A fork in the road ... which way should I go?

Soon after the appointment, I was met by Dr. MacCormick's nurse, who escorted me into a cozy room complete with couches to discuss a not-so-cozy topic: treatment. She went through the basics of 'AC,' the chemotherapy treatment I was to undergo. This, and everything from the moment when Dr. MacC recommended chemotherapy, seemed surreal. It was almost as though I was dreaming and was waiting to wake up. It was more than disbelief. It was not even being able to feel anything emotionally or to react to anything mentally. Everything the nurse said went into one ear and out the other. Could this really be happening?

After reviewing the medications they were assuming would soon be administered to me, the nurse took me to the 'chemo room' to show me where treatment takes place. I followed her into a large open-spaced room, where hospital beds and chairs lined the walls. In each hospital bed lied someone hooked up to an IV that pumped out chemotherapy drugs. Some of the people looked sick, while others looked rather normal. Most were bald and 'looked' like they had cancer. Beside each hospital bed there sat a chair and in most of these chairs sat a loved one: "This is where you will recieve your treatment. You're allowed one visitor in the room with you." Surrealism was still the case, however, I was able to conjur that the place didn't look as bad as i would have expected. It was quiet and had a friendly, cozy atmosphere. One thing I noticed was that some of the loved ones sat and read or sewed. They looked like they had been there for quite some time. I asked the nurse how long most people come in and she replied that it really depends--mine would be a small dose of an hour every three weeks for a couple of months, while some people had treatment anywhere from three hours to half a day (!) and anywhere from a couple times a week to once a day! My stomach sank as I tried to imagine what some of these people must be going through. I actually feel LUCKY when I consider how much worse I could have it.

The whole day was completely surreal. I went home and cried for a while as I tried to imagine what my life would be like on chemo. The once-imagined was becoming much more real-- sickness in every sense of the world, not being able to go out in public places for fear of infection, NO HAIR ... and all the things that could go wrong during treatment (i.e. death) or down the road (i.e. infertility). I've heard people in the past say that the treatment can sometimes be worse than the disease. The thought of that makes me cringe. It is completely true that right now I feel nothing but healthy. I don't feel or look like I have cancer. But if I am to take treatment this will all change.

I started suddenly realizing the extent of the lives we live--we are all human ... we don't have the answers for everything. NO ONE has the answers for everything. And there are still some major issues that we still know very little about. Cancer is one of them. And this was proven throughout this whole ordeal. These doctors know some things about cancer, but they do not know everything about it. I was coming to the realization that there was no known completely correct answer about my case. Dr. MacCormick, all the other doctors, and I are all only human and we are all dealing with one of those crazy things life throws at us. So ... now the decision-making is ultimately left up to myself. Although I was booked in for chemo beginning on November 17th, we were all under the understanding that I was still not 100% sure if I wanted to go through with it. I could back out at any time.

So now it was time for me to decide what avenue I wanted to take. This involved me weighing the options in my mind and on paper, considering all the things I had gathered from the doctors over the past number of weeks, researching AC and medical opinions about young women and chemotherapy, and talking to the people who meant most to me. The doctor did his job, now I had to do mine.