Day 4 – My Healing Journey

After the cancer diagnosis while sitting in the Chick-fil-A parking lot, my emotions got the best of me. I tried to hold it together during my conversation with the doctor and thought I did a pretty good job of it overall.  I really didn’t want to fall apart so I chose to listen intently and take in all he had to say.  I wrote it down so I could relay the information to my son who is a Physician’s Assistant.

I had assured my son that I would call him and let him know as soon as I got the diagnosis but I needed to take a few moments for myself to absorb what I had just heard. I finally got up the nerve to make the phone call and I thought I was doing pretty good until I heard his voice and then I just fell apart.

I relayed to him what the doctor told me; that it was hormone related and stage two.  He tried to assure me that it was very treatable but my brain could only comprehend the words cancer, chemotherapy and radiation and that just sent another layer of fear through my bones.

I had been on bioidentical hormones for many years and apparently, I stayed on too long. An early diagnosis of endometriosis and many years of misery led me to a hysterectomy at 40 years old which threw me into instant menopause. 

After trying traditional western methods to relieve the hot flashes, memory lapses, exhaustion, no sleep etc., I discovered the “Wiley Protocol” which was a topical bioidentical hormone system of estrogen and progesterone that seemed to be exactly what I needed. 

After reading the book that TS Wiley wrote about it, and hearing that movie stars such as Madonna, Suzanne Summers, Sting and others were on it, I thought I would give it a try. 

It was the only thing that helped erase all my symptoms and helped me lead a normal life. In retrospect, I wouldn’t change a thing on my decision to do the bioidentical hormones because it gave me my life back and it gave me decades of comfort, despite the negative outcome.

So my diagnosis was ER positive and HER negative. That meant that it was estrogen receptor positive and it was deemed to be ductal carcinoma.  That part of the diagnosis did not surprise me due to the bug bite that had never healed, it made much more sense to me.

So, a day that was supposed to be a celebration of my daughter, turned into a total Debbie downer situation.