Death or All That Fuss Over a Lump of Fat

It's already almost the end of January and I realise that it's been six months since I last made a blog entry. It's not for lack of things to write about, that I've neglected this blog, but more because the last few months of 2008 were a difficult time in which to feel up-beat.

I can look back on 2008 and see a strong pattern now. Basically it was a year of death, both literally and symbolically. My father was nearly killed in a serious accident. Two of my friends and one relative died. Joy died in February, Bill from the Gold Coast Greens died in July and Uncle Warren passed away in August.

The children's Montessori school folded in April and although I was at first enthusiastic about homeschooling them in a coordinated effort with some other parents from the school, it proved to be unmanageable and I had to quit the group.

We investigated moving to Sydney where the Montessori school there in Pymble offered us a place for the children, but Brian was unable to find a job there. While jobs still looked like a possibility, I even drove down to Sydney to meet the admin people from the school and also to look at rental houses. The school seemed very nice and we loved the Turramurra area, but it all fell through without a job to go to.

We finally decided to move to Brisbane. We realised that at least Brian had a steady job there and after meeting the admin of the Brisbane Montessori School, felt that it would offer a similar kind of learning environment that they had been used to on the Gold Coast.

Well, Brian's job remained steady, but the choice of school turned out to be another small death for us, because after three weeks there, the children were absolutely miserable and when things didn't seem to be improving, we thought it would be better to pull them out before we started paying the exorbitant fees, rather than wait around hoping for things to improve. For $2000 a month, one would hope that the school was better at helping the children adjust to the new situation, than what we experienced there.

Considering that we moved to this suburb to be near to the Montessori School, it was fortunate that there is an excellent State School not far from our new home and we quickly decided to enrol them there and see if things might improve. It was with enormous relief that they seemed to be happy from day one, making friends quickly and easily and enjoying their days there from the start.

It was interesting seeing the difference in the way the two schools managed their first few weeks. Whereas the Montessori school made no effort to monitor how the children were fitting in and basically left them to fend for themselves, with disasterous results, the State School made every effort to welcome them and the difference was like night and day.

I suppose it wasn't until late September that I was able to finally take a breath and relax about our situation. It had taken us five months to leave a difficult situation on the Gold Coast, where we were with no school and Brian had to commute for four hours a day to his job in Brisbane, to find a solution in moving to Brisbane and finding a suitable school.

It was a long five months!

When things started to settle down, it was time to address a health concern of mine and this is where the final death of the year played its part.

Basically I noticed a lump in my breast earlier in the year, around the time I was in San Francisco, but waited a few months to see if it might go away. By August I realised it was persisting, but was too busy moving to do anything about it.

By the end of September, I went to the Family Planning Clinic, which also does breast exams and pap smears, to get it checked out. They said it felt 'strange' enough to warrant getting an ultrasound and sent me off to a radiologist.

The radiologist did a mammogram and ultrasound and said that she still couldn't determine what it was and needed to do a biopsy. I was getting quite worried by this point, because I never expected anyone to say that I had a concerning condition, in the first place. I was expecting them to say it was just a blocked duct or something.

Well, mammograms are not fun, they squish and squeeze the life out of one's breasts and to be told after all that squishing and squeezing that they still couldn't tell what it was, was pretty frustrating.

I went back in then, for the biopsy, a few days later and was very anxious about it all. I soon discovered that compared to biopsies, mammograms are a walk in the park.
They use a local anesthetic of course, but one sight of the needle that they were to insert into my breast, was enough to almost induce a faint, until they raised my feet and talked me back to consciousness.

I think the sight of me being wheel-chaired out of the room after the biopsy, may have been an ominous portend for the rest of the women waiting their turn, but what could I do? It's hard to put on a brave face, when you've just had six inches of steel inserted into your chest.

Well, unfortunately, the biopsy results only brought more fear and worry, because they were inconclusive, presenting three options ranging from a benign cyst to a malignant tumour. The radiologist told me that based on the results, the only option was surgery, to rule out the possibility that it could be a tumour.

The whole thing was starting to take on a surreal quality, mostly because after all the tests, I couldn't believe that they were no closer to a diagnosis.

