A basket of eggs

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.