Half the battle won!

Today was the most exciting day I’ve had in a long time. Since my diagnosis, my days have been filled with work and tests and exhaustion. Cancer is exhausting, not just the disease itself, but the amount of effort going into research and lifestyle to ‘fix’ it.

Yep, I’m a fixer. From the day I was diagnosed… even before that… I’ve been researching and working on my personal healing. A total cure is what I’m aiming for. No less.

I was called into the hospital for an appointment today to discuss my test results and my prospective surgery, scheduled for Monday, the 15th. I was nervous, naturally. I arrived at the hospital only to be told that the surgeon, ironically, had ‘taken ill’ and I was to see my Breast Cancer Advisor, the lady who has been overseeing my case. She’s a nice lady, so I didn’t mind at all. She sat me down and started with the scan results. Bone scan clear. CT scan has ‘tiny nodules of activity in the lungs’, but inconclusive, as they’re too small and there’s no way of telling what ‘activity’ they are. A follow up scan for those will be done in 6 months, but they’re not considered an issue at all right now. To clarify, anything can turn up as ‘activity’. If I had unprocessed food in my stomach or digestive tract, it would have shown up as ‘activity’ there. A fractured bone would show as ‘activity’, as would a stomach ulcer. I’m not in the least worried about that aspect, especially not in the light of what came next.

Mary (not her real name) said that the next phase of treatment was up to me, whether I wanted chemo first or surgery first. She knows my views on the subject, so she wasn’t really surprised when I said I wanted neither. I’ve asked for 3 drug- and surgery-free months in which to heal myself, then a re-evaluation to see if it’s necessary at all. I explained that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that my cancer has been halted and that my body is healing. She wanted to know why I was so sure. I’ve been taking regular photos of my lump (yes, it’s very visible), so I was able to describe the changes to her.

Sensitive readers may want to avoid this part…

The lump itself was ugly. It was raised and a dark, bright, purple, surrounded by angry red. Over the top was a thick crusty scab, not caused by an injury. It was part of the cancer growth. The scabbing occurred very suddenly, about a week before my first hospital visit. Recently, after 3 days of intense itching, the scab fell off leaving a very healthy pink skin underneath. The purple has diminished and is now just a small area. The red is gone completely. The skin around the lump, that was previously a mix of greyish-red is normal flesh colour. The lump itself no longer feels as though it has a life of its own and there’s no more pain! I had constant stabbing pain in that lump!

The best news for today was the lymph glands though. Before, the swollen lymph glad was visible to the naked eye when I raised my arm. I could feel it. Every doctor who examined me could feel it. It was noticeable on the ultrasound and big enough to take a sizeable biopsy from. That biopsy came back as cancerous. Today, Mary found no lumpy lymph gland. She asked if she could call in a second opinion and yet another surgeon came in. He hunted (boy did he hunt!). He examined both armpits thoroughly and said there were NO compromised lymph glands! No swelling at all! He suggested that the previous swelling was just because it was fighting the primary cancer. Mary then told him of the biopsy and he accepted that it had gone down, assuming that I’d been on chemo.

My point was made! My body is healing itself! It’s so exciting! My metastasis has disappeared… completely regressed! With this in mind, she agreed that my 3 month request was not that far fetched and was curious as to what I was doing to achieve this. I told her some… the full truth may have been hard for her to take. I’ll still blog that.

So… that’s my ‘shout it from the rooftops’ big news. I’m certainly one very excited and motivated bundle of happy right now. It makes saying “No” to the chocolate at work so worth it : )

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