My Story (Part 2) Minutes Not Hours
It is my hope that through reading this and connecting with me, someone out there never has to feel as alone as I once did. We are all pregnant with a new possibility each and every day.
Every prick of a needle reminded me that everything I had ever dreamed of now seemed out of reach. A simple blood test sent me into a spiral of fear and exhaustion and often resulted in a lot of bruising, bleeding under the skin and pain.
As someone who has small veins and requires a butterfly needle to get any blood out, having a blood test every few days by a different technician is mild torture.
The first test of my tracking cycle left me with a hemorrhage under the skin, resulting in a very bruised arm. The second was attempted by a Russian woman who inserted a thick static needle under the skin and proceeded to search around for the vein, which I soon learnt is often done by people who aren’t confident in their role and it never works.
After two failed attempts to draw blood, you must leave that clinic and try at another location as they aren’t allowed to attempt it a third time. This became a pattern and every time they couldn’t get my blood, I would leave crying, hungry from fasting, worried I would miss the deadline to get the results back to the doctor as needed that morning, trying to find somewhere else to go and wait ages again to get seen, sore arms at the crease, stinging in the summer breeze.
If I managed to pull it off, I would fix my make-up and rock up to whatever meeting or styling client I had that day with a mask indent on my skin and smile on my face. We hadn’t even started IVF and the blood tests were a constant every few days for the following four years.
The next month was my surgery to remove the polyp. Despite some intense pain in my uterus afterwards, everything seemed to heal ok and weeks went by as I geared up for the future which was now looking a little blurry.
Image caption: Wearing a linen mask before I knew only KN95 ones work but it was mandatory at the time and had to wear throughout. Everything still feeling a little token at this point :/
As protocol would have it, I was due to see the surgeon for a post operation catch-up and I went alone, not thinking anything much of it. The surgeon told me that indeed the polyp had been removed and it was benign but there was something suspicious found in my uterus biopsy and it looked as though I had pre cancerous indicators. He said there was a 7-8% chance that I actually had cancer inside my uterus currently and it was called ‘endometrial atypical hyperplasia.’
I would like to preface this by saying as horrible as it all felt at the time, being told you have a small chance of cancer is a privileged place to be compared to someone who is told they have full blown cancer and all that comes along with that. However I was still treated as a real risk and I can only speak to my story and the truth is, I now didn’t know what to think.
As much as this is not the news anyone wants to hear, this wasn’t the worst of it.
What about my fertility? Did he know any more about that, I asked? He looked at me square in the face and his exact words were: “You have minutes, not hours.”
This comment would go on to become the foreboding impetus from which every decision within ‘the system’ was made by us herein. There was no question of waiting, if we wanted a baby, we needed to get our shit in line, stat!
We took all the results we had up to this point to the fancy IVF doctor we had heard wonders about and waited months to see, eager to hear how she could help us. This time in the waiting room, feeling more positive than the last, I locked eyes on a giant red heart on some cards on the coffee table in front of me and I took a photo of it. Seeing the heart shape sparked something within me, a sign of hope.
The heart symbol would go on to become a shining beacon of light and nudge from the universe at the most incredible and harrowing times throughout my journey.
Assuming we would start IVF immediately as we had now been advised to do so by two specialists, to my utter devastation, the IVF doctor didn’t feel comfortable with us starting straight away because of the risk that I could have cancer growing inside my uterus at the same time, if I was lucky enough to fall pregnant. So she referred me to a cancer specialist for treatment and a second opinion.
Now knowing we were seriously running out of time, every decision was crucial and yet we had no choice but to wait. Again. Wait to see a new doctor. Wait to be treated for pre-cancer, maybe cancer, just in case.
As things got harder and harder, love hearts started turning up everywhere.
Image caption: hearts in poppadoms (above), heart shaped wounds, hearts made by inanimate objects like water and egg yolks, heart stains, heart holes in bread loaves, heart chips of paint off walls, you name it, hearts were swarming us but they only showed up when I needed them most, after bad news or just as I was starting to go deep into a doom cycle. They would always give me a chuckle and break me out of my mood for a second because they were so obvious. There was no denying they were winking at us.
I had never had depression or anxiety before this and I hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone about what I was going through, other than my partner. I had tried talking about it early on to a few people but the well meaning queries as to how I was, when I didn’t even know myself, were overwhelming and so it was easier to keep everything in.
I would take a shower and catch myself out in these cycles of doom, realising I had been looping on negative and anxious thoughts for days. Rehearsing worst case scenarios, dreading my future, the worry was immense.
It was 2021 and Perth at this time was like a bubble of joy to live in. Controversially we had locked out the rest of the world and while mostly everyone else in other parts were on lockdown, Perth people were living it up.
