Titty Gate

I returned to the infusion center today.

Phase 5: Maintenance

Today was a little heavy. Let me explain.

I started my Tamoxifen on Jan 13th. This medication will suppress my hormones, starving the cancer. It will also push me into menopause. The doctor is hopeful I will only have to take this medicine a short time before switching to aromatase inhibitors but it all depends on how my body reacts. A side effect of tamoxifen can be uterine cancer so it is not something the Dr wants me on long term.

In conjunction with tamoxifen, once a month I will receive a Zoladex shot. I have to go to the office, see the Dr and then go to the infusion center for this shot. It is a ginormous needle that injects a small “pebble” of medicine inside me that disperses over 22 days. This is to shut down my ovaries. I have the option, should I choose, to have a partial hysterectomy and remove my ovaries, then I would not need to receive this shot. That is a decision I will make in time.

The shot itself was fine, even though my nurse said “it’s a really big needle…” to prepare me for some traumatizing puncture stab… it’s a subcutaneous shot so she asked where I wanted it and I said my stomach did well for my egg retrieval so let’s do it there. She replied, “Oh yes those were to make the babies, now we make sure we don’t make the babies”… yeah. Now we make sure we don’t make the babies… we numbed the area with ice, she told me not to look, and I barely felt a pinch. She then told me I was the best patient… my response was after everything a little or big needle is not enough to make me freak out. Giant needle and the reminder I’m never going to carry a child aside, that was not the hardest part…

I did not realize this shot wasn’t given in the doctors office and that I would have to go to the infusion center so you can imagine it was a bit… weird… walking in there. Sitting in my Chemo chair… talking to my favorite nurse, who remembered me… getting my usual chemo snack, cheese and grapes with pretzels… sitting there in the place I thought I had said goodbye to… praying I only ever have to come here again for this shot… seeing the people who are going through what I already did… I had to wait 30 mins after the shot in case of a reaction so I sat there quietly alone with my grapes and pretzels… listening… “room 4, it’s her first day” my nurse told the dietician who popped in thinking it was my room she was off to… “see you next week” the bald woman missing her eyebrows waved at my nurse as she walked by… the man in the cube next to me calmly explaining to the nurse he did not want to receive his chemo treatment. He had “read his chart and knew what was happening.” He expressed to her he did not care to spend the rest of his life sick from chemo and insinuated he would take his own life when it got close to the end.

100 conflicting thoughts went through my mind… get me out of here… Please don’t let that be me ever… that’s so selfish…Why am I the one who is sitting on the other side… be grateful… what about the people in active treatment listening… that might be them… that might be me again… this poor man… this is so sad… I’m glad it’s not me… why did I get off easy… I don’t want to come in here again…

Cancer is a mind fuck. Survivor guilt is real. I’m grateful to be on the other side of my treatment. I feel guilty about it too. And I worry… forever I’ll worry. And because I have to do everything I possibly can to never be in that chair getting chemo again… I have to make sure I can never make the babies.

During active treatment you’re in survival mode. And all of it is hard, physically, mentally, emotionally… afterwards might be worse.

On a positive note, I feel better everyday. I’m beginning to be active again and I feel good most of the time. I get my port removed next week and my hair is growing in nice and thick. I’ll take those wins.