I could be knocked up! But probably not. I went for my IUI
on Sunday; I’m basically 100% sure it won’t work, so I’m ready and waiting to
move on to IVF. Not pessimistic, just realistic, though I have ridiculously
high hopes for IVF and assume that’ll work out just fine right away.
In the meantime, I’ve been checking out various message
boards, in particular one that my dear Ukrainian-Finnish friend Motya passed on to
me a while ago, Inspire.com. They have lots of message boards there for
fertility stuff, including one for the 40+ contingent.
I have to say, it’s pretty fucking depressing.
Basically anyone going on there as a newbie being all “hey,
so nervous, no idea what’ll happen!” is shot down pretty rapidly and told yeah
no, just go straight to donor eggs. Do not pass go, don’t even bother with your
own old crappy eggs. Great.
Which has all got me thinking too much – and certainly not
in a good way – especially since this is Cancerversary time for me, and
normally I’m all woo hoo, bring on the charred meat and maraschino cherries and
FUCK YOU CANCER! This year, perhaps prompted by my new onc who asked me
something like “So how do you feel about how cancer affected your life?”, it’s
a little different. Because I could only rather bitterly think about how much
it totally derailed it, in this death spiral of surgery, treatment, more
surgery, more treatment, crazy medical bills, being unable to work, trying to
recover from all that, etc. And oh yeah, losing 6 years of fertility, just to
top things off.
So yes, I’m a little bitter.
It’s especially obvious to me this year because the days
line up with the dates, so Friday July 4th back then was when I
found the lump, July 10th was biopsy day, aka what I now think of as
my official Cancerversary. Oh sure, I’m sure people will say, but Miss Tasha,
it could be worse, at least you don’t have mets. And this is true. But I could
also have not gotten cancer in the first place. And I’m not a big believer in
the lowest common denominator approach, because then none of us could complain
because none of us are starving orphan Biafran refugees with AIDS, so it could
always be worse.
(If you’re the one Biafran refugee who’s found my blog, then
okay, you get to complain.)
This isn’t to say that I’m not generally a happy person, in
spite of my curmudgeonly demeanor. I am, probably in part because I have such
craptastic luck, that I bounce back pretty quickly and can find humor in almost
anything. But I still grieve the parallel life not lived, the one where I kept
on with my hockey and triathloning and working and found PerfectMan through a
Meet Cute involving our dogs and a duck pond and we lived happily ever after.
Of course, I could have also been mowed down by a Mack
truck, so there’s that.
Anyway, I’ll do the POAS (Pee on a Stick – I’m getting hep
with the fertility lingo) on July 10th, because if this were a
feel-good Hollywood movie of the century, I’d find out I’m pregnant on my
Cancerversary. Of course my life’s not that movie, so it’ll be negative, and
that’s that. We move on.
On a brighter note, today is also the anniversary of the day
my little Koney-Chunkers was brought to my house for me to “foster” –
hahahahahaha. The girls and I went up to Wisconsin that 4th of July
weekend to hang out and do some bike riding, and I still can hear clearly as
day Annette saying “Look at how great the pupems is – you need to keep him.”
Even my mom described him as “meek.” Hahahahaha. Such a little conman. We
marked today with a trip to the reservoir, then lots of toysums, treats, bones,
snuggles, Fun Waters. In other words, the usual.
So while I often think along the lines of (paraphrasing)
I’ve taken the road less traveled, and have no idea where the hell I now am,
overall, in spite of the bumps and turns my life has taken, this much is true:
Being (seemingly) cancer free is a beautiful thing.
Being alive is a beautiful thing.
Onward.
1 comment:
Hats off to being alive. I'm for that.
And don't forget the (ahem) Wharton thing. Much to be grateful for.
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