No Babies...

      In all of this Cancer nonsense, sometimes it's easy to sort of ... forget some of the permanent ramifications of everything I've dealt with.  Physically speaking.

       The thing is, even before Cancer, I had sort of come to terms with the fact that kids probably weren't in my future.  I'm single, an abuse survivor, a lesbian, no real prospects hanging around.  I started to realize that even if I did find and fall in love with the right girl... by the time we got to the whole... having kids part- my bits would probably be pretty well expired.

   Since I'd always had really complicated, difficult, and unpleasant female issues growing up, in the year before Cancer, I'd started to seriously consider seeking out at least a partial hysterectomy anyway.

    But back then, I could still change my mind.  I could still pick up one day and say... no... babies.. I want babies.  For a lot of years that was on my list of things I wanted to do- and pretty high on the list in fact.  To the point that when I talked with my best friend about the hysterectomy decision ... we had a conversation of more than an hour where I had to convince her that I really had changed my mind.

    The thing is, Cancer takes away your choice.  I think sometimes the only reason I have any residual emotional waves about not being able to bear children is BECAUSE Cancer took away the choice.  If I'd done the hysterectomy (partial or otherwise) 100% by choice, I don't think I'd have that (albeit small) internal conflict about it.  Because there's just something about... choice.  About it being a decision made freely.

   Ultimately, I didn't get to make that decision freely- it was made for me.  The value of my life and healing over the desire to carry babies.  I chose life.  I don't regret that, and I never will.

   But the point of all this isn't to talk about whether or not my hysterectomy was a choice.  Or whether or not I sometimes still wish I had the option to carry a baby.  The point is about a conversation I had today... with a nurse of all people.

   I had my first PT appointment today and thanks to a small service expansion there's now a chemo/cancer focused PT section at my Cancer center.  Please note the redundant use of the word Cancer.  The PT group is FOR Cancer patients.  That's the whole point of its existence.  It's there to serve the Cancer patients.

   As is typical with a first appointment, you have to go through the same 50 questions with the nurse before you get to see the Doctor.  And it started typically enough:

Nurse: "And where are you experiencing pain?"
Me: "Legs, feet, numbness, some in my hands and arms today too"
 Nurse: "Weight?"
 Me: "#"
 Nurse: "Height?"
 Me: "#"
 Nurse: "Date of last period?"
 Me: "I don't really know."
 Nurse: "Closest guess?"
 Me: "I've had a hysterectomy."
 Nurse: "No Babies?!"
 Me: "Um... what?"
 Nurse: "No babies?!?"
 Me: "No.  No babies."
 Nurse: "Why no babies?!"
 Me: "Cancer doesn't want me to have babies."
Nurse: "Ok, do you have a guess about your last period?"
Me: "I have no idea, before the surgery I pretty much had it all the time"
Nurse: "That's too bad... and no babies too."'

     That was the conversation.   And she's lucky.  Because my emotional attachment to the baby thing is pretty minimal.  But it still... rankles.  I don't necessarily want to be reminded that I can't change my mind, that the choice of having my own biological babies is no longer mine.  And I really, REALLY  didn't appreciate the implication that not being able to have babies (for whatever reason) makes my life less rich or less positive, or less worthwhile.  And while I know she probably meant well... that was the certainly the tenor of her reaction.

      She's lucky.  Because if I were someone who felt the real and genuine loss of that avenue, the way many women with Uterine Cancer do, she could have really created some emotional wreckage today. 

    At the best, she was incredibly insensitive.  And at the worst, she could have really added to the emotional damage of a woman who might already have been fragile to begin with. 

   I think the thing that boggles my mind the most out of it all is that it happened at the CANCER CENTER.  The woman is a nurse who works with CANCER PATIENTS.  My situation should not have been shocking to her.  It shouldn't have been a surprise and it should NOT have warranted or elicited the reaction from her that it did. 

    I'll be ok.  I'll re-center, re-adjust, and move on.  But to those in the world that still think having children is the end all be all, to those that still think that being a woman and bearing children is the thing that gives life the ultimate meaning:

  It's not.  Whether by choice or not, my life is not going to be lacking or lackluster because I don't have children.  And it will never, ever be appropriate to insinuate otherwise.   The nurse should have known better- but you never do.  Don't push a woman who says she's had a hysterectomy, or who says she's not having, or doesn't want to have children.  Realize that sometimes, that's not a choice.  And respect that even if it was her choice- it's none of your business.