REWILDING: A BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR’S STORY

A cancer diagnosis is never convenient. For me, it happened in April of 2022. I had recently turned 35 years old and my husband, Scott, our daughter, Noah (2), and I were gearing up to celebrate our son turning 6-months old. 

A few months prior, I was in the third trimester of my pregnancy and felt a lump in my left breast while I was in the shower. According to my good friend, Google, the lump was pretty common during pregnancy, so I kept it to myself and chose not to tell my midwives. What could they do anyway? I thought. And figured it would go away after I had my baby.

I forgot about the lump until one night, a few months after our son was born, I was in the kitchen feeding the kids dinner, when my hand instinctively touched my breast and I felt the lump again. Still there, even though I had stopped breast feeding. Dang. I thought. How inconvenient to try to get this sorted out! I don’t have time for this. I felt stuck not knowing who to call, but also an urgency to get it checked out asap.

So I made an appointment with the midwives who delivered our first baby, since they were affiliated with a hospital. The meeting with the midwife led to an urgent mammogram. After the scan, the doctor met with me to explain he didn’t like what he saw. The constellation of veins, tissue, and whatever else makes up a boob, looked like it was probably cancer, in his opinion. But they’d need to do a biopsy to be certain. I left that day feeling optimistic. Even if it was cancer, it couldn’t be anything serious, I thought. Probably a very low stage, if anything, was what I told myself. 

THE CIRCUS 

The morning of the biopsy my husband had a prior engagement he couldn’t reschedule and the childcare I had scheduled never showed up so I had to bring my young son, Wilder, to the hospital, who, as it turns out, wasn’t allowed to be there. Thankfully, my mom lived close enough and was able to take Wilder while I had a biopsy. The whole whole situation was extremely stressful, and looking back, was likely foreshadowing the months to come. This little child care disruption would be one of a few when it rains it pours moments throughout this journey. 

When life decides to serve you a wakeup call, it’s going to do so on a silver platter, but one that’s removed of any notion of safety and stripped of whatever you once considered normal, in exchange for the character-building experience of hard truths and a unique opportunity to feel, grow, and understand what it means to be alive.

A few days later, I received the results of the biopsy while I was out to lunch with my dad, and I had breast cancer. The midwife who called me wasn’t a cancer doctor, or oncologist, and had no idea how to answer any of my questions about the results of my biopsy, so I was given a lot of wrong, scary information about my diagnosis. 

I ended the call, left lunch and immediately called my good friend who was an oncology nurse to get better clarification about the diagnosis. She told me there were some positive aspects about the pathology report but chemotherapy would be part of the treatment. 

Let me tell you. I was terrified of chemotherapy. I am a very anti-medical person, favoring natural remedies to pharmaceuticals and doctors anyday (even doing a homebirth with my second child to avoid the hospital all together). I did NOT want to be a patient who was put on a conveyor belt of “cancer care”. So I wasn’t, for the most part. 

10,000 YEARS WILL GIVE YOU SUCH A CREAK IN THE NECK

Around this time, I was introduced to a healer of sorts. She was recommended to me