I Think You Have to Assume You Could Get Pregnant!

These words were spoken yesterday to me by my doctor. And I never thought I'd hear them again.

Today's news is that my hormone levels seem to be moving away from menopausal towards something more appropriate for my age!! Amazing - all the doctors are surprised which is actually an understatement. They all told me categorically that because of my age and the type of chemotherapy I had, I would definitely go into early menopause. And that would be that. And I really did - from August last year I've had very low hormone levels and terribly strong menopausal symptoms.

But now miraculously for me there seem to be some positive changes in the right direction. It may be that things never resume their old workings but it feels good just to even be able to imagine that I might not need to continue living with this lasting legacy of what happened. And for me, this aspect of my continuing survival - the price I've had to pay to be well is a really heavy one. Yes, I had my three children, yes I was fortunate that I had had them when the cancer diagnosis hit and yes, my god, I met women my age and younger who had cancer and hadn't had kids. People who mean well say endlessly to me that I'm lucky to be in remission and that I'm lucky to have my family. When I'm feeling positive I agree. When I'm feeling negative I agree too but want to explode inside. Because sometimes I really know I haven't been lucky and I don't feel lucky compared to my friends and the people I see in the playground who, whatever else is going on in their lives - and which goes on in mine uninterrupted too, blithely assume they'll see their toddlers start school. Of course there are people worse off than me but that does not always comfort however much it should. To lose my fertility and all the connotations of youth associated with it has been an enormous blow to me and part of what has been hard about facing my future. All this and my 40th birthday. It's tough to look in the mirror and see someone with mad short curly hair when it had been long and straight, with body scarred from treatments, not even able to function in the way it had only a year previously.

We're not planning another baby - I very much doubt we'd have had another should none of this happened. And now I don't think it would be safe or sensible to put my body through such stress. But it feels amazing to think that I maybe could! Even in theory. Now I can daydream when the broodiness takes over and the baby keeps on growing! That makes me feel a different person. That makes me feel more like the old me.

Anyhow - it might just be good news. Time will tell. I'm convinced it's the smoothies I have every day. And I'm so not a mad, fiddly, crazy food-obsessive. I feel a bit evangelical about them though and can see the docs looking very sceptical when I cite the smoothies as the reason why what seems almost impossible has happened. Blueberries, banana, rasberries, honey, yoghurt, spirulina, omega 3, 6 and 9 and herbs from my fantastic herbalist in Edinburgh. That's my recipe for feeling good and restoring the body. This time a year ago I was in a bad way. Now I'm ok - tomorrow's clinic appointment notwithstanding. We'll see.