Happy Friday!

We've had a full day that started with an 8:30 AM blood draw at MDA. When I was at Chateau UMC de Lubbock for the weekend I looked like a pin cushion and although I'm still getting stuck every other day at MDA, the quality of their phlebotomists and the type of needles used makes blood draw completely painless and they haven't left a mark since the surgery, where they were using very large needles to do very complicated things. It's astounding.

Our second appointment was with the reproductive clinic for a consult. Before our current circumstances arrived, we were not discussing additional children. However, when you are faced with the reality that your fertility is coming to an abrupt end, it's worth at least a consult. MDA has a wonderful clinic devoted to the consideration of fertility and cancer. They help women and men who may lose or hurt their chances of planning a family due to cancer and/or treatment. My reality is that not only will my treatment likely hurt fertility, but my scans, tests, and continued treatment make it very dangerous for me to ever consider carrying another child. Therefore, we discussed whether it would be worth considering harvesting eggs, freezing eggs and/or embryos, and then later considering a surrogate. We figured benefits in the long term could be 1) we hire a surrogate and raise another kid (which I actually am not keen on since it'd mean putting another kid through college at 60); 2) we keep the eggs/embryos on ice in case Aidan ever needed stem cells or genetic material given that he has no full siblings; 3) someday Aidan could hire a surrogate and raise his own sibling. We figured each of these potential scenarios warranted consultation. We were so glad we went to discuss this and what we learned made our decision clearly to not preserve eggs/embryos. Given my age of 42 and a few other factors, only 1/20 embryos are likely to even be viable. Also, a decision to harvest eggs would mean delaying my current plans for radiation/chemo by 2 weeks. In the end, we know that preserving me for Aidan is more important than preserving the (unlikely) possibility of a sibling for Aidan. And all of that is even before factoring in the cost. All in all, the cost/benefit just wasn't there.

The other thing that we learned today is that I am about to give my diet a complete overhaul. Apparently cancer thrives on sugar. We have to starve it, especially during treatment. No carbs. No sugars of any type. I'm going Paleo. I ate beef today for the first time in 10 years. And it was actually pretty tasty. I'm a new woman now! Hear me roar!