The First Few Days

It is odd because in some ways cancer is like infertility. You still face similar issues.

You still brace yourself when some child-toting couple comes with a loud "Hiiiiii!" into the cafe, freezing because they don't know. They don't know what you have. Just like I used to because they would be a reminder of a 'normal' fertility family.

I no longer want to count the days. I used to count how many quarters I had waited for a child and it would depress me. What would I do now? Count the quarters from diagnosis? And would that make me happy?

It is helpless. I remember feeling helpless because I was trying so hard to be pregnant and it wasn't happening. I was trying so hard to move forward. I also feel similarly helpless now, because I don't know how to stop the spread. I don’t know that it would ever be stopped. I will have to live with the risk of recurrence my entire life. And there are many many women for whom it recures, fairly soon. And if it does, it can't be treated.

How can pp say it is not a death sentence? Sure, you might finally die of something else like a heart attack, if you lived long enough. But it would always Feel like a death sentence, because you know that if it recurs, it can't be treated. And even if treated, you will never be cured.

A child? At this point, I don’t even know how much time I have with my ice cream machine.

I didn't cry with the same intensive sobs. The same baying grief. But the grief was there, the deep deep hole of staring in space and tears that just fell away wordlessly, that was there.

The irony is, I had moved on.
I was not ready to be not cured of infertility. I was hardly ready for that, when I found out that I might never be cured of cancer.

It makes you think of time differently. I was so sensitive about time, about time running out to conceive, about time it had made me waste. About how other people's children were already 5 years old. But when I thought about time, I never thought about having only five years with a child, or ten years. I never looked at my 5 year old goddaughter wondering if I'd see her at 10. I never thought about how much time I had to live. I assumed that time. I wanted a future, but I got this future.

Sometimes I still wonder, why other people got their child and I got cancer. But mostly, it makes me realize I have a different life. My path isn't going to be like that. Something I spent three years wondering but now realize wasn't even in the same ballpark. I was so hung up about my life. Turns out, I should have been more worried for me, about actually living, accelerating my experiential life in parenthood, not pregnancy.

Is life fair? No. But there are many shades to fair. There are many shades to great. There is no guarantee on time, or luck, or resources. I learnt that through infertility. I'm learning that even more, day by day.

I think a lot of women spend a lot of time obsessing about whether they may be infertile. If I had been told earlier that I was definitely infertile, I would have given up earlier and just searched for alternatives. A surrogate, an egg donor, maybe even moved faster on adoption. I would have just put all the alternatives on the table, made a plan and moved forward. I spent three years not moving forward because I hoped I was maybe not infertile.

This is different, I am not maybe without cancer. I definitely have it. There isn't any not moving on this time. It will move on whether I want to or not. All I can do is move with it.

I remember when I first starting learning about infertility, I at least knew about cycles. When I started researching cancer, I only realized how little I knew. For example, that we all have cancer cells in our body. If you're immunity is good, you can overcome these cancer cells. If not, they start to mutate and grow. Cancer cells can spread very easily and quickly, even if it's a small bit. So you can definitely have cells mutate later on, far after treatment. Some cells become resistant to treatment and mutate. Once this happens, it is not treatable a second time. Yu cannot be cured. You can only be treated. So, this might kill you soon. Or if might kill you later. Or it might not kill you at all. Either way, you probably have to have some sense of the end of your life. At this age, that really, really sucks.

I didn't have many plans. But I didn’t think they'd all be ripped apart. I don't know if I have time left to do what I want to do. I don’t know if I can afford to. Basically I know a lot less than when I was going through infertility.

This is me. I eat vegetables. a lot of vegetables. I don't store my water in BPA plastic. I cut back on meat. I have the most ridiculously, clean, bland diet of anyone I know. I eat salads thrice a week. I run   5km every few days. I don't drink, don't smoke, I take vitamins, minerals, you name it. I don't understand.

If it isn't hormone receptive, it means that I would have always had this, at this age. That the chances of me getting breast cancer, was the same as getting cancer anywhere else. That blows my mind. It also means that it may come back at any time, since it was never tied to the IVF.

When you are on a fertility drive, everything depends on having a child. When you have cancer, having a child is just another part of living on. Living more. It's not about dreaming, or wishing, or hoping, not for you, not for your husband, not for your existing children, not for your parents and family. I suddenly understand the meaning of Livestrong. And it means a heck more than Holding on to Dreams.