Well, I did my first fertility shot on Saturday night. It really wasn't too bad at all.
Some friends who had been down this road came over to coach us through the process, but I think they really supplied more moral support than anything else. It is a little bit like a home chemistry set but with needles. I can't really believe that millions of people do this to have a baby and I can't believe that they trust people to do the administering on their own. Surely there is room for plenty of error here? These are drugs and needles people! But whatev I guess. Plenty of babies come out of it, so it must go just fine most of the time.
Saturday night's shot didn't hurt at all. I was surprised by how much it didn't hurt. Last night's was a little off. Didn't hurt so much going in, but it felt like it might develop into a little bruise later. Still, not a big deal. And I'm not going to be doing this for months and months so who cares about a bruise here and there.
The whole fertility thing is a weird side trip. I feel bad when I go to the fertility place because I feel like everyone is looking at each other thinking, "What's your story?". Except maybe for the lesbian couple. Their story seems pretty obvious. Part of me wants to say, "I'm not actually infertile. It's just cancer!" But then I feel guilty for thinking that. I feel bad that people have to go through so much work to get pregnant and I realize how damn lucky I was to get pregnant on the first try. The universe really is pretty random.
Overall, I think it's so great that people have this option to get pregnant. I'm certainly glad I have this option. It's just that when you go, you do things like blood tests and ultrasounds, so it's all the medical trappings of pregnancy without the pregnancy. And that just kinda bums me out a little bit. But I think I'm getting over it.
I also got a call from the radiation oncologist on Friday asking if I want to participate in a trial looking at the levels of oxygen in chordomas. All it would mean is a couple of extra PET CT scans. I don't know if that means drinking that wretched berium or not. I can eat pretty much anything and I can drink bad wine, but there is something about that stuff that is bloody hard to get down. And two nasty bottles of banana flavored mercury? (I know it's not really mercury, but whatever the heck it is, it's NOT a beverage, so let's not pretend it is by dressing it up as a banana smoothie. I'm too smart for that!) At this point, I welcome the once-dreaded IV with contrast over that. In any case, I will happily do the scans b/c it will mean just one more nugget of data about this disease, so they'll understand it better.
How can I say no to that?
No comments:
Post a Comment