Oh hi there, hope!
Gaaaaah what a crazy few days! Everything is happening so quickly, which is amazing but I feel like I've forgotten it all already! So let's see what I can actually remember...
Tuesday
Mum and I went to meet my super lovely new consultant and clinical nurse at Worthing hospital. Loved them both immediately. The silly, awkward wave the nurse and I gave to each other when she called my name in the waiting room made me like her instantly. A woman on my level.
Although the consultant didn't have all my notes through from the Marsden just yet, she had it pretty spot on so far and knew exactly what was happening. I had gone in all geared up to discuss/fight for some fertility options, but after summarising my year of Bob, she went straight in to telling me she was setting up a referral to a fertility clinic in Hove. I was almost disappointed not to be able to use my polished and well planned arguments! But absolutely amazing that after a resounding "no" in London, this lady was already on my side.
She also confirmed my treatment plan to follow on from any fertility treatment. Pretty much as they'd said at the Marsden - straight into 28 sessions of radiotherapy (Monday to Friday), with 5 rounds of chemotherapy to go alongside it (1 per week). So a pretty busy 5 and a half weeks for me and my many chauffeurs - thank you in advance!
These kind of appointments are where I really need to learn to reel in the crazy. Inappropriate humour is definitely how I handle the awkwardness and nerves (I am my father's daughter!), so after telling them I'd shaved my legs especially for them and I hoped they appreciated how difficult this was as I can't bend, I had another 'lady exam' and was told there was a lot of scarring. She also told me that I had rather severe bowel adhesions to go along with the ones sticking my ovaries to my pelvic wall. (This would explain the funny cramps I get sometimes, that give me the heads up when things are on the move. Following my first surgery last year, I was getting a pretty much perfect 2 hour warning. Every time. My digestive clock is on point, and as my Dad said, could come in very handy for long car journeys).
The consultant then went in to all the grotty detail around what the radiotherapy will do to not only all my lady bits, but to the surrounding area. Usually a full bladder during radiotherapy will move the bowel out of the way of the radio beams, but because mine has so many adhesions and is stuck where it is, it's more likely that it will get hit. There's no delicate way to tell you all the effects this will have on me, so I won't. But let's just say it ain't pretty. It turns out having cancer isn't all sunshine and rainbows after all. Who knew.
We finished the appointment with some blood tests and a follow up appointment in 2 weeks. I was to call the fertility clinic in a few days to see if they had received my referral, and if not I could try to make a private appointment to get things moving (as fast as my new bowels!)
Wednesday
The fertility clinic called me late morning to offer me an appointment the following day. What the what?! How speedy is this?! Nothing like the snails pace I experienced in part one of the Bob saga. I asked if they had any appointments over the weekend, as Steve, the insanely patient and chilled boyfriend, happened to be visiting (he currently lives in Kent but is moving down in 3 weeks time - hooray!). Unfortunately they didn't, so I took the appointment. Although I'm supposedly "disease free" at the moment and we have a little time to play with, we're still talking cancer. No time to waste.
I printed out the 4 packs they'd emailed over and filled in the 20 pages of required information and medical history on both Steve and myself. Ladies - if you ever want to find out lots of really intimate information about your partner in one swoop, I'll send you this form. Bloody brilliant, and made for one strange phone call!
Thursday/Today
Mum and I headed over to the fertility clinic. We were there silly early (not like us at all!) and eventually went in to see the Medical Director. Also liked her straight away. Again she had a rough idea of what had happened and what was going on with my treatment so far and said that egg collection should be possible. She didn't seem too worried about the cancer aspect affecting my treatment. Although the needle (yick) used to penetrate the ovary and retrieve the eggs may disrupt any unseen cancer cells and encourage them to split and multiply, because I would be having chemoradiotherapy straight after her procedure, these cells would be zapped. Her main concern was the ovaries being stuck to the pelvic wall with adhesions. If there was enough scarring to stick them where they shouldn't be, they might be too far away to reach or there may be too much scar tissue to get through. This immediately made me think back to the scarring the consultant had mentioned on Tuesday. Bugger. Falling at the first hurdle. But she would do an internal ultrasound scan to see what she could work with.
A snazzy PowerPoint presentation followed, explaining how the usual egg cycle worked and what they would do in it's place to prepare and retrieve the eggs. Science is bloody amazing!
So off I went for my scan. Cue more inappropriate leg shaving jokes (this time was focused on the fact that I HADN'T shaved them and profuse apologies!). All looked good and the director even used a brilliant line which at the time I thought would be a perfect title for this blog. I can't remember it for the life of me now. But it was something along the lines of "it's a go" or "game on". For the first time in ..... months, a year maybe, I felt so happy. This wasn't a bit of happy news that meant I wasn't going to die. This was a bit of happy news that meant I might still get to be a Mum after not dying.
So back to the office and more detail on what the treatment will involve. Sperm samples, STI and all other types of screening for us both, blood tests and then around 2 weeks of twice-daily injections to plump up my eggs, before collecting them under sedation. So Steve and I are back in there Tuesday morning to get all the final jobs ticked off the list and away we go! In 3 weeks time we could have lots of babies.......kind of! (If you're reading this Steve, don't freak out!)
I'm a whole crazy mix of emotions. In the space of 5 weeks, I've been told there's a new growth but it's very unlikely to be cancer (so rare in fact, my surgeon felt it would be of comfort to tell me the only 2 women he's ever see this happen to weren't with us any more. Even at the time, this was a pretty shocking tactic, but following my diagnosis, I immediately thought I was a goner. I hope lessons have been learnt there). That my cancer is back. That I need to have both ovaries and tubes removed. That there was no chance of saving any of my eggs for the future. That I would have chemotherapy. That my surgery didn't go ahead after all. That I would need radiotherapy, which would destroy the uterus they were saving for me. That I wasn't going to stay at the Royal Marsden for treatment. That I could now in fact look into fertility preservation treatment. That I can freeze my eggs and be a Mum to my own biological child.
I am the luckiest unlucky person going. I read these blogs back as I write them and can't believe this is actually my life. There must be a certain point that it's all going to sink in, but at the moment it's all moving so fast that I don't have time to process it.
This little life rollercoaster is at a peak right now. Although there's a lot of shit (figuratively and....) to come over the coming couple of months, I can't believe how happy I am. I am so bloody lucky.