Skip to main content

Not cancer but still tough choice

 I haven't written here in a long time.  Not regularly  
since cancer days when I was trying to cope and process everything. 

I have found myself in a situation I am having trouble fully wrapping my head around.  I don't have cancer again (insert wood knocking)  but I am making a difficult choice.  This choice will significantly lower my future cancer risks.  But at the cost of biological children.  

Here are the facts. I'm 37.  Statistically if I have my ovaries taken out (oophorectomy) prior to 40 then I will have an 80% reduction in my risk of ovarian cancer.  Ovarian cancer is nasty and often fatal because it is so hard to detect.  I have BRCA1 gene and I am a Breast cancer survivor.  

Based on my history it is beneficial to also do a total hysterectomy at the same time.  My lady parts history makes me a bad candidate for laparoscopic so I have to do old school abdominal surgery with 6 week recovery.  

After surgery my body will be thrown into menopause.  Like pretty aggressively.  And I am really afraid of how I will cope with that.  

As of right now I am scheduled for surgery in October and going to focus the next 30 days on making sure that is the right choice.  

This is bringing up emotions I have not felt since 2008 when I had my last big surgery.  And I was not anticipating that.  So I will do what I did back then and write about it here.  

Let's see if we can get this sorted.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chemo #3

I had my third chemo session today. My friend Claire went with me. It's nice to have someone there; I dare say a partner in crime. Plus, since I am hooked to a machine, I get to boss around my guest to get me coffee, snacks etc. Pretty sweet, I mean they have to get stuff for me. :) I feel better this week than last week. Every time I cross a new bridge with this deal (newest bridge = hair loss) I am forced onto the roller coaster again. I have a hard time when I am sad or upset. It is really frustrating, when I feel sad I think back to the week before when I felt good, when I was happy. I sit there and try to figure out how to get back to feeling good. The answer so far has been simple, time. Time to process what is going on. Time to process how I feel and time to figure out what I can do to make it better. Sometimes there is nothing I can do and somehow in those moments one of my friends sends a text, a card, a package or email to let me know they care. It really ma...

Shaved

I went ahead and shaved my head today. It has been falling out non-stop since Thursday. I traveled to Stafford today to pick up my wigs so I had Hazel go ahead and buzz cut my hair. She did leave enough at the top for a killer mohawk this weekend. I must say I was more upset this morning constantly throwing away chunks of hair than I am right now, rubbing my softly shaven head. Two new observations: 1. Everything is much colder 2. My head is much lighter

I made a choice.

So I have spent the past few weeks thinking.   Trying to nail down what is most important.  Trying to give myself some perspective.   So I have outlined my worst case scenarios.  Worst case scenario #1:  I don't have the surgery now and end up with cancer in the next few years.   Worst case scenario #2: I have the surgery now and a few years from now I am unhappy and upset that I never had my own biological children.   Worst case scenario #3: I have horrible menopausal symptoms for the next few years.   So. When I write them out.  I see something pretty clear.  #2 and #3 are temporary and there are options for me to work through.   #1 could equal death.  Which is pretty permanent.   So. I'm gonna do it.  That's how I feel right now.  I'm going to chose short term suffering to have a better long term life.   I am trying to read up on things I can do to mitigate menopause that ...