Start your treatment already!

So you may be wondering- if I was diagnosed nearly two weeks ago, why am I not starting to get this cancer OUT of me already? Well, for a few reasons. First, it took a few days to get me in to see the Sloan Kettering doctors. But the MAIN reason is because of this thing called fertility preservation- we’re trying to get some good eggs out of me so we can freeze them and hopefully have kiddos after all this, just in case chemo fucks with my reproductive system. I won’t go into the details of how I’ve been shooting myself up with hormones here, but the long and short of it is that, a) science is cool, b) everything will wrap up on Monday, and c) hopefully we’ll be freezing lots of potential Val and Greg’s for future use. Here is a photo of one of the needles I've been sticking in my belly every night:

It's a little stressful to mix the meds together, but the shots don't hurt at all! After this wraps on Monday, chemo treatment starts on May 30th. So what’s the deal with that? More in my next post!

With love,

Val

Comments

This is cancer!

Cancer is... Waking up to find hundreds of hairs on your pillow and being scared of the shower because the hair just won't stop falling out. Drinking water and electrolytes nonstop and still feeling dehydrated all. the. damn. time. Reading the same paragraph over and over and over and not absorbing any of it. Thinking your brain will never be clear enough to finish your dissertation. Wondering about what you would be doing in that moment if you didn't have cancer. Saying to yourself, "I have cancer." and it still being weird. Wanting to call your Mami but not wanting to have to answer the question about why you're not having babies yet. Sore throats and stuffy noses on the first day of summer. Feeling an added responsibility to imbue meaning into things because the precariousness of life has been revealed to you. Going from never napping a day in your life to not being able to keep your eyes open by 3 pm. Being ...

Big day for little bear!

To compliment a vom-filled day, I am starting this blog post with a vom-worthy title. When we got up yesterday, Greg said to me, "It's a big day for little bear!" That is one of his many names for me, and sometimes he gets the title of big bear, because, yes we are occasionally gross 🐻s. And what a big day it was! We got to the MSKCC Infusion Center in BK by 8 am. A wonderful nurse named Asha administered my IVs. My parents ran some errands at the Target and Marshalls at Atlantic (Tata M- elle a finalement trouver son propre cady zizette!) Meanwhile, Jeremy, Greg and I hung out and had time for one round of Sushi Go Party (which I won, btw): And then, voila, we were done! I felt absolutely fine leaving the clinic, so we decided to swing by Milk and Honey for brunch. Friends, I hesitate to even post this picture, because the reminder of yesterday still rings hard in my esophagus. But for the sake of the blog, here goes: Let's just say I was a little overzealou...

Well, fuck this shit!

Hello! Lately, I haven't really felt like posting a blog, in part because I haven't really felt like having cancer. When I reached the halfway point last week, instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment, I actually felt really frustrated that I have to repeat the same amount of chemo sessions I already have under my belt.* And then I got to thinking about how I'm only halfway through the first step of my treatment. And how even when I am done with the next intensive steps– surgery, then radiation, and likely, more surgery– I will be taking medicine every day for the next 5-10 years that will basically put me into early menopause. And I will be monitored for the next several decades to make sure this piece of shit cancer doesn't recur somewhere else in my body. Greg initially described this whole cancer thing as a detour. But it actually feels like my car has been hijacked. And when the hijacker finally abandons it, it's keeping a few parts. There's just so...

I'm a pisces, but I had cancer!

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