I am sitting in the waiting
room with Simon and shortly after receive the results from my doctor number
1. She is young, very understanding and patient, however she informs me of my
diagnosis as if I already knew what I have. It is true that the results are not
really a surprise. Hodgkin's lymphoma and something something something. I do shed a few tears while wondering why I am even crying, as this is really not unexpected,
and I already kind of got to terms with having cancer. The doctor explains how she would proceed,
and we arrange for my egg cells to be frozen before starting treatment. She schedules the appointment in
the gynecology clinic for tomorrow morning.
***
It's the next morning
and we arrive to the gynecology clinic. First, we meet with a gynecologist who
explains what is going to happen and what our options even are. We need to decide
between freezing my egg cells or freezing our embryos. To all honesty, I didn't
do much research. I was mentally and emotionally tired at this point and
didn't have the strength to read scientific, or any kind of articles about the differences, pros
and cons of both options. The doctor recommended the egg cells, so we decided
to do that.
After the explanation
of the following procedure, which I was about to start, I found myself signing the papers
for the in vitro fertilization and getting instructions on how to properly use manual injections to take my medicine.
I did all the
stabbing myself and handled two to three injections per day to get my eggs big
enough to be taken out and preserved for an uncertain future.
***
It was the beginning
of August and I felt pretty awful about the fact that this whole thing was
getting in the way of me going on my first proper vacation. So important,
right? Ever since I was told by my doctors that a road trip in the middle of August is
not really the best idea I ever had, I still wanted to go for SOMETHING. Simon
was already working the entire year and did not really have a real holiday, and
now I was ruining it all. And may I remind you, at this point, I still
feel completely normal. Nothing really hurts, I can do everything that I want,
I can work, ladada.
Because the treatment
was about to begin, and because it was supposed to be intense, we decided to take the last Ana-can-go-wherever
weekend off and we went on a trip to Italy. I only felt comfortable going so far away that I could still get to hospital in Slovenia, if anything would go
sideways. I packed my stash of injections and asked our hotel if they have a
fridge, to put my injections in, and then we were good to go.
***
We went to the beach.
Our beach story: paid way too much money for 9th row on a beach that was, funny
enough, called "Austrian beach". You probably get the picture of the
wild, natural and not crowded beach. Oh, and I could not even swim!
Spend the two days
like that, working on hatching my eggs and relaxing, then headed home.
***
I had a few ultrasound procedures during the next days. The gynecologist was checking if my eggs are hatched
(btw, I know I don't hatch eggs, it's just what I called this process to make
it more fun) and ready to be frozen. She was always dictating some numbers to
the nurse; usually around ten and up. At first, I didn't know what those
numbers are... But then I asked. She was describing the size of my egg cells.
"Hmm, yeah sure you do. But what units are you talking about?". She
said millimeters. And I was confused as where are all this numbers would be located inside of me. Surprised and confused.
***
I think it was day 10 after starting this hormonal therapy, that I was ready to get my egg cells
frozen. The procedure was kinda funny to me.
I got to the hospital
in the morning and got directed to change into nothing but the giant hospital
gown. It was the kind of gown that is probably used for giving actual birth, since it
was ginormous on me, and I am not really a skinny person. It made me a bit sad,
since I knew that this gown is not gonna be worn by me for its real purpose for
quite some time, if ever. To continue, there was me in a pregnant-person gown.
Thereafter I was directed to wait in the waiting room. I must admit I felt quite
weird, sitting in nothing but the gown with Simon in the waiting room. This waiting
room was like... a real waiting room. At the beginning of my gynecology-clinic
treatment, this waiting room was shown to me as "you can wait here while we
deal with other patients" room.
After that, Simon had
to go to work and I stayed in this waiting room until being picked up by a nurse. She
instructed me to go to the toilet and then come to the surgery room. Did you
ever walk into your own surgery by yourself? It is the funniest feeling,
especially because I was completely stoned in a few minutes. I got this very
amusing thing - analgesia, which is insensibility to pain without loss of consciousness.
I did my fair share of surgeries in my life, but I could not understand what
the nurses and doctors were describing before I actually felt this.
I think I didn't walk
out of the surgery room on my own, or I just don't remember it.
After that I was told
that we got a nice basket of my eggs and the procedure was successful. In a
few hours, my sister picked me up from the hospital and that was basically it.
I was in and out in five to six hours.
***
I do view this in
vitro fertilization process as a very nice support, one less thing I have to
(or more, "can") worry about during this mess. And at the end of the day,
if I ever have kids from these eggs, it will be like I had them when I was 26
;)
Now... back to
the start of my real treatment.
