The Original Diagnosis
After seeing the ultrasound images and mammogram results, I was out of my mind with panic and fear. How much longer do I have to live? How painful will this be? I made a decision to take things one day at a time to control the fear and not look too far off into the future. I would only focus on the imaging appointment that was to come in two days. Anything beyond that was too overwhelming. After that imaging appointment, I was advised to see a breast surgeon. My friend from work gave me the name of an excellent surgeon that his own mother had used and recommended. I was seen the following week by the surgeon, who carefully reviewed the images with me. There was not just one, but two suspicious areas. One of them showed up as a solid white circle. When I asked him what he thought it was, he told me bluntly that it looks like cancer. Once again, sheer panic tore through my entire being. He told me that a biopsy would be necessary to be certain as to whether or not the lesions were cancerous or benign. He warned me that if both of the lesions were cancerous, he would have to remove the entire breast which is a procedure known as a mastectomy. This terrified me, of course, because I didn’t want to lose a body part and I didn’t want to be mutilated. The thought of having to see a scarred chest every time I changed my clothes or showered repulsed me.
Because I had just changed insurance plans at work, my new insurance coverage would not take effect for another month. Given this, my biopsy could not be done until a month later. This really unnerved me because I fully expected the cancer to be out of control by then! Luckily, I was very mistaken in that regard.
Most fortunately, prior to meeting with the surgeon for the first time, I found a copy of an Alternative Medicine magazine in the break room at work. This magazine is devoted to alternative treatments for cancer and was right up my alley! I had decided long before my fateful mammogram that if I were ever to be diagnosed with cancer, I would never do chemotherapy or radiation because I had lost too many friends and relatives to those barbaric treatments. Being something of a health nut for a number of years, I was gratified to read in this magazine the testimonials of several people that had completely healed their cancers through the use of these therapies. You have absolutely no idea how these stories bolstered my morale; they gave me true hope and reason to believe that I, too, could be healed from this terrifying disease. The panic and fear evaporated from my mind. For the first time, since the devastating mammogram appointment, I started to view this experience as perhaps a tremendous and exciting healing adventure. I started to devour everything I could find on the Internet (which was still relatively young in those days) which dealt with alternative healing for cancer. I purchased Burton Goldberg’s Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer which is a massive tome that outlines not only numerous alternative therapies for cancer but profiles twenty-three doctors that successfully utilized those therapies in their practices. It was in this book that I learned of Dr. Michael Schachter in Suffern, NY. After reading his profile, I knew he was someone I wanted to consult and would feel comfortable working with.
As the day of the biopsy drew near, I could feel the fear rising in me again. I’ve never liked hospitals and this hospital visit would be much more serious than any other one in my lifetime. The afternoon before the biopsy, I was able to leave work early since I was able to get an appointment with a woman who possessed amazing psychic and intuitive abilities. I told her about my upcoming biopsy the following morning. She told me that she had the distinct impression that these lesions were deep pockets of negativity that were coming to the surface to be healed and released. Her words had an incredibly soothing effect on me; so much so that I slept soundly that night and went into the surgical procedure extremely calm and almost euphoric!
I had the biopsy done at Sisters Hospital in Buffalo, NY in May 1998. It seemed I spent hours and hours waiting in the pre-surgery area of the hospital for my turn in the operating room, yet I was still extremely calm. I was eventually given something to put me into a “twilight state” — I wasn’t unconscious, but I wasn’t totally “with it” either. After the biopsy finally got underway, I could hear the surgeon and his assistant talking about mundane things and I could feel a distinct tugging as the surgeon performed the lumpectomies and then stitched me up.
In the recovery room, the surgeon eventually came to my side and gently told me that one of the lesions was benign, but that the other one was, indeed, a 1.5 cm cancerous tumor . . . Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I was feeling extremely calm when he delivered the news and remember thinking that I would have felt disappointed if it had NOT been cancer, since I felt I was about to embark on an incredible healing adventure that I was eagerly looking forward to. I know how ridiculous and downright irritating that sounds. Who in their right mind would call having cancer an exciting journey? But in reframing this terrifying experience, I was able to make lemonade out of the lemons I had been given and actually (for the most part) enjoy the ride I was on. In that moment, I also realized that it was my extremely stressful marriage that had landed me in this situation and from that day forward I no longer cared or wondered about what my husband was or wasn’t doing. I simply didn’t care anymore and the negative emotional charge surrounding him had vanished from my life! I firmly resolved to put the focus on ME and MY needs and wants and how freeing that finally, FINALLY felt!!!