Cancer Survivor meets the Big "M"

I am a cancer survivor and for all my life it was something wonderful-- worth being proud of. I am still so very thankful to be alive, but maybe in the last 7 years I have begun to feel the affects of being an experiment in the 80's. True those experiments saved my life and I am forever grateful to them. But I am also frustrated at not understanding everything thats going on. That might go on.

And I feel alone. Very alone.

I'll ask my doctors a question and they'll respond, we don't know-- we're kind of watching you to see what happens. Sigh.

When I graduated from CHOP I was told that three things could happen-- I would never have kids. Never carry my kids to full term. And most likely go into menopause by the time I was 30. The doctor started to cry and I just sat there stunned. I was one of 4. My dad was one of 7 and my mom ws one of 6. Having kids or not having kids really had never entered my mind until that moment a few months before I turned 18 and began college. And then, before I really had time to process that news, my mom got breast cancer.

Fast forward a few years and my mom was fine and I was a newlywed who had just had a miscarriage. That was such a low point for me as noone directly related to me had ever really had one and it seemed to seal the deal that biological children were not an option.

But, God is so good and he gave us one and then one more, and then a bonus one too. We were good and set. We would def. open our hearts to a fourth, but my third pregnancy was so rough, we just weren't sure it would happen.

And now I am pretty sure I won't as at the age of 28 I am almost positive that I am going through perimenopause. So, at the age of 28 I'll be going through hot flashes with my aunts while my sisters and friends have babies. This has not been an easy pill to swallow. For one thing having been told that I had till 30, I really figured I had to 30. Also, I think at one point a very ignorant and uninformed doctor laughed when I told him this and I really felt like a fool for buying into the whole early menopause thing. I just can't really wrap my brainaround the fact that this is happening and really hate feeling super sad about the whole thing.

But here I am and all the things I look up and read support what I know in my heart to be true. I had to finally break down and call the doctor today and convince the nurse on the line that I wasn't her average 28 year old and wasn't taking any drugs. Fun. How does one even go through menopause with a 2 year old in the house?