I am no longer a retired attorney/stay-at-home fiancee, I am a volunteer cancer secretary.  Well, I don’t actually tell anyone this, but I totally think it.  As of late, my typical morning involves waking up to one or two voicemails from my doctors or mom on the east coast.  Oh, the joy of time zones.  (If you are trying to do the math, I live in mountain time, two hours behind the east coast.)  I also have emails, texts, facebook messages, and voicemails from concerned family and friends.  (There are still some friends who I need to call and tell, but I just can’t make myself do it.  Can I still be in denial?!?).  So I wake up, take care of the animals (Bing included), and make coffee, then endeavor to respond to everyone.  I am primarily scheduling, learning, and re-learning timeframes for treatment, figuring out who’s on first, and how everything is going to be paid for.  I leave a lot of voicemails, so then the game of phone tag begins.  These calls result in me scanning, uploading, emailing, calling and faxing things to either the surgeon, oncologist, repro specialist, plastic surgeon, radiation oncologist, LiveStrong, BCBS, or my financial advisor.  Mind you, we have a scanner but not a fax machine, so I’ve made two trips across town to the salvage yard to pick up faxes.  *sigh*  Cancer literally takes up half of my day, so if you call/text/email and I don’t answer/text back/respond, I’m probably on my lunch break.  If it takes me a day or two to get back to you, rest assured, I am alive and I still love you.  ;o)

Just this morning, I learned that my AMH levels are good (3.1ng/mL); I am approved for the LiveStrong Sharing Hope discount for the fertility services; I was quoted incorrectly and the discounted cost for embryo freezing is $5k (not $3750); Dr. Ginsburg (fertility doc) will be asked tomorrow if I can start fertility treatment before my surgery; (relearned) that BCBS will not cover my fertility treatment, even though my potential infertility will be caused by cancer treatment; Bing has a date with a dirty magazine and a sterile container next Thursday morning; and that I may or may not be penalized for early withdrawal from my IRA (to pay for the fertility costs).

On a lighter note, one of the big pluses with this breast cancer dealio is that I no longer worry about wearing a bra.  It’s pretty awesome.  I used to wear a bra to sleep, in a meager attempt to save my boobs from migrating south, but now I know lifts and implants are in my future, so I am letting them hang free unless I actually have to leave our property.  The animals don’t mind, and neither does Bing.