Independent Investigation of the Truth

On August 3, 2007, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was still in my 30s and in the midst of breastfeeding my second baby. My first child had just turned three. My friends and family were shocked. Before that August, had there been a vote on such things in life, I would likely have been voted the person least likely to get ill. I had always been thin and athletic, virtually a vegetarian for much of my life, and rarely sick. I walked and biked long distances, traveled frequently and refused to take even so much as a Tylenol. I could count the headaches I had had in my entire life on two hands.

There were some warning signs, of course. In the past year or so I had been tired often, and I had had frequent clogged ducts in my breasts, particularly the right one where the tumor was. I attributed these to having two young babies and to the trials of breastfeeding, and nothing more. It took me more than six months after feeling the lump in my breast to finally see a doctor—that is how sure I was that my lump was nothing more than a breastfeeding issue. This was of course a horrible lapse in judgment, because the tumor was so large by then that it automatically catapulted me into a stage III diagnosis. Today the staging of my illness doesn't concern me at all.

I am beginning these pages because as much as there is written about cancer, there seems to be at best a void and at worst a campaign of deliberate misinformation on many issues of huge importance. On the one hand, the amount of literature on cancer is so vast as to be bewildering. On the other, there are vitally critical topics on which traditional medicine is completely silent, dismissive, or hostile. The sources that do talk about these issues may seem irrational, unscientific or downright “quacky.” I am a lawyer. I ask questions. It is what I do. I ask them from many angles. I ask them over and over again until I get an answer that makes sense to me. More often than not, I was unable to get rational answers or even consistent answers from people who were trained for many many years to know these things. Who do you believe?

I believe and have always believed in the independent investigation of truth. That is, I will take nothing for granted and will not automatically assume that the things that are told to me are fact, particularly if they do not make sense. I will use the faculties I have to find the truth. And I will do my best not to operate from a place of fear. Here’s to advancing the public discourse.

Respectfully submitted,

Amanda