I made it through the end of the weekend before last and that Monday feeling great physically, only dealing with the continued shedding of the stubble that remained on my head. I had been increasingly anticipating my labs and follow-up appointment with Dr. Park on Tuesday hoping that I would […]
When people think of what cancer patients look like, one of the first things that comes to mind is often baldness. It is a difficult thought not only for the cancer patient who has or will loose his/her hair, but also for the person who either associates baldness with cancer […]
On Friday, January 31st, my eggs were retrieved, fertilized, and started their journey to become blastocytes. Here are the final numbers: 20 eggs were retrieved. 19 eggs were mature and fertilized. On day 3, 18 “cleavage stage” embryos existed (the cells in the embryo are cleaving (aka dividing), but not […]
There are many quotes about the strength or darkness of the storm and the sun that shines afterward or the strength gained through it. It seems like one of those should be a good analogy to my past three days. Thursday was an insanely busy day at work. I was […]
As you know, we doubled the dosage of Bravelle starting Tuesday night after seeing a less than 20 point bump in my estradiol level from Saturday the 17th (E2 = 49) to Tuesday the 20th (E2 = 65). From last Tuesday through Friday, I still had not really noticed any […]
After making it through the past two weeks of appointments, procedures, surgeries, and decisions, on top of working, I was exhausted: physically, mentally, and emotionally. Although I knew I made the right decisions and had been very rational throughout the process, by the end of last week, I was searching […]
Last Tuesday was an exhausting day. Less than 24 hours after I had the port placement surgery, we were up early to go UNC Chapel Hill to meet with Dr. Park (Director of Lymphoma Program and focusing on Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma) for a second opinion and to determine who I would […]
Today, I had my port implanted (or as I’ve been mistakenly saying today “installed”. It’s not nearly as fun as having a new kitchen appliance installed in the house 🙂 ). I had been somewhat dreading this procedure because I had read and been told by some of my medical […]
During my first appointment with Dr. Gorsuch, she asked me if I planned or had ever thought about having children. This question caught me completely off guard. My thoughts and research up to that point had completely been focused on my new cancer diagnosis and understanding it and the treatment […]
Pre-cancer, I unaware of the process of evaluation and the time it takes to receive the final diagnosis. Today is 38 days after my initial meeting with Dr. Ingram regarding what I had jokingly calling my “neck balls”, which he thought would be some kind of abnormal lymph nodes and […]
