Hello Optimism
Lovely to hear from you, I’m sorry to hear about your situation, it’s not an easy one especially when choices are taken away from you. I hope You’re doing ok now? I think there’s a lot to be said for embracing the life you have and making the most of it. I hope you’re managing that, I know it’s really hard.
So, what I did was, a full 5.5 years on tamoxifen and then spoke to the oncologist and the nurse and came off for a bit (increased % risk of recurrence between 5 and 10 years of tamoxifen was quite small) . I was really happy doing that, but there was no baby naturally and when it came to doing IVF proper, we were too nervous to do the hormone stuff and I ended up back on tamoxifen and donated the embryos for research. I had to have therapy to get me through the decision as I struggled with the thought that I hadn’t tried hard enough and I hadn’t wanted it enough. Giving the embryos up was v hard too. I cried all over the paperwork and was just generally traumatised but I really hope it helps someone else in their quest to become a parent.
Anyway, I just about came to terms with it and then last year got diagnosed with secondaries in my bones and liver. The oncologist said she couldn’t tell me timescales and the impact of the break in tamoxifen, but of course I’ve had my horrible thoughts about it all. Ultimately though I feel like it’s a road I can’t take my mind down - it’s too dark, on one hand it’s a bit like “I tried, decided to preserve my health and then got terminal cancer anyway” and the other hand it’s like “I didn’t try hard enough and what would you do now if there was a baby and you’re terminal” so I try not to think about those things and just deal with the fact that I am where I am and whilst it’s not great I can’t second guess every decision I’ve ever made - which is weird because I’m happily managing to do that in other areas of my life in a different way - what difference have I made in the world, did I do any good, all my choices are bad, as I haven’t had kids I don’t mean anything - I appreciate as I write all this down it sounds like a lot and funnily enough today isn’t particularly a bad day! I have had to go back to therapy with the secondary diagnoses as I’m struggling with anxiety when I really want to be a bit more chill about things if I can, and I hope that with some hard work I can get there!
Sending lots of love
Goldie x