I did not know what to expect from this appointment or what it was for. I was going into it thinking this is where I would find out what my treatment options I had are for this cancer. I had filled out all of the forms ahead of time, and bought a pink notebook and a pink breast cancer pen. I decorated my notebook with stickers of stars, hearts, angels, butterflies, and crosses. It is my Breast Cancer Notebook where I can put all the information and keep everything together.
My mom and dad came to the appointment with me. They met me at the office. Going into see Dr. Cocilovo was the first time I cried as a result of this diagnosis. She was going over the probable treatment and the procedures and meetings I needed to still set up. When she was talking she told me that due to the Chemo that I was most likely going to become infertile. This is when I lost it. I just started crying. I can deal with Cancer. I can deal with all the appointments and the pain, etc. But I did not want to become infertile.
Ever since I can remember, more than anything I want in my life is to be able to have my own birth child. I did not want to lose that opportunity because of this. I know that I could always adopt. I was an adoption placement worker for goodness sake, I also wrote home studies for other people who wanted to adopt. Those children are special and those families are special. But I did not want to lose this opportunity to give birth and raise a child from birth. Adopting an infant would be rare and too hard. I know, I have been on the placement side.
I left the meeting overwhelmed, and not sure I liked the treatment procedure. I felt it was to aggressive given the fact that we did not know it was in my lymph nodes or not, and that most people I talked to had surgery first and then chemo, or no chemo at all. No chemo would protect my fertility.
I looked up more information on the web, called friends, ended up working on trying to schedule a second opinion appt with the Doctors at Georgetown. They needed all of my records and notes from the previous doctors. I called and had this stuff sent to Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center.
