Balancing pregnancy and chemotherapy
I went numb. I thought, How am I going to tell Mark? As soon as I walked in the door of our townhouse, he knew something wasn't right. "What's wrong?" he asked. "I have breast cancer," I said. We just held each other and cried.
Change of plans
The next few days were a blur of doctor's appointments, family phone calls and worry. Lots of worry. Mark and I feared the worst -- that we'd lose the baby. Mark wanted the baby as much as I did, but he was also ready to do whatever it took to get me well. "I don't want to have a baby if it means you won't be here with me," he told me. I understood, but that baby was the only lump I wanted in my body in the first place!
The day we met the doctors at the breast cancer clinic at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto was the first time I felt like things were going to be OK. Everyone was ready to answer our questions, looking me in the eye. They told me what was going to happen and how. They had a plan.
As we talked, I worked up the courage to ask, "Can we keep the baby?"
Fighting for a baby, against cancer
It was possible my new doctor, Dr. Kathy Pritchard, told us. Surgery would be safe in my second trimester -- I was already that far along -- and there were even certain chemos that could be used. Dr. Pritchard recommended a mastectomy. I trusted her, so I said yes.
On Oct. 11, one week before my 30th birthday, I lay on the gurney in the operating room. I looked at the exit sign over the door, wondering how fast I could run, desperate to escape. When I came out of surgery two hours later, my breast and 25 lymph nodes were gone.
I went home the next morning, but it was late October before we got the biopsy results. Dr. Dent, a member of my medical team, delivered the news: I had Stage 3 cancer -- and since there are only four stages, that wasn't good. The tumour was so aggressive I would have to do a round of chemo while I was pregnant, another round after I gave birth and then radiation as well.
I considered the side-effects of the chemo drugs and asked Dr. Pritchard if it was really safe to take them while I was pregnant. Her answer was blunt. "We can't wait," she said, "not if we want this baby to have a mother." And so I started chemo. It's like being in some kind of awful sci-fi movie: They hook you up and you watch the poison going into you. One batch would burn, the next would leave me chilled from my veins outward. Just in time for Mark's birthday, I lost my hair.
Click to continue for details on the birth of Kelly and Mark's son...
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