I decided to do the responsible thing and talk to a surgeon, only to be disheartened by the prospect of a large scar across my breast and the $2000 fee that the private surgeon required.

I went to a public hospital and met another surgeon, one whose fee was covered by medicare and who would be able to make a minimal incision around the nipple instead. It sounded like the more attractive option, but something made me decline the offer of an appointment for the following Friday.

I decided instead, to see an acupuncturist and try to see if the condition responded to natural treatment. I figured that the chance of it being a tumour was small and that if it were a benign cyst, a little time to play around with natural therapies wouldn't hurt.

I started on Chinese herbs and regular acupuncture. I went on a detox diet for 8 days, eating only brown rice and mung beans with ginger and spices three times a day. Sage looked at me eating this at each meal and told me how sorry he felt for me. I suppose for someone like Sage, who loves his food so much, it seemed like an awful ordeal to be eating this way, but actually, it didn't bother me at all, except that I was getting physically tired after a week of it. I also lost about four kilos and that was the most I have lost, so quickly, in all my life. Interestingly, the lump was starting to shrink, but disappointingly, it also grew back in size, after I started eating normally again.

I continued this way for about eight weeks and was starting to become disheartened when there was no change in the lump. I visited a naturopath who offered a number of tests which could shed some light on the risk factor for cancer. I considered taking the tests until I had an interesting intuitive moment.

I had just got back from her office and hopped into the car to do some shopping. The radio came on as I started up the car and someone who was being interviewed, said the following in clear and precise words, as if they were talking to me directly "The results of all the tests are negative". It was so clear and direct that I really took notice and felt that it was my intuition telling me that the naturopath's tests would be a waste of time and money. I decided not to pursue them.I went to another acupuncturist who gave me a very different perspective on breast lumps, describing clients who had had similar test results, but who ended up having breast cancer, basically because the tests are quite unreliable.

Hearing this galvanised me into action. I was now completely scared out of my wits and it was getting hard to sleep at night from anxiety.
I booked the date for surgery and tried not to let the fear consume me, as the day loomed closer.

The hospital experience did nothing to alleviate my fear. I had to wait for five hours on my own, after being admitted, when Brian left with the children. The surgeon who came just prior to my surgery was not the surgeon I fist met. She casually mentioned that they would have to take out quite a large margin, since it was obviously a tumour, to which I anxiously asked, "Who says it's definitely a tumour?" She backed down then and said that she didn't really know, but they had to find out. It's amazing how authoritative doctors try to sound when they think they have to be, even if they have no actual clue!

So, with tears in my eyes and dread in my heart, I went under, only to awaken immediately, it felt, with a dry mouth, feeling very doped out. I was virtually sent on my way the minute I was able to stand up by myself. Brian looked after me for the next couple of days and I slept a lot while I recovered. The bruising looked bad and the scar looked hideous at first, but each day brought great improvement.

Four days later we went back to the hospital for the results. It was only two days until Christmas and it was my greatest fear that the holidays would be marred by the news that I would need to have further tests to determine if the tumour had spread cancer cells to my lungs, brain or liver.

It was really a mix of feelings when the doctor told us that the lump was nothing more than a lump of fat.

The first feeling was relief, of course, that it was such good news. The second feeling was anger that I had just gone through the most harrowing few months of my life, thinking that I could have some kind of breast tumour, when I did not. The third feeling was one of sadness, that instead of being truly in touch with our bodies, knowing exactly when something is wrong or when something is normal, that instead we are totally dependent on all the advice and tests and opinions of others who may sometimes know what they are doing, but who are often, just as in-the-dark as ourselves.

I have read accounts of women who have survived cancer and the overwhelming theme in their work indicates that the cancer was an opportunity for them to re-assess their lives. It caused them to change their priorities in more beneficial ways and to see their lives from different perspectives.

Although I didn't have cancer, this episode has allowed me to do the same. I now know that life is too short to live in unfulfilling ways. Life is there to feel joy, every single day. If you are not feeling the joy from as many moments as you can, you're not getting the juice of life that is waiting there quietly for you.

Wayne Dyer puts it so well, when he recommends that you make your mantra each day "I want to feel good". Sounds good to me.