Hi. I’m Kate. Turn ons include IV drips, PETscans, and organic fig newtons. Turn offs include whining, hospital gowns, and artificial sugar.
Let’s see how much life I can squeeze in between work, chemo, sleep, and scans.
Decisions
Some things are simply too difficult to write about using cute little analogies. This is a stream of consciousness, brought on by a very rough week and accentuated by a few sleepless nights. This is undoubtedly the most candid and personal post I’ve ever written. No word-smithing here, just spell check and my honest thoughts.
I was disappointed to learn that I couldn’t have treatment on Wednesday - low platelets again. My oncologist suspects that this is in part due to the fact that my monthly visitor won’t go away. So I was referred to my girlie doctor to figure out how to remedy the situation. He gave me two options. The first is temporary - a shot in the arm every three months. The second is permanent - routine surgery. Here’s the kicker: the ‘temporary’ solution may in fact turn out to be permanent. It could send me sliding into menopause at the age of 35. My only legacy: a dog, a cat, and a couple of overweight horses.
When you’re first diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and given just a few months to live, there are some things that simply aren’t on your radar screen. Fertility is one of them. Sure, many cancer patients take precautionary steps in the hope of one day having a family. It was clear to me that the issue was never put on the table, never discussed, because I didn’t have a ‘one day’ in my future.
So, I had a decision to make and the doctor wanted that decision immediately. Temporary or permanent. But laying there, staring at a hideous mobile, I knew I was far from making that decision. I also knew that I needed to get the hell out of there.
I spent the next hour walking around a bookstore, weighing my options. I thought I had accepted the fact that I would never be a mother - I mean I’ve had more than a year to get over it - but my thoughts turned to all of things that I would be missing. I’d never get to spend nine months watching my tummy (and my ass) grow. I’d never get to feel embarrassed when unwrapping a breast pump. And I’d never get to complain to coworkers about the woes of teething.
The more I thought about the decision, the heavier it got. I wasn’t just making a decision about babies, I was deciding how I saw my future. Was I ready to take pregnancy out of the equation even though it remained one of my dreams?
A smarter person would’ve probably gone for the permanent option, but something inside me said that I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Taking the permanent route almost seemed like I was guaranteeing that I would never have my ‘one day.’ Regardless of whether or not a pregnancy is in my future, I don’t ever want to take away the potential of it and if that means getting a shot every three months, then so be it.
So, after all that, I just hope my platelets appreciate the stress and anxiety they’ve caused me and maybe they’ll feel guilty enough to make an appearance next week.
As you write, this post is candid, and as hard as it must have been to write (and as hard as it is to read), it seems to be just the right way to convey what you do. There are no words that can be written here to give solace, but I want you to know that every hope I have is for you, for remission, for a day when the dream you mention is one you come to know. The decision you made reflects the hope you eminate and embody. In return, I hope also: I hope the temporary choice is temporary, that it does help with the platelets, and that that’s another step - albeit a hard one - towards healing and a healthy future.
Kate - If I were you, I would have thought and acted on it just as you have. Good decision! You still have a future and you never know what the future may bring.
As I read your post today…
I find myself trying to find words to make me and especially YOU feel better. Something profound and witty as you so often delicately post your feelings on your blog, for example. However, I am so sad to read your latest post, and keeping my sisters husband in mind, I am so lost at finding any words to describe the pain that I feel coming from you, and also the pain I feel coming from my sister and brother in law. I pray for more joy in your life soon, and that this BEAST will not take over your life. I pray that you WILL be able to give birth to your own child.
Your words are so encouraging to others, and you turn on the light for so many when the light was so suddenly turned off with the words ‘pancreatic cancer’.
We must find a way to better educate the people and most important, the GOVERNMENT about this very aggresive/deadly cancer in our world which is not being recognized and taken seriously today!
God bless you Kate.
God bless YOU and EVERYONE in this journey of life.
Kate,
Your blog put things into perspective for me. I am pregnant now…..and I bitch and complain about how it makes me feel.
I am glad that you choose to get the temp shot. You have to have dreams……without them what does one have.
