Good News!

Today was off to a stressful start when I got a phone call from the Tom Baker Cancer Center and they told me "we were supposed to have you in for a consultation today but forgot to book it. Is it okay if we call you at 4 pm? Make sure you have someone there."

So as you can imagine my mind immediately went to "they're going to tell me I have a month left to live" because what else do you think in that situation? Anyway, it turns out that's just procedure and they recommend having an extra set of ears when they're going to tell you lots of medical stuff so that was a good lesson to learn but a hard way to learn it.

But shut up Chelsea, what's the news??? The results from my full body CT Scan came back and I have NO OTHER CANCER. We're just dealing with a brain tumour! Which I mean, isn't ideal and I couldn't recommend it to anyone, but we are definitely celebrating this victory. I also got the results back from that second MRI I had 10 days after the first one, and they said that there haven't been any significant changes which is a good sign that this is a pretty slow-growing tumour and won't cause me much more damage.

I found out I start treatment on May 3rd, and my doctors gave me permission to go on the backpacking trip I had planned for April 30th- May 2nd! It will be wonderful to have one last nice trip in some fresh air before I go into battle.

They're thinking that the biggest side effects of my treatment will be my existing symptoms will get worse, because it will cause swelling and that's a huge part of what is causing my symptoms, and also I'm about to be one VERY VERY TIRED BOI. I'll do my 30 radiation treatments and daily chemo pills, and then for 5 days a month for another year, I get to do another much stronger round of chemo. It'll be like "that time of the month" except not. I get to have weekly blood work, an MRI every two months, and I'll also be on steroids and antibiotics the whole time.

They delivered me a piece of news that sounded like bad news but I want everyone reading to know I'm at peace with this: the chemo I'm getting is going to make me infertile. They said if I ever wanted to have kids I have to freeze my eggs like this week. I'm okay with it because 1) cancer can be a genetic mutation and I can't imagine the stress of worrying about one of my kids getting a brain tumour and 2) my family has a predisposition to a LOT of not-so-fun genetic conditions. I'm almost relieved knowing that I can adopt or find a surrogate or egg donor who won't have my family's genetic lottery! ADDITIONALLY, I'm 23 and don't even know if I even want to have kids yet, or if I just want to go on a vacation to Italy every year. But I know for sure I won't be having my own kids and I am okay with that. Andy wanted me to mention that he's okay with this too.

I'm sorry if that last paragraph was way more personal than you were expecting to get on this blog, but it's really helpful for me to write it all out so hopefully, no one minds.