Hi Melville
When I saw your title, I thought how foolish anyone would be to turn down treatments of any kind. Then reading your post, I was so moved. It brought back a lot of painful feelings about being unable to carry a child, living a childless life and facing secondary breast cancer with just me and my husband muddling through. My heart goes out to you but I also know there comes a point in the infertility treatments where enough is enough. There is only so much hope and pain a couple can bear, especially the woman, who usually pays the price, both physically and socially.
As for the period issue, again I really feel for you. I had probably 3-4 days a cycle where I wasn’t suffering with either PMS or prolonged painful periods. I think I’m the only woman I know who welcomed menopause with open arms. Not only the end to all that pain but also an end to that niggling hope that this month it might work. I truly hated my body for letting us down and menopause brought us such a release, despite all the grief and loss. A few hot flushes was a small price to pay.
There is little point in wondering about the cause of your breast cancer. What’s done is done and you can’t change things. But in my local secondary bc support group, almost half of us have at some time had infertility treatments of different kinds. Coincidence? If you need to know the cause, you can latch onto that but it won’t change anything.
You are fortunate that your breast cancer was caught early but it is heavily hormone-receptive. Personally, I wouldn’t take the risk of rejecting an additional treatment. What you need to remember is that reported side effects are often anecdotal. I remember my mum taking tamoxifen. She said she just had to take this tablet for 5 years and that was that. Never mentioned a side effect. We use the forums here when we need support - I don’t even know if there’s a forum for celebration of no side effects. So you generally hear the worst. Do you read a paracetamol list of possible effects - do you think about those when you have a headache? Probably not as you think it doesn’t apply to you. So why would a list of potential tamoxifen side effects apply to you? Each is only a possibility. Sometimes a remote possibility - and if you do get intolerable side effects, you come off it.
Statistics are misleading. Tamoxifen apparently may make a tiny difference in your chance of recurrence. But that’s the average - you might be one of those for whom it takes you up to 100% chance of no recurrence. If you are one who does get a recurrence, you’ll be blaming yourself for not taking tamoxifen. And next time, your breast cancer may not be so ‘easy’ to treat.
I have no answers, only sympathy and a bit of wisdom that comes with the value of hindsight (better than admitting it’s age). I know what it’s like to have to let go of a dream and accept that life’s treated you cruelly. I know what it’s like to have to live with that in a world where the norms involve children, grandchildren… it never ends. So I do understand your wish to try once more. But now is not the time. You have to focus on your treatment and if your treatment involves hormone therapy which will impede IVF, there is your pretext for deciding what your priority is - you or a gamble.
I wish you all the best, whatever you decide
Jan x