Your strength is outstanding. I look forward to reading your blog, you have taught me so much. I’ll be more thankful for being able to be pregnant from now on.
Good luck next week. You are in my prayers.
Katie
Good for you! Never give up your hope and optimism.
You’re an inspiration to many.
Best of luck with your platelets.
Terri
Kate,
Again, you don’t know me, but my life has been seriously touched by the “beast” known as pancreatic cancer. I have been reading your blog for some weeks now and was anxiously waiting for your latest post. With PC, one never knows……..
Anyhow, you made the right decision for you. Please just know (as I am sure you do) that there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between giving birth and being a mother. So many women give birth to babies and then throw them away instead of giving them up for adoption so that someone who had to make a choice such as you were given could have a child to rear into adulthood. I have one of each because I was told that I could not have a child the natural way. 22 months after we received our beautiful baby girl, I gave birth to a baby girl myself. We are a statistic, my husband and I. I just want to say, that the love that I feel for each of my daughters is exactly the same and I forget that one grew in my heart and one grew under my heart! Please keep up the fight and your hopes and dreams of the future! Good luck and God bless you.
Dorothy
Kate,
I am not sure if you are the Kate my husband and I have bumped into several evenings recently. I misplaced your email address and phone number(love that chemo brain!) so I googled what I knew of you and this Kate seeemed the closest to the head strong, chin up, life loving person I met so here I am on your blog. By the way, it my first time ever on a blog, so your PC forced me to join the 21st century! Gotta look for the little things…. It has take me a few days to get through your journey and what a road it has been. You have given me much laughter, some tears, a little reflection, some bowl of popcorn moments and out and out joy and I hardly know you. This last entry was a tough one, not that you needed me to tell you that. Nothing I can say can change anything. But I can pull for you, cheer for you, go bare headed in your honor - Send my two cents worth of positive energy out to you- it can’t hurt. All that positive energy flying around from everyone - Something is bound to stick at some point.
In one of your postings you said you would reach out and ask if you needed anything. A hard thing to do I know. But I really am here. My chemo is finished. I am fine. I need to give. I am ready, willing and able. Sounds like a Girl Scout, which I flunked out of but I am a really good cook, dog walker/player, listner, talker, coffee/wine drinker, bad leaf raker, good wall painter, terrible speller, good hanger arounder doing what ever kinda person.
If this is the Kate I ran into twice, once I was topless (from the neck up!) and once I wore “hair” I would love to hear from you. You know what, even if you are a different Kate, I would still love to hear from you because you sound wonderful too. Since this is my first time blogging I am not really sure how this works but I assume you can email me as I left my email address above this.
I hope today is a good one for you.
Jason
Hi Kate,
I’m still out of treatment, but hope to resume soon now that my stomach has finally healed. During chemo, I was supposed to go three weeks on and one week off, but I NEVER got the third week because my platelets were always knocked too low (and radiation took away my monthly visitor last summer.) So, maybe your monthly visitor isn’t entirely to blame. I’m glad you chose the temporary solution…and I will certainly pray that it remains a temporary solution. I feel strongly that you have a hope and a future and that you will win the battle against this beast. I am holding you in my heart and in my prayers.
Your friend in PCrappiness,
Ann
When I graduated from college (wow, over half my life ago now), the commencement speaker sent us off with a quote from Churchill:
“Never, never, never give up.”
It obviously stuck with me and this is one of those times I feel a need to pay it forward.
What a difficult decision! I feel you, more than you know. During the trials and tribulations (and time!) in trying to reach my own cancer diagnosis, I found out I was pregnant for the first time! We had been trying to get pregnant off and on for over a year so I was excited but scared. Two weeks later, I miscarried. Two weeks after that I got my cancer diagnosis and everyone seemed to breathe a sigh of relief that everything worked out in the end.
And now all of a sudden, in the midst of chemo, everyone throws this word MENOPAUSE around like it’s nothing. And I keep asking, begging, IS IT PERMANENT?!? I didn’t take the time to “consider freezing my eggs” or whatever before starting chemo. I just wanted to save my life. And now I’m experiencing what people now call CHEMOPAUSE and they all swear it’s not permanent. But I have to start taking hormones or B/C or whatever because the side effects are driving me nuts.
