I have cancer
I went in for an ultrasound two weeks ago. They said I needed to follow up with a biopsy, which was not good news. I did the biopsy a week ago, and learned that I have cancer. Yesterday I learned it is Triple Negative Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. The basic overview is going to be chemotherapy for two months, followed by surgery in the second trimester, followed by radiation treatment after birth. I will learn more when I meet with a specialist today.
What this means for baby
Hopefully it means nothing. Our OB told us if I had to do chemo, then we would have to terminate. That turns out not to be true, but more on this in a second. Baby should survive chemo. The surgery has to be in the second trimester because the anesthesia could affect baby in the first, and in the third it could accidentally induce labor. That actually works out, because I will most likely be done with chemo in the middle of my second trimester.
There are two, well maybe three ways to do surgery depending on how the chemo goes. If the lump shrinks, then they can do what is called a lumpectomy. That means they just take the lump and leave the other tissue. If it does not shrink, they will do a mastectomy, which means they will take the entire boob. If they are afraid it has spread to the other boob, they might do a full mastectomy, both boobs gone.
If they do a lumpectomy, I can breastfeed. Which I really want to do. If they do a mastectomy of just the one side, I can still breastfeed out of the other. If they do a full mastectomy, I cannot breastfeed. The good news though is that reconstruction is covered by insurance, and they can take your belly fat to recreate your boobs. So maybe I might not breastfeed, but I will lose the babyweight instantly!
What if?
So I said that we in fact do not have to terminate our pregnancy. But what if we had? This thought makes me so mad. Not because we would have lost the baby, though that would be earth shattering for sure. But because if our hospital had been in the wrong state we could not have.
There are pregnant people out there who would be advised to terminate for a medical reason, and now not only is it not possible for many pregnant people in many states, in some states the pregnant person would be charged with murder. That makes me want to puke harder than first trimester nausea. Could you imaging being told you have terminal cancer, and being told that you can’t terminate the pregnancy despite the fact that the treatment could harm the baby, and they could be born deformed to the point that they would not survive more than a few hours or days? But you still have to go through the whole thing on top of cancer treatments. And if you did terminate some other way, you would be charged as a criminal…because of your cancer?
Yeah, fuck the pro-lifers who didn’t think of this shit. That’s right I said it. FUCK YOU.
I’ll Be Back
So we don’t have to terminate. The surgeon I spoke with yesterday said she had done this treatment with other pregnant people who are now perfectly healthy and have healthy children. Treatment will be at the Sarah Cannon center, which I will never unthink of as the Sarah Connor center. Wherever it is, treatment is going to suck, hard, but it is all going to be ok in the end.
That being said, my mind is a veritable hurricane of thoughts and worries. I am so overwhelmed with everything. I know that other women who are going through the same thing could use some advice, but right now I cannot blog every day.
So what I am going to do, is write a book about it at my own pace. And when that is published and we are past that and instead super busy overwhelmed parents, I promise you I will be back. I am going to take a brief hiatus, and I apologize to my followers, but it is absolutely necessary for my mental health at this time. I hope you understand, and keep a look out for my book!