This is a hard one for me to write about. Pre-cancer me was definitely not ready for babies. I had only just finished university and had only been married for 4 months when we were given the diagnosis. But the "Big C" kinda throws your whole life into disarray and I guess the one good thing is it really brings everything into perspective. After all, in the end it's not money or a career that's going to be holding your hand, it's your family.
Based on the scan results, my doctors wanted me to have radiotherapy and chemo before having surgery. They had hoped this would shrink down the tumour and potentially I could have had less invasive surgery and potentially avoided having a stoma. However, radiotherapy to my pelvis would have put me into menopause and fibrosed my uterus, so even if we managed to freeze some eggs, I would never have been able to carry a pregnancy and the only way of ever having children would be to find a surrogate (a medico-legal grey area in the UK and I don't have a sister) or adoption.
Well, to be told this at 25 is nothing short of devastating. To this day, eight months after diagnosis, brings on the waterworks.
The alternative was to have surgery first, hope that the surgeons were able to reconnect my bowel and then if necessary, have further treatment afterwards. What an impossible decision. I wanted to go for this option as there was a chance after surgery, I would be cured. My husband wanted me to have the radiotherapy and chemotherapy first; he just wanted me to have the best chance of beating this thing, he didn't want to be a widow at 25.
We were in complete turmoil. Luckily, we saw an oncologist who encouraged us to have the surgery first. Then if I needed chemotherapy / radiotherapy, it would be based on results from the pathology lab rather than just images on the screen (the radiologists were never completely convinced the nodes were positive, apparently they argued a lot over it).
I had my surgery on 17th December 2014, the tumour was about 4 cm across in diameter and two lymph nodes in the immediate tissue surrounding that part of the bowel were also positive for cancer cells. However, crucially, there was a clear margin of normal tissue around the tumour and lymph nodes. This meant that although I would need chemotherapy to make sure there were no tiny spread of the cancer elsewhere in my body, I would not need radiotherapy. I will never forget the day my surgeon came rushing into my room to tell me the news. I think he was as pleased as I was. The relief was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, that is not the end of my fertility woes. The issue you see, Oxaliplatin is really only used in bowel cancer and most bowel cancer patients are much older than me and therefore have already had children or completed their families. Because of this, there is very little data on how Oxaliplatin affects female fertility. I have searched high and low on the internet - from scientific journals to bowel cancer forums and thus far, I have only found one woman, I think in Australia who got pregnant naturally after completion of her treatment. My oncologist reckons Oxaliplatin has a moderate to low risk of gonadotoxicity (poisoning my lady bits so I become infertile). Well, the uncertainty is killing me.
Before starting treatment we did go through one cycle of IVF in order to freeze some embryos as a back up. We managed to freeze one embryo. I know one is better than none, but given the low success rates of IVF, I'm not holding much hope if I'm honest.
Unfortunately, I'm also at that age where everyone is either getting married or having babies. Whilst I am delighted for all my friends, all the baby pictures on facebook always makes me cry.
I guess at this stage, the more important thing for me is to focus on getting to the end of chemo and then to get myself fit and well again before even thinking about babies. But it's hard, so incredibly hard. Everytime I have another round of chemo I try to think positively and not think of any potential effects on my fertility.
Ah and here come the waterworks. I'm starting to cry now, so best to log off and think happy thoughts instead!
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