The illness came to me in January. It began with a small abnormality, a small number of changing cells most likely, usually go away on their own, easy to treat if we so desire, nothing to worry about. I knew right then, immediately, I just knew. “I’m not having the surgery” I said, not really listening to anything else he was saying. He rocked his head back, leaned back in his chair and laughed, then adopting his serious voice “This will not effect your fertility at all”. He took some cells and some blood, to decide whether he wanted to treat or whether it was so minor we should just leave it to correct itself. “Nine times out of ten we do nothing, there is nothing to worry about”. I already knew.
I left in a daze and went on to work, I remember what I was wearing, dark blue jeans, a light blue sweater. A friend saw me arrive, saw my dazed face and the plaster on my arm from the blood test. “Oh, you are pregnant!” he said. For the first time in my life, I wished that I was.
Two weeks later I went back for the results. It was more serious than the doctor had predicted, high level changes or possibly more, localised and noninvasive. This is still nothing to worry about, we will treat it he told me, with a minor surgery to take away the bad cells. So we did.
Two weeks later I went back. I was slimmer already, without realising it I had already stopped eating. “It’s bad news” he said. I assumed he meant we didn’t remove all the cells and needed to repeat the process to take the remainder, as I had been told this can happen. No, it was not this. The cells had penetrated and were in numbers that no longer suggested our previous worse case scenario. It was invasive. I didn’t understand what this meant at the time, still protesting that another small surgery was all that was needed. I was the unlucky one he said.
No one ever told me, “You have cancer”. But I did. I was 27 years old.
I was sent to see another doctor, this time there was no two week wait and I saw him within days. There is a possibility we can save your womb he said, opening my files. Ah no, he then added almost instantly, we cannot. “Dont even suggest it” I said, interrupted, holding my hand up to gesture to him to stop. I recall asking him how long I had left. “A year, maybe two” he replied. The rest of the appointment is a blur. It was March.
In the next weeks, refusing to believe what I was told and with my life collapsing in around me, I saw endless cancer specialists, some at my request as I desperately searched for another way, some I was sent to by my oncologist, who in my desperate shocked blur I had not fully realised was an oncologist, in attempts to convince me that there was something wrong. I collected all my paperwork meticulously, obsessively, researching new treatments, sending it to specialists and pioneering specialists the world over. The responses were always the same. A genuinely sad no.
The fertility aspects offered some hope, I would remain fertile, just unable to carry. I would use a surrogate, it would be no big deal. After all the bad news I was unable to accept this. I had been told at every step that I had nothing to worry about, then at every step the opposite was true. So I asked if I could do an ivf cycle and freeze some eggs. Sure, but there is no need they said. In truth I needed to do something and I was not willing to do what they asked. I could not go back to my life as it was before, as I was unable to eat, sleep, or focus on anything else.
So I embarked on an ivf cycle. I have heard many complaints about this process, but in truth I found it easy. I had injections everyday, blood tests every second day, scans twice a week. I then flew to California, to meet with a fertility clinic there. The USA has more progressive laws and technology for egg freezing and surrogate use, so I had made the choice to travel there.
I arrived in California with a small white leather handbag holding pyjamas, underwear, syringes, drugs and my teddy bear. I no longer needed anything else material. A friend whom I had met in my sunny days as a student at the University of California had put me in touch with her brother and his young wife, who met me at the airport and took me to their home.
Once I arrived back in Switzerland, I waited two days, then went to hospital. The nurse came to my room and asked if I was ready. I was sobbing already and said No I could not do it, I would not do it. She gave me medication so that I would sleep, telling me I had to do it and that the medication was so strong that I would sleep and would not need to know. I tried to calm down and rest but the sobbing and panic consumed me. I did not feel calm or sleep. The nurse returned and was shocked to find me awake, saying in French that she did not think it was possible. Again, sobbing, I said No, I could not do it, I would not do it. She began to take me, I sobbed, I was shaking, I whimpered, I said No, please, No. The nurses were crying too. When they passed me over to another set of nurses, I grasped the blouse of the nurse who gave me the medication and said “No, Don’t let them take me”. She undid my grasp, I grabbed her with my other hand, she did not look me in the eyes, tears streaming down her face, peeling my hands away from her again and again as I begged her not to let them take me. All the nurses were crying. I remember the sparkle of the diamond earring od the nurse I begged the most desperately, who cried the most tears. Then she was gone.
I was shaking and still sobbing, recoiling from needles and cold hands. No, please. Someone gave me an epidural, I was shaking so much I had to be held still. At the same time there was an IV in my arm. I do not remember the anaesthetic taking effect.
I woke in the post op room. I was wrapped in blankets and wires. I knew immediately. A male nurse came to me as not for the first time, I was sick from morphine. He put his face close to mine so he could hear my tiny voice. Is it done, I whispered. It is done, he said. In the next room a baby was screaming. Is that a baby, I whispered. Yes, born two hours ago, he said. Close the door, I said. Excusez nous Madame, Excusez nous, he said and softly closed the door.
It was the first, and last time, anyone ever said sorry.
Next thing I know I am back in my room, it is dark outside, and I am alone.
I am crying, sobbing, whimpering. My heart is exploding. My primal instincts are ripping me apart fibre by fibre. Despite an epidural, a morphine IV and sedation drugs, I am in terrible pain. I can barely focus my eyes on the outline of the Saleve against the night sky, I see only the blurred blue light from a lookout post high on the mountain. Alone in the dark room, curled up in pain through my body and ripping my soul, under the dark night sky and the blue light on the mountain, one by one, I feel my babies die, that night.
And now, after telling of everything but the illness, after refusing to even say its name, I must tell of all of it.
