Traditional or alternative? For me? Both of course!

Unless they've been through it themselves, no one can ever fully understand what it's like to get a cancer diagnosis. The thing is that I would have never thought in a million years that I actually had cancer and so I was incredibly cavalier about the whole thing. I should have guessed something was wrong when the biopsy results didn't come back the day they told me they were due--Friday. (Now I realize they probably ran the test again, to make sure.) And so on Monday I called to see if they had heard anything yet. They looked up my file and told me the doctor would call me back. When the doctor actually called me back and said: "it's breast cancer," my whole world literally slowed down. It was like I was having an out of body experience. Like a huge tsunami wave just crashed over me.

The next 72 hours were probably the worst three days of my life. I have a hard time even thinking about it now. I thought I was dying. I knew that the lump was big because I could feel it and I knew it had been there for a long time. All I could think of was: it's spread everywhere and I'm going to die. I probably lost about 10 pounds that week. I could not eat and I could not sleep. All I wanted to do was pray. I was terrified. I was young. I had two babies. I was a healthy person. Where did this come from?

So I got my diagnosis on a Monday. By that Friday I had scheduled an MRI and had appointments with the breast board at Stanford. I also had already spoken to a naturopath I had heard about for years and had in hand a packet of herbs and supplements his office had put together for me and fedexed. Why? A couple of important reasons.

First of all, it was really important for me to be proactive and to DO SOMETHING. The whole sitting around waiting to die thing was not working for me at all. I did not want to feel like a victim. Second, I had been lucky enough to have had several important experiences in my life:

In the 1980s a friend's father had been diagnosed with melanoma--a deadly form of skin cancer. I remember his situation was dire and I recall that he was on a special regimen of juices and coffee enemas, known as the Gerson therapy. He completely recovered and is still living.

About eight years ago, my aunt from the Netherlands was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Like Andre, my friend's father, my aunt had absolutely no medical treatment. She treated herself with a combination of foods, juices, herbs, meditation, visualization, acupuncture, and walks in nature. Within a year, my aunt had absolutely no tumors left. Eight years later, she is still being seen every three months and is healthy and thriving. Her medical doctors are baffled by her (as they should be).

A good friend was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer about 5-6 years ago. He had surgery but refused chemo and radiation. I'm not exactly sure what he did, but I knew he had done a limited amount of herbal therapy and some visualization and power of the mind stuff.

Because these were people that I actually knew firsthand and not some potential nutcases I was reading about on the internet, I was more apt to believe that it was at least within the realm of possibility that I could be okay, even if my cancer was pretty advanced. The reason I contacted a naturopath in Texas (and not in Northern California where I live) is simply because I had heard of this guy. I knew that he was good and I was in no emotional position to go searching for someone at that moment. (Later, when things had calmed down for me I actually met with another naturopath in Palo Alto. She seemed fine, but I was appalled by how outrageously expensive she was. The fee for my first visit was over $300 and had I bought the supplements she recommended I would have dropped over a thousand just on that first visit--not a penny of which is covered by insurance. This is not okay! More about how alternative medicine appears to be the province of the wealthy in a later post.)

And so it was that in August of 2007, I began taking my herbal supplements, had my first MRI, and embarked on what would be the most amazing journey of my life. Let me just say that I was never an easy patient. The reason I am proud of this is because studies show that the more difficult patients have higher survival rates. But certainly neither the traditional or alternative doctors made it easy. The fact is that each is largely dismissive and sometimes downright contemptuous of what the other does. This makes no sense to me since I am sure that everyone has a critical role to play. Or at least they did in my case.

In a later post: Why I refuse to accept "We will never know why you got cancer!"