Well then, hello there!
I feel compelled to write you in order to keep you abreast of the situation...see what I did there!?!
I shamelessly stole that from someone, who’s name I shan’t repeat in order to protect the innocent.
The situation has changed! There is much to bring you up to speed on, the first of which is that her period started!!! Never in the history of mankind has anyone been excited for Aunt Flo to pop in….weird. Also previously unheard of are the many, many fervent prayers that have landed upon the ears of the Lord for said period to come. Who prays for that??? This guy does…and a bunch of other weirdos do too!
All jokes aside, this is such great news because that means that we get to do “fertility preservation” and “retrieve” the “oocytes” for “cryopreservation” to be used at a later date for the purposes of “in-vitro fertilization”. What that means in real people terms is that we get to suck out the huevos, dunk ‘em in liquid nitrogen for a few years, defrost them and then make little Jeydriennes with ‘em! One half of our kids will be frozen at -280 for a little while…oh well, I just hope it’s the right half.
We are currently in the thick of the process – I’ve been giving her subcutaneous (Just under the skin) shots in her cute little belly since last Friday evening, and those shots have contained a Follicle Stimulating Hormone. They are like little steroid shots for the little eggies in her ovaries and the hormone makes them bulk up quite a bit more than they normally would in a normal menstrual cycle. Yes, I said menstrual. And I will again, so brace yourselves.
Another thing she is doing is taking a pill called Letrozole, which blocks the production of estrogen, which is a byproduct of the follicles being stimulated. As the stimulating hormone is bulking up all those eggs during a woman’s cycle, estrogen is being produced as a byproduct of this whole deal – for a breast cancer patient who had an estrogen/progesterone receptive type of cancer such as my wife, who has not yet had chemo, this is obviously a less than desirable situation. So, she takes this Letrozole which blocks just the estrogen and keeps the presence of it in the body at an extremely low level.
In a few days, she will start another drug called Ganirelix, which tricks her brain into thinking that the follicles are actually not being stimulated, which then makes the body produce even more of its own follicle stimulating hormone…
A few days after THAT she will take another drug called “stickyourwifeandmakehercry” or something like that, which will stop her body from actually choosing one of the eggs and kicking it out (otherwise known as “ovulation”).
Roughly 36 hours before the actual egg retrieval, she will take another drug…yes ANOTHER drug which will then make her eggs separate from the ovarian wall, (the first step in the actual ovulation process) and that will leave her in a place where she is ready for the retrieval process. Apparently they need the follicles to be floating freely in the ovary for the retrieval process, which at this point will happen sometime next week. (potentially Wed/Thur)
By the way…that last drug, the one that makes her ovulate is to be administered via this nasty, tree-trunk sized needle that would make an elephant shudder. I’m telling you, this damn thing is a monstrosity born of the worst kind of medical evil known to mankind.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but to someone who used to cry when getting his teeth cleaned, it’s kind of a big deal.
Don’t judge me.
ANYWAY, this is all extremely weird and exciting and scary and just…wow. Overwhelming. Several times over the last few weeks as we’ve gotten to tell different folks face-to-face about this whole thing, people have consistently remarked at how amazing this whole process is. To which I respond, thanks for the reminder! I know that I, and I think Ade too have gotten bogged down in the details and the tasks and the emotion and the physical discomfort and so on and so forth, so much so that we forget what a remarkable thing it is to get to preserve our fertility. On her side anyway…I guess we don’t actually know if my swimmers swim, but we’ll make the assumption for now that we do because there’s no point in worrying about that. I figure at a rate of 1 million little fellas per heartbeat, there’s gotta be a few good ones.
First off, from the bottom of our grateful heart, thank you so much for the prayer. I know that I speak for both of us when I say that we have never realize the presence of God in our lives as much as we have in the last few months. He has shown himself to be huge in allowing our insurance company’s original 2 denials of our requests to stay with our docs to be overturned. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that much in the last few updates, but we were going to have to switch all of our docs, mid process, to other approved providers because our insurance changed. This as you can imagine was cause for a great deal of stress and anger. Oh man…I was royally pissed. There are just no better words, so please excuse the crass expression. However, after Adrienne spent Lord knows how many hours preparing the documents, we sent our 3rd appeal away for an external review which was part of our rights by law, it ended up in the hands of a breast specialist in Philadelphia who didn’t hesitate in overturning the decision with phrases like, “it would be merciless to make her switch providers in the middle of this, adding even more stress and anxiety to an otherwise stress ridden process”. Thank God for that woman.
God has also been so present in the finances – we’ve been able to pay every bill, we’ve had enough to live on, God has provided work for my business, we’ve been given gifts from you fine people. The most remarkable of these things is a sum of money showing up in our account via a tax error by her previous employer between the years 2006-2008, as well as another substantial sum of money provided by a relative of ours…fertility is paid for. The entire process. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it. God is most certainly good in the most holy and humbling senses of that word and we will continue to trust Him to provide our finances.
It’s incredible. This still sucks, don’t get me wrong and I wish she and we didn’t have to go through it. HowEVER…Its changed me, its changed our marriage, its changed our outlook on life, its changed her, its changed our parents, its changed our friends. All of these so much for the better, mind you. You come to find that the little aches and pains that used to be a big deal, no longer really are. In the light of cancer, and shots and hormones and mastectomies and chemotherapy and egg retrieval and, and…and – the STUFF doesn’t matter as much. It’s just stuff. My achy knee…just achy. My headache…really? Build a bridge. Making sure that the house looks absolutely immaculate when we have friends over, and trying to make them think that it always looks like that…not really worth it. They know better anyway.
Have a wonderful day, I will do my absolute damndest to get a few more updates coming in the near days. We will hopefully be starting chemo next Thursday. That would be our ideal, and as I say that I realize that’s another thing that doesn’t often get prayed – “God, can we start chemo soon?”
Yes, please chuckle at that. Its worth a chuckle.
Pray for my wife, for her body, her healing, her ability to handle all the shots, she’s getting stuck like a blind nudist in a cactus patch. Pray for her ability to sleep and actually be rested. Her body is getting achy and the ultrasounds are getting more and more painful. Pray for both of our patience, with each other, with drivers on the road during our trips to Denver every second day for the next 8-10 days. Oh man, bad drivers are starting to send me over the edge. Pray for me for sleep, rest, alertness, helpfulness, my ability to let the effects of HORMONES roll like water off the back of a duck…I love you dear. Thank God on our behalf please for His intervention with insurance, for surrounding us with you all, for the fine people at UCH who have cared so well for her, down to the receptionist at the breast center, a wonderful woman who has a smile and a warm greeting ready for us every dang time we show up.
We have come a long way, and have a long way to go. Much of this journey has been made bearable by you. I would boldly ask that you keep pouring into us, but her especially. This whole deal has started to take a toll on her. Anxiety reigns supreme in our house, because we are both just stinkin tired of this whole thing.
Hawaii anyone?
Love,
Jeydrienne
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