Traditional Chinese Medicine

The surgeon scheduled me to meet him at his office in two days to inform me of our next steps. At this appointment, I distinctly remember him telling me “I wish I could tell you that you have the good kind of cancer.” I thought “Oh my Lord, what does THAT mean?”, but I was too afraid to ask. He told me I would need to find an oncologist and radiologist for further treatment. He also told me I would need to have another surgery; a surgery to remove the lymph nodes to detect whether or not the cancer had spread beyond the breast. Research had told me that lymph nodes were removed to “stage” the cancer and to determine what type of chemotherapy to use. Since I really didn’t care to know the stage of my cancer or to have chemotherapy, I resolved to hang onto my lymph nodes since they’re an important part of the immune system. Thankfully, my appointment was after hours and there was no one in the office to schedule that surgery. He informed me to call the office the next day to schedule the procedure. The only bright spot in that appointment was the surgeon telling me that he had achieved “clear margins” when he excised the tumor. That meant that the area immediately surrounding the tumor was free of detectable cancer cells. Feeling overwhelmed yet again, I returned home to decide what to do.

Although I had been firmly resolved to follow the alternative, holistic cancer path, how could I simply ignore the surgeon’s expertise? Surely, he knows what he’s talking about and has the statistics to back up his recommendations. Who am I to think I know more than this surgeon? I’m certainly no doctor and I have no medical training. Could utilizing chemotherapy and radiation be the best way for me to treat this cancer? That was an extremely restless evening for me. I knew that the wrong decision would cost me my life. I tossed and turned in bed that night until the wee small hours of the morning. Should I follow my heart or my head? I’m sure a little of both is ideal. Following the alternative, holistic path felt like the right thing to do, yet I struggled with abandoning the traditional, allopathic route. As I lay in bed at around 2 AM, a very strange thing happened: a lightbulb suddenly turned on all by itself in my closet! And no one was near it! My husband was fast asleep next to me and my daughter was asleep upstairs. To the best of my knowledge, that was the only time something like that happened in the entire nine years I lived in that house. At that moment, I took that spontaneous lighting to be a sign to follow my intuition. You could say that in those early morning hours that “I saw the light!” . . . literally and figuratively. I felt an enormous sense of peace come over me and I absolutely knew beyond a shadow of a doubt which path I would follow. And I have never looked back.

The next day I called the surgeon’s office. But I didn’t call to schedule the lymph node surgery; I called to inform them that I was going to seek a second opinion and that I would be picking up my medical records that afternoon. That was my escape hatch. I then called Dr. Schachter’s office to schedule my consultation and week-long evaluation at his clinic. I was distressed to learn that I couldn’t be seen until two months later, but I went ahead and scheduled an appointment in July. I finally worked up the courage to read my pathology report and it wasn’t encouraging: the tumor was both estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor negative, which was not considered favorable in allopathic medicine since they rely heavily on hormonal treatments to control breast cancer. Those treatments would have no effect on my type of tumor. Reading that report made me feel like I was a goner . . . no if’s, and’s or but’s.

I felt strongly compelled to do something in the time between my lumpectomy in May and my appointment with Dr. Schachter in July. I felt out of control by doing nothing. So I got to work on cleaning up my diet by removing all junk food, sugar, dairy and anything else that wasn’t conducive to a healthy diet. I researched and began taking a vast number of supplements that were supportive in restoring the immune system and fighting cancer (more on the exact supplements I took later). I found out about a Traditional Chinese Medicine clinic just outside of Boston, Massachusetts that had a three-week residency program for those with cancer and other serious ailments. Impressed with the patient testimonials, I decided that a stay at this clinic would be perfect for my healing journey. Not having the money to pay for it, I took out a 3-year, $3,000 personal loan to cover the cost of my 3-week residency, not knowing whether I would even be alive in 3 years to pay it off! When your life is on the line; however, you do what you gotta do.

June 1998

Upon arriving at the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic on a late Sunday afternoon after a 7.5 hour drive, I was greeted by a cranky patient who grudgingly showed me to my room on the second floor. Fortunately, I had a large room all to myself. The second floor consisted exclusively of rooms for residents with two shared bathrooms down the hall. The first floor was comprised of treatment rooms, a large room for yoga, a lecture room and a dining area. Residents were assigned chores usually involving cleaning assignments of various parts of the building. Meals were strictly vegetarian and macrobiotic in nature. Everything was cooked; nothing was ever served raw or cold. Once, after being underwhelmed by the food and it’s very bland (to me) taste, I snuck out to go to a local restaurant for “real food”, i.e. a tofu scramble and toast. I know, I know . . . . that’s pretty darn rebellious.

The treatments at the TCM clinic consisted of daily acupuncture done on the ear, moxibustion (the burning of herbs just above the skin on various acupuncture points), cupping (the use of vacuum-sealed glass cups placed on the back to suction impurities out of the body), yoga twice a week and frequent lectures on various health topics. I also had prepared for me the TCM version of chemotherapy: a concoction of various herbs cooked under high pressure and ingested to restore immunity and kill cancer cells. I took this formula while I was there and also had it shipped to me upon my return home. It was quite expensive: $400+ per shipment and some of the frozen bags had burst upon arrival. While the whole 3-week experience was quite relaxing and I met some really interesting people, the bloodwork I had done at the end of my stay showed worse results than before I had started!