Day 6 – My Healing Journey

The day finally arrived for my oncology appointment; I absolutely loved my oncologist. She put me at ease instantly and was a very caring and compassionate woman. You could tell that she cared about each and every one of her patients.  I knew instantly that she was the right doctor for me.

She ordered more testing for genetics and a BRCA test which tells you if you carry an inherited mutation of that gene. It looks for DNA changes that would lead to breast and ovarian cancer.  Thankfully I did not have that gene so my daughter was safe and would not have to worry which relieved me greatly.

Those scores also help to determine the type of cancer and your treatment options based on your type and stage.

Initially, she recommended chemotherapy treatments and based on my scores from the testing, she indicated I would not need radiation which was a relief to me. 

I expressed my concerns and my thoughts about alternative methods and protocols. I have to give her credit, for a Western medical doctor, she did not dismiss me like my relatives, she listened intently and offered her professional medical opinion based on my test results and scores as well as other patients’ histories and results. 

I clearly had a lot of information to wade through and needed some time to digest it before I made a final decision. At this point, I had read enough information and a lot of other people’s opinions and for some reason I had it in my mind that even with the chemotherapy treatments, my longevity was questionable beyond five years.

After all the information I read on the alternative treatments and plans, that seem to be the general consensus for those treatments as well, so I was convinced that I would be no better off by going through all the chemotherapy treatments.

My son also did a lot of research on my behalf and was quite surprised to hear that I was thinking I was going to die within five years no matter what treatment I decided on.

Clearly, there is a lot of information out there on the web that is misleading and to those who are already living in fear of the situation, it is very hard and sad do you think that everyone is telling the truth and that all the information is factual.  I was not excluded from that group who had read things that instilled more fear when all I was trying to do was come up with a viable solution for my situation.