and a hospital admission, or possibly pass on a genetic brain tumour to my offspring. At 19, it’s not an easy feat. It was then I came to filling in the plethora of forms, where you have to make the morbid decision of if you die or become mentally incapacitated, you need to decide what to do with your eggs. The ability to donate my eggs to research should I not naturally need them or if I was to pass on spiked my interest. The chance to donate my eggs for embryologists to use, not only from a fertility standpoint, but from a neurological point of view allowed me to realise I could give something back to the medical field that wasn’t just a 3cm growth, I could give specialists a chance to look further into genetic dispositions and hereditary factors. My whole journey I have focused on giving back to the NHS and medical fields that have saved my life, and this is a whole new way I can give back to the science that saved me. So that’s what I decided to do.
So, where do I stand currently? I’m on my 9th day of treatment, I’ve cried countless times at the thought of injecting myself, and I’ve had enough internal scans to last me a lifetime (and for the record, it’s like a cold, lubed up, alien probe uncomfortably looking around at your uterus). I’ve claimed multiple times that I can’t do it or won’t do it, only to clench my fist and inject myself 30 minutes later. The main respite in the process is the ice, being able to leave that on my skin for a few minutes to numb the initial ‘sharp scratch’ helps me complete my injections as pain free as possible, with the tolerable sting of the medicine being the only thing to whimper at. The whole process sucks major balls, but my gut still pushes me towards doing it, and the reason for that will become clear in it’s own time. For now, I’m going to eat all the junk food London has to offer, and re-watch The Handmaid’s Tale (is that somewhat ironic? That whole fertility/infertility thing) until the new season drops soon.
I’ve spent many hours regretting my decision while I mixed the multitude of medicines to inject into my tubby little stomach, the most recent being Saturday as I cried at the size of another needle for another injection I’d have to take daily. On the worst days, there will be a maximum of three needles, on the ‘best’ there’s two, so either way I’m not happy about it. To some, the possibility of becoming infertile leaves a clear choice: ‘Save my eggs so I can have children of my own in the future,’ but given I’ve spent all my sexually active life trying not to get pregnant, I’ve never thought about if having children is something I genuinely want to do; but then we throw a brain tumour in the mix and I’m fully stumped. For those who aren’t following, your risk of developing a brain tumour is higher than other people in the general population if you have a parent, brother, or sister diagnosed with a brain tumour, with the risk currently standing at around 5%. Not only was I deciding if I wanted to have a biological family of my own in the future, but now I had to decide if I wanted to risk giving my own children an unfair diagnosis that would flip their world on it’s head. I’d already been unlucky enough to be that 1 person in 200,000 to develop a brain tumour, and that’s not even looking at having a rare type of brain tumour, so the thought of passing that along to my children plagues me with guilt.
The next issue came with a brand new diagnosis (I know, ANOTHER one) called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS for short. This causes some problems when going through fertility treatment, as it means my ovaries are likely to produce a LOT of eggs, which while improving my chances of having a healthy collection of eggs to be used in the future, does put me at risk of hyper-stimulation, meaning I will produce too many eggs which will lead to a hospital admission. This fun diagnosis also pairs with the fact I already have an insane amount of eggs naturally (the average woman’s follicle count stands at around 20/30. Mine, however, stands at over 100). The end result? Frequent blood tests and internal scans. So my options weren’t looking too bleak: go through fertility treatment and it’s multitude of needles to preserve my eggs, risk not going through treatment in hopes chemotherapy wouldn’t make me infertile, potentially risk overstimulation and a hospital admission, or possibly pass on a genetic brain tumour to my offspring. At 19, it’s not an easy feat. It was then I came to filling in the plethora of forms, where you have to make the morbid decision of if you die or become mentally incapacitated, you need to decide what to do with your eggs. The ability to donate my eggs to research should I not naturally need them or if I was to pass on spiked my interest. The chance to donate my eggs for embryologists to use, not only from a fertility standpoint, but from a neurological point of view allowed me to realise I could give something back to the medical field that wasn’t just a 3cm growth, I could give specialists a chance to look further into genetic dispositions and hereditary factors. My whole journey I have focused on giving back to the NHS and medical fields that have saved my life, and this is a whole new way I can give back to the science that saved me. So that’s what I decided to do.
So, where do I stand currently? I’m on my 9th day of treatment, I’ve cried countless times at the thought of injecting myself, and I’ve had enough internal scans to last me a lifetime (and for the record, it’s like a cold, lubed up, alien probe uncomfortably looking around at your uterus). I’ve claimed multiple times that I can’t do it or won’t do it, only to clench my fist and inject myself 30 minutes later. The main respite in the process is the ice, being able to leave that on my skin for a few minutes to numb the initial ‘sharp scratch’ helps me complete my injections as pain free as possible, with the tolerable sting of the medicine being the only thing to whimper at. The whole process sucks major balls, but my gut still pushes me towards doing it, and the reason for that will become clear in it’s own time. For now, I’m going to eat all the junk food London has to offer, and re-watch The Handmaid’s Tale (is that somewhat ironic? That whole fertility/infertility thing) until the new season drops soon.
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