Chemo

Chemo starts in 2 weeks.

The oncologist was terribly clinical, but that was mostly okay because people warned me she would be. She doesn't want to make a call, of course. She presented three different possible drug combinations we could use, explained some of the possible long-term side-effects of each (such as heart failure, kidney failure, and liver failure) and then left it to me to decide. "Nothing unusual about this cancer," she said, implying that any one of them would work as well as the others, within certain mathematical tolerances, of course.

When I asked about fertility, she said, "Well, you're looking at 6 or 7 years of treatment, and by then you'll be 40. You already have one child, so you don't really need to worry about it. I mean, I would be more concerned if you didn't have any children." As if having one child is some kind of consolation when faced with the prospect of being unable to have another, even though that's what you've always, always planned. She seem surprised when I started crying.

Oh well. Pick up and move on. "Call your GYN for more guidance on this," she said, which was fine with me because I like by gynecologist a hell of a lot more.

I typed up an email outlining the options and sent it over to Carville (my superstar biochemist cousin) and Katherine (my superstar hospital based psychologist sister) and Dave (my superstar attorney husband with the ex-boss whose husband is an oncologist) and I'll wait for their input.

And there are more tests. Echocardiogram (because one of the drugs I'm definitely getting can cause heart failure) and a bone scan to make sure this ache in my back isn't really a metastasis. Oh, and a quickie procedure to get the mediport inserted so I don't have to suffer bruised arms for the next year. And then chemo.

I'm numb. Let's go.