September 17, 2013

Total state of shock

I was in a total state of shock. I could not believe I was pregnant. All I could do was cry. I met with my oncologist on the morning of September 17, 2013 to discuss what our options were at this point. I sobbed the entire time. The nurse I had spoken to on the phone the day before came in to check on me because I was so hysterical when I talked to her on the phone. The oncologist kept telling me to calm down, I could not.

Of course, as much as I did not want to be pregnant, terminating the pregnancy was not an option. I may have talked about it, dreamt about it, threatened it, etc., but the bottom line is there was a life inside of me, and to kill that life would go against everything that I believe. Even at the lowest of my low, I knew there was a little heartbeat in there and I knew God must have a plan.

Thankfully, the doctor agreed. There was no reason to terminate the pregnancy. The surgery was over. The cancer was out of my body. The worst was over. The question then became what to do about chemotherapy. The oncologist informed me that studies had proved that if you do not start chemo within 12 weeks from surgery, there are no benefits to starting it. That did not make sense to me, it still does not make sense to me, but that is what the doctor said. He also said that on rare occasions, he has administered chemo to pregnant patients in their second trimester - but that was for very rare and aggressive cancers and when the cancer was still present in the body. He did not recommend chemo for me since the cancer was technically out of my body, and he did not want to risk the pregnancy. He also could not start me on the tamoxifen because he was certain that would cause an abortion or serious birth defects at the least. So all the plans we had made were out of the window. This was hard news for me to take. I liked plans. I had a plan. My plan was ruined.

He assured me that he would monitor me closely during the pregnancy and that I would be ok. This was coming from the doctor that just a few weeks before told me that I had to have chemo despite my begging otherwise. It was all so confusing to me. I had so many questions. I had so many fears. I had so many tears.

I had a cancer that was fed by estrogen - I was about to experience 9 months of estrogen overload, that could not be good? What would this mean for my future?

Would skipping out on chemo end up killing me down the road?

How were they going to monitor me while pregnant?

Was this fair to Gabrielle, was giving her a sibling going to cost her a mom?

I cut all of my hair off in preparation for chemo that I would never have?

I had a port going through my jugular vein that I would never need and a pretty three inch scar on my chest to show for it, that was a waste.

I wanted to scream. THIS COULD NOT BE HAPPENING.

The oncologist said that the new plan would be to monitor me closely during the pregnancy and start on the ten years of tamoxifen the day I gave birth. That sounded like a terrible plan to me but I had no other alternative. I left the appointment feeling hopeless. The words of the surgeon that gave me a second opinion months before haunted me (they still haunt me) - "It only takes a single cell to be left in your body after the mastectomy for your cancer to spread, you need chemo."

At this point though, it didn't matter if I needed chemo - I had a baby growing inside of me, and I needed to protect the baby.

I will be honest - I cried. I didn't cry for days or weeks, I cried for months. I will blame the pregnancy hormones along with being scared out of my mind, but I cried uncontrollably for months. I wanted to love being pregnant, I wanted to love the baby that was growing inside of me, I wanted to see it as the miracle it was, but I was scared. I was scared the baby and pregnancy were killing me. The doctors were telling me that I was going to be okay, but the truth of the matter was no one really knew. Again, we were going to have to wait and see. So nine months of waiting began.

Waiting and waiting...