What have I been doing? In the words of Tig Notaro, you might think “Oh, just sitting around having breast cancer…,” and there are certainly days where it feels like I am in limbo, or would be better off sitting around being a blob, but there is also a LOT happening.

Appointments, forms, labwork, more paperwork, patient education, scans, trying to fit in work (because I love my job and coworkers) and MAIL! I’ve gotten a handful of really amazing paper/snail-mail notes, which have been SO appreciated and loved. ❤

But then, there’s the official/medical mail too. Friday and yesterday I received one GIANT box each day. Each was full of drugs, but NOT the type that you use for fun.

Still, they ARE kind of cool and exciting simply because treatment has now gotten to the point where younger (me! i’m considered “younger” – believe it!) women diagnosed with cancer potentially have options if they might want to try have have a child eventually (after they are well out of the woods with chemo, radiation and other treatment)…

Of course, although fertility procedures like egg-freezing and IVF have been practiced for many years now, none of this is covered by insurance, so I am amazingly, startlingly grateful that we applied for/were granted assistance from the LiveStrong Program/Lance Armstrong Foundation and UM, which will cap costs at just a percentage of the usual fees.

Tomorrow we start the process by which ALL (well, 3/4, probably) of these drugs will be injected into my body over the course of 10 days. So if you see me in that time, please know that I will kind of be a walking science experiment, a bundle of hormones, and I will try to eat enough chocolate so I don’t cry at you or anything! ❤

Then, sometime the week before surgery (Nov 2, surgery is Nov 12), I will have a procedure. I never really considered having to use IVF or anything like that at all, so this still feels somewhat sci-fi, but I know I am in very good hands, and coincidentally, the main Dr. in charge of my case at UM did a fellowship with one of my all-time fave docs — Dr. Milad — who performed my surgery this July at Northwestern Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago.

Thanks for all the love, friends — responding to individual messages here and there as I can!