Anhyway, I’m sorry for rambling. Just know it’s not an easy decision to make but you made the right one…the one in your heart. Don’t give up your dream of motherhood. Ten years from now you’ll look back at all this and be even more grateful for your decision (as difficult as it may be) when you’re watching your own child run around and laugh. I cling to that image. It gives me hope…no matter how far-fetched it sometimes feels.
Good for you. Take care. Namaste.
I like the way you roll, sister.
Hi Kate,
I think you made the best decision for yourself. You can never tell what the future holds for you - good, bad, or ugly. But there’s always that little bit of hope. Isn’t it amazing how the glimmer of hope outweighs the gloom and doom?
So all your equipment continues to work - mine, too. Maybe that’s a small miracle.
Remember, there’s always babysitting and I have a candidate for you!
Being a mother or parent always comes from the heart and not always from the womb. I bet you’ll get the chance to support, guide, encourage, and nurture kids. They’re out there and they can never get enough!
Keep the faith.
Hi Kate,
Long time since I have posted here, I was officially “whippled” 5 1/2 weeks ago and landed back in the hospital last week again (what fun).
I believe you made the right decision. Who can say what your future holds as far as motherhood but I know this. I know that God can lay desires upon our hearts that we could have never imagined. While I can understand that your post shares more than just a desire to someday parent a child but to also experience preganancy and childbirth, remember that even if you cannot concieve a child it does not mean the doors to motherhood are closed, but I’m sure you know that.
I just felt led to share with you that while my situation was not even remotely close to yours, 11 yrs ago I wanted to conceive a child with my husband. It was not in the cards for us (I won’t waste space on the details) and we were told to perhaps consider a donor or adoption. I would not hear of it, I wanted to carry, give birth to and raise my husband’s biological child. Skip ahead 9 yrs or so and I was pretty much stunned when I found that God not only laid the desire to adopt on my heart but that my desire to adopt a child was now MUCH greater than my desire to birth my husband’s child (He so kindly also put the desire in my husband’s heart as well). I can’t explain how it happened, I didn’t go looking for this, I didn’t even feel like I went through any kind of “process” to get there. We had just left the idea of having child together far behind us when out of the blue came this incredible desire to adopt.
We have had our new daughter (adopted from Ukraine) home now for almost 2 years. 3 months after she was home, we knew we were ready to adopt again and have been working on adopting another little girl we met while in Ukraine (hopefully she will officially be our daughter this summer). We never imagined how blessed we would be through adoption. I can go on and on about how blessed we are and why but that would turn this into a novel.
Just remember your options will remain open and the desires of your heart may someday surprise you.
I continue to pray for you daily and look forward to hearing your good news soon.
Hugs & Prayers,
Michelle
I also have an adopted child — a wonderful boy, age 7, adopted from Vietnam at 3 months old — and, needless to say, echo many of the other sentiments shared above. I also have an incurable cancer (diagnosed when my son turned 5), and I wonder whether some of your sadness is connected to frightening thoughts of the future and of a door within that murky future that may be closing permanently. It is hard enough to face a scary, uncertain future head-on in the context of a life-threatening disease. To factor in the possibility of never being able to experience such a life-affirming phenomenon, on top of this uncertainty, must be devastating.
My husband and I enthusiastically pursued adoption after just a year of trying and no infertility treatments; we were all for it and hopped right on the adoption bus, as we put it. Even so, there is a true feeling of loss when you come to the realization that you may very well never have a biological child. In a small way, it is like a death. To experience this realization while in the midst of chemo treatments for an aggressive disease such as yours must be very difficult.
Decisions regarding fertility treatments, childbirth, adoption, etc., are intensely personal, and I don’t want to advocate for any approach. I just hope you can take some small comfort in knowing that there are many ways to become a parent, regardless of gender, marital status, age, and health status. Please don’t give up hope.
Finally, I too have gone through chemopause this year, and it sucks! Birth control pills have set me straight. In fact, in the past I have been able to keep that monthly visitor away through continuous use of BC. Just a thought.
Kristy
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