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YourHub.com \\ Vero Beach \\ Stories \\ Health and Fitness \\ Medicine, Health Care

"Surviving the Breast Cancer Crisis"

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Contributed by: jill Vogel on 7/1/2008

I am told that I write about controversial things. I usually give dating tips or write stories on how to find a husband. But today I'd like to share with you my struggle with breast cancer, or as I like to refer to it, as "Making Peace With Breast Cancer."
One out of every eight women will get breast cancer. These are the statistics from the American Cancer Society. So if you know eight women, one will get cancer. If you know the wrong eight women, then they could all get cancer. Breast cancer is an epidemic, the sad thing is that the treatments are still as barbaric and archaic as they were thirty years ago when my own mother died from the disease at age fifty. I am also age fifty, and in February of this year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. In March both breasts were removed, in April I was scheduled to start chemotherapy. However, being the maverick that I am, I set out to do a little research of my own. What I discovered was an enormous amount of misinformation being given to women in this country. Information that could potentially be misunderstood and misused. Most women with breast cancer are urged, cajoled, even threatened by their doctors. They are led to believe that they will be dead in a very short time if they don't undergo the "benefits" of chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. What they aren't told is that these "modern" methods are basically as poisonous and as harmful as the cancer itself. It may help you to live a "longer" life, but not necessarily a healthier life. You may be alive, but at what price?
In my particular case, at my age with my type of cancer, chemotherapy held a possible 6 to 12% benefit for me. That means that I might be included in that percentage, but I might not. But the sad truth is, I would have to loose my hair, risk heart disease, and vomit relentlessly for almost 1 year to find out. If I did nothing at all, then my chances of living 10 years would be 65%. My chances of dying from my cancer within 10 years were 33%, no matter what I did or didn't do. And of course, I could die from other causes, which for someone my age was about 2%. So with all this in mind, I read the available information very closely. An excellent source was written by Dr. Susan Love. Where she stated herself that some of the chemotherapy medicines were so toxic, they were referred to as "The Red Death" because of their toxicity. And that she, herself a reputable oncologist could actually not predict who would benefit and who wouldn't. Some of her patients that she felt had the fortitude to "deal" with it, in the end died anyway. And some that she thought wouldn't make it, are still here. So basically what I gleaned from that book was a lot of sensible knowledge doesn't make it any less of a crap shoot. It's just a big gamble on who makes it and who doesn't. I also talked to 9 women who had chemotherapy in the past 2 years, only to hear them say that if their cancer came back tomorrow, their is no way on earth they would repeat their decision. Then I watched the PBS special entitled, "The Truth About Cancer", only to hear America's foremost experts say that in the battle against cancer, the score was "us"=1, and "cancer"=9.
It was then that I said to myself, "Look, Jill. You don't have to be a guinea pig for cancer. All these people have gone before you and done all the work. They are telling you what they know. And if you are smart you will not listen to the oncologists who send their kids to college and pay their mortgages by the numbers of people they convince to take chemotherapy. You will listen to the women who have already done it and have sworn to never do it again. You will keep yourself well and healthy, you live productively, you will love relentlessly, travel extensively, and you will make friends with this natural occurrence in your body. And you will not lose your hair or your dignity. And you will lay down when the time comes. And you will say, It is my time."
So I will continue to write stories on dating and husband finding, and let's just all see how long I live. -Jill Vogel, Life Coach

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