Use it or lose, sister!

Warning: I talk a lot about ovaries and such here. 

If that's not your kinda thing, please enjoy this adorable video of PeeWee teaching Rob to high-five instead. 

Or! This one of PeeWee teaching Rob to dance.

I have no idea how to rotate these!

Amidst all this cancerversary talk, I neglected to tell you about my recent visits (yes, visits, with a "S") to Dr. S (OB/Gyn). It was that time o' year again for an annual exam. 

*** Let me just preface this story by saying, I thought everything I read about cancer patients experiencing posttraumatic stress issues from their diagnosis and treatment was a bunch of BS. For the last 4+ years I've worked with people with very real and very actual PTSD. People who, voluntarily, said "Let me get this straight? You want me to leave my family for 7 months at a time. Fly into another country. Where they're going to shoot at me and try to blow me up. So that I can protect them from themselves? Where do I sign up?!?" So sitting through a bunch of treatment really doesn't sound all that traumatic. ***

Now, where was I? Oh yea, annual exam time. Well, I can tell you, the breast exam went much better this year than last. Pap was normal and, fortunately, pretty much everything else was good, too. One concern with chemo is that it can, sometimes, put a premenopausal woman into early menopause. Oncologists will tell you it can take between 6 and 12 months for things to get back to normal. If at all.  And the OB's got some ways of checking that out. Namely, by checking out your FSH, estrogen and testosterone levels. Good news - all are business as usual. 

As an extra let's just take a look at things to be sure, she also sent me for a pelvic ultrasound. <Seriously, it's not too late to go back to the PeeWee videos.> Through which she found that tennis ball I'd lost a few months ago. Or, a tennis ball-sized ovarian cyst.

40-love, anyone?

So I (mostly) resisted my freak-out instinct, and learned: 1) They're super, super common 2) It could be a Tamoxifen side-effect, or could just be 32 year old non-baby having ovaries 3) 95% of them are non-cancerous. And with a blood test, Dr. S confirmed that (for once!) I am the 95%.

A lot of times, these things go away on their own. Most of the time, you never even know you have them. But they tend do to a whole lot less of that going away on their own thing when they get that big. Which means Dr. S will have to go in after it. Before it ruptures. 'Cause that would be bad. (Really, really, ovaries? What kind of bullshit is that?!?) Which brings me to the conclusion that I've officially reached the age where all my reproductiveness (sorry - you were warned) is all Eff you, lady, we're outta here!