Ovarian Pac-Man

Next Thursday, the day before I give Maria the heave-ho, I have an exciting morning at the Fertility Doctor. As I've mentioned earlier, one of the downsides of this cancer shenanigans is I may go into menopause. One could sit back and reflect on the amount of money I could save by never buying tampons again, but I won't. See, as a 29 year old, I was sort of ready for the whole baby thing. In fact, Alan and I were practicing quite hard for this very event. It's amazing how at 17 we were told we would get pregnant by even looking at some boy, but in fact, getting pregnant is kind of hard. There's a reason why they call it a miracle. You will probably see baby rantings in this blog a fair amount, as I have to say, aside from the disease, death, pain- this is the number #1 shitty thing about getting breast cancer so young. First, I could go into menopause- the chemo does it to you. Among other delights like hair loss, nausea, possible weight gain... yuk. If the "chemopause" isn't permanent (and the younger you are, the more likely it won't be- thank heaven for small favors), you could be on a drug for 5 years that will prevent you from getting pregnant. If you aren't eligible for that drug, there's still the dilemma of waiting, as most cancers recur in the first 5 years after diagnosis. Most doctors will tell you to wait. Then there's the whole issue of recurrence in general- how aggressive can we be now because you don't want to have to go through this crap with a little kid or two around.

Needless, to say, it sucks. So off we went to hedge my bets and see a doctor. Thankfully, I have a donor (Alan) and we will go through the process of harvesting embryos. What does this entail, you ask? Well, first I will be pumped with enough estrogen to make even a beauty salon full of southern women cringe. This hormone extravaganza will last about two weeks. This, I'm told, will make me SUPER FUN. If by fun you mean crazy, yes- then fun. I keep thinking about Charlotte on "Sex and the City" getting shots in the ass every night right before she went crazy at the cardboard baby. I will do all this while recovering from surgery. We can't start chemo until this little ditty is taken care of. Then the Pac-Man Begins.

Pac-Man. That's kind of how my doctor described the procedure. See, my ovaries will be bursting with little eggs. Then they'll take this little device- there's a medical name for it but please, they're sticking something in my whoo-hah, I'm not one for specifics. It has a camera on it, but it's nowhere near as fun as a camera between your legs should be. They will insert it into my ovaries and then- his words, "It's kind like a video game." They will go around and try to capture as many little eggs as possible. Fifteen minutes later and done. Yep, weeks of foreplay and it's all over in fifteen minutes. Who says this isn't like the real thing?

Then they take the eggs, Alan's "deposit" (His job is way easy), and scramble them up. Voila! Little half breed Brits. They will then be frozen and saved for a rainy day. Hopefully, I may not even need them- hopefully we can do it au naturale one day. But for now, this will be the closest thing to making babies we get for a while. That sucks. But thank God I have some of these options. I am beginning to thank God every day for the research, the money, the doctors- everything that makes it medically possible for me to even have these choices. If it's a choice of no babies or Pac-Man, I'll take Pac-Man any day.