Decisions, decisions, today is definitely proving to be a thinking day. I heard from Dr. Horwitz (Duke) and Dr. Matthews (Fertility) this morning. First, on the fertility front there's a 25% chance that I may have eggs to harvest and on the Duke front I have a donor date or two kind of. Turns out the chemo hasn't completely destroyed my uterus function. I could try and start the process needed to harvest eggs but there is no guarantee that I'll be able to and there's no guarantee that the egg could turn into a pregnancy eventually. Also, there's no promise that I wouldn't pass the leukemia gene on to my child. There's also the fact that my eggs have been doused three times with chemotherapy, it's a miracle they made it through and we don't know what sort of damage could have occured.
As for Duke, they are willing to work with me on the time needed to harvest the eggs. However, Dr. H explained that his number one concern is me and the leukemia, he thinks I could potentially hold off on the transplant if harvesting eggs is the most important thing to me. Dr. H said he would rather start the transplant now instead of waiting but knows the decision is mine to make. He told me that if I couldn't live knowing I didn't do every possible thing to have a child then we could wait. The problem is that my donor has agreed to the date of February 24th, which is too soon to harvest eggs. If I wait I would have to wait until March 15th which is longer than I had anticipated. Dr. H agreed, he had hoped it would be sooner but the marrow center doesn't have any earlier appointments.
I am faced with the choice between harvesting eggs or moving forward with the transplant. If I choose to harvest my eggs it would cost up to $8K, I was wrong in my original thinking turns out the drugs cost $4K and the procedure cost $4K. Plus, there's no guarantee it would even work. The alternative could be egg donation but that costs up to $20K, apparently adoption isn't cheap either.
I told both doctors I would call them tomorrow morning with my decision. It's been a hard morning, my emotions have been on a roller coaster. First, I thought it would be a no brainer, go ahead and try to harvest, but putting my treatment off another month isn't that appealing to me. Then there's the what ifs, and the costs and deep down I'm feeling that maybe I wasn't meant to bear children. We had been trying before I got sick and nothing happened so maybe pregnancy and all that just isn't in the cards for me. I still think we will have kids some day through adoption or whatever, I guess I've come to terms with the fact that I won't have a natural pregnancy.
As Eric says, I have to put my health first, if I'm not alive there's no point in talking about children in the first place. It just hurts to know that the only way I'll be able to have children is to pay a lot of money when other people who shouldn't have children get them for free. Life isn't fair, I know that and I think we all do, but you don't have to like it and right now I don't like it. Even still I am thankful for my life and for my health, I know I'm lucky to be alive and I value life in a deeper way now. So I am going to move forward with the transplant and take the February 24th date. It's not an easy decision to make but I'm choosing my life.
Signing off from 6119.
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