Whether anyone wanted to admit it or not, it was even more incredible than usual, this summer oasis in the most isolated city on earth. Going to the beach, eating fresh lobster that was cheaper than ever because we weren’t shipping it all to China. I even at one point attended an event for Tag Heuer and a friend in LA reminded me that the rest of the world did not appreciate my instagram updates, oops. On the outside everything looked perfect but it was all a mask. Deep down, I was in hell.
For the first time in Perth, our isolation was a huge bonus, as opposed to being our dodgiest trait and yet for me isolation felt like my only option.
Eventually we saw the cancer specialist and in my first act of defiance, I decided to go against her advice and the advice of the IVF doctor and not have a Mirena IUD inserted as they had strongly suggested. If I did it would mean I didn’t have to wait and could start IVF immediately while being treated with progestin (the synthetic version of progesterone) it releases into the body. Having previously read about the side effects and all the court cases of such devices, I was against it at first mention, even though some people swear by them, it didn’t feel right, despite the advice. I trusted my gut and so I opted for the (oral route), a treatment plan where I had to cut my own tablet with a pill cutter every day and take 50g of progesterone in the morning and again at night for 6 months.
This meant we had to wait another 6 months before we could start IVF and it was a huge decision and feels so bold now, especially considering the ‘minutes not hours’ comment, however having pre cancer treatment at the same time as trying for a baby where they artificially stimulate your ovaries and hormones, did not make sense to me and so we waited, yet again.
This was one of the first times I had trusted my gut over the advice given and trusting that inner wisdom, ultimately meant everything for us.
The symptoms of taking 100mg of progesterone per day can include headache, breast tenderness or pain, upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, tiredness, muscle, joint or bone pain and I had them all. The medication left me almost bedridden for the entire 6 months. I was so tired! It was the lowest I had ever felt up to this point in my life and I have experienced a few things.
As I lay down, day in, day out, doom scrolling, my view of the world changed. My empathy for everything and everyone was heightened. I would see these influencers and peers in the fashion industry share their cheap fashion finds and talk about trends they were loving and not think about the true cost behind them and the modern slavery involved or the sustainability in producing these clothes. It made me feel sick. I was suffering and I could feel the suffering of others. I didn’t want to add to any of it. On the face of it, I was the same as them, a ‘fashion stylist’ which has come to mean something entirely different in the 16 years I have held this title. Meanwhile when I could channel enough energy to get up off my couch, I would take the odd styling client and help someone shop for their wardrobe. It was here that I decided I could only help people who wanted to spend their money consciously.
I upped my rates and only took on clients who wanted investment pieces. I would ask them a series of longwinded questions before our session. Luckily I managed to manifest some amazing clients who all appreciated brands ‘Made In Australia’ or clothing I would show them with ethical manufacturing and I would educate them about the true cost of buying quality organic materials vs fast fashion.
This heightened sense of empathy started to filter out into every corner of my life. It wasn’t a choice, it was simply that after feeling in such a dark place for so long, I could only stomach being around things and even people that felt aligned with my return to nature. To my essence, which I was slowly reconnecting with. I plugged in to my To Be Magnetic work, I was journaling every day, listening to podcasts, listening to spiritual healers I had come across through a conscious closed community I had joined and was still studying French twice a week. We turned our living room into a day spa and self care became everything to me, to get by. When I felt truly rotten, I would buy myself a little wellness product and feel a little bit better. A gua sha or jade roller tool. Some sandalwood incense. Wellness products and daily rituals were keeping me from the edge and my interest in wellness and holistic living grew.
As a stylist and being someone who shops for a living, I had never personally found much enjoyment in retail therapy but as soon as things hurt this bad, anything I could get my hands on that felt nourishing and calming, was it. I couldn’t get enough and I immersed myself in daily self care. Everything I was doing was the antidote to the hustle and grind culture I had come from.
Still being in the throes of the pandemic and Perth opening up to the world a bit more and experiencing more of our own lockdowns and case numbers rise, my partner and I were out of work a fair bit and so we would spend hours walking in nature. Having grown up in the Perth hills, being in the bush and grounding in nature was medicine for me. Here I was, all grown up in my darkest hour, close to the sea, surrounded by the bushland and it was only here where I would start to see flickers of light peak through the darkness that enveloped me daily.
Finally the time came to see if the medication had worked and would you believe, the cancer specialist had actually stopped practicing mid-treatment to focus on early retirement or something and so our IVF doctor luckily agreed to perform the surgery required on me in her honour. As far as I was aware I was going in for a mild biopsy, however it wasn’t until over a week later and excruciating pain from the surgery (so bad I had wondered if I was over reacting) that I learnt that my entire uterus had been scraped out and I was shown a before and after pic that was horrifying to say the least. The good news was, it had worked, no more cancer or pre-cancer and we could finally discuss the next steps, IVF.
By now it was close to Christmas and because of all the public holidays, it was better to wait until the new year. We were all set FINALLY after over a year of dramas and couldn’t wait to begin a cycle in January 2022…
