Hi All,
I hope you don't mind me posting this. When I was diagnosed with aggresive breast cancer in Feb 2007 aged 28 I looked long and hard for happy ending stories and I found some, but not many that seemed relevant to me so I hope my story might help some of you feel positive about the future.
My tumour was HER2 positive, 8cms, grade 3 and had spread to 14/25 lymph nodes. I had full mastectomy and node clearance, 15 chemo cycles, 5 weeks of rads and herceptin which carried on until August 2008. I had tried an IVF cycle to freeze eggs before chemo but it hadn't worked.
During this my marriage broke down, but gradually I got my life back met someone new, moved house and we started talking about having a family. Then I was told chemo had left my infertile - my FSH was 87 (normal is under 10) and my AMH (ovarian reserve) was 0.07 -undetectable. We started talking about adoption and other options. In the meantime I was sent for a biopsy as I was still having periods which according to my hormone levels shouldn't have been happening. Anyway, the long and short of it is that before the biopsy they did a pregnancy test to make sure and I was pregnant!
I am now 22 weeks, healthy, happy and doing well. Cancer is still a shadow. I know that it could come back. But my oncologist has assured me that pregnancy does not increase my risk of recurrence and the fact I had chemo does not pose a risk to my baby.
I am not flippant about it and I worry about what happens if I become ill and putting a child through it. But after going through so much, and putting my family through so much, to feel that I have the life I wanted is brilliant. There is hope. I wanted other people going through the nightmare of cancer and how much it takes from you to know that it doesn't have to take everything.
Liz xx
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