This is it. Inside this box is the last injection I have to administer myself as part of the fertility process (we won’t talk about the chemo-related ones just yet). No more Menopur. No more Cetrotide. Just two Letrozole anti-cancer pills and an injection stand between me and being able to have my eggs collected at 3.30pm on Monday.

Ovitrelle is a trigger injection. It stimulates the final maturation of eggs in the ovaries. That means, once I have jabbed myself with this last needle, there is no going back. I will be on the slab on Monday and, with any luck, we’ll have embryos in the freezer soon after that. The procedure to extract these eggs is something I have just read about (although wish I hadn’t) and is something I will not be reporting here. Ok, so it’s not on a par with having your stomach cut open and the boob chopped off, but I am glad I am asleep for it. If curiosity is getting the better of you, click here for the science, but please don’t ever bring it up over dinner! 

For the trigger to be effective, timing is everything. So, mum will be keeping me company tonight until 2am when I can deliver the final and important dose (she might get to watch Les Mis from start to finish as a treat). Then I get a day off drugs tomorrow (my body will probably go into shock), a light breakfast of tea and toast at 6am on Monday and a date with a cannula and some IV sedation later that day.

Of course, when the nurse called, I had my priorities right. One, what do I do with the sharps box of syringes that is currently making the kitchen look untidy? Two, what to do with all the leftover drugs in the fridge? (Sadly the answer in both cases is to bring them with us, which means we’ll be heading to oncology looking like a portable pharmacy or like we’re about to have a picnic in the waiting room. Let’s hope I get to keep the cold bag!). Three, if I’m at the hospital all day, when do I take my suppository? (There was a lot of laughter attached to that answer and you really don’t want to know more). And four, (arguably the most important question) can I have a glass of wine with dinner? I am glad to report, I got a whole-hearted ‘absolutely’ in response! (Better set the phone alarm for 1.55am just in case)!

There is one last – and rather unexpected – obstacle to overcome in this fertility challenge. It’s brown, it has a tail and it likes to enter our kitchen at night and camp out under the dishwasher. We’ve being trying to get rid of our visiting rat for nearly two weeks, but we do have an understanding that we just don’t enter its trap-filled and Nutella-fuelled lair at night. With refrigerated drugs to take, I think I may have to take a torch and some back-up if I stand a chance of getting to the pre-filled syringe without getting nibbled.

Oh yes, don’t think just because you get cancer, you can avoid first world problems. I have a list!

One last needle, one last shot of drugs and one chance to make embryos. Cancer won’t wait for a second cycle. We have everything crossed!