Treatment for lymphoma may have affected your fertility in a number of different ways. Chemotherapy may leave you infertile or temporarily affect your sperm count depending on the drugs, doses, and combinations and duration of therapy. If radiation therapy reached your testicles or has affected your testosterone levels, your sperm production may also be temporarily or permanently effected.
Precautionary measures may have been taken while you were undergoing treatment to preserve your fertility but these are not always completely successful. If you are unable to conceive, there are still options available to you. Here are some to consider:
- Sperm donation: if you did not get the chance to freeze your sperm prior to treatment, you may wish to consider using sperm that has been donated to a sperm bank.
- Testicular sperm extraction: you can have pieces of your testicular tissue removed to harvest healthy sperm in your testicles that may still thrive after treatment. Sperm cells found here can then be used in in vitro fertilization (IVF) process or be kept frozen for future use. However, keep in mind that the success rate for this procedure is much lower than traditional approaches.
- Adoption: you may also decide to forego all medical procedures and instead consider adoption. Adoption refers to the legal transfer of parental rights of a child from the birth parent to another couple or individual. Keep in mind that you may need time to completely heal from your treatment and you may require a letter from your doctor certifying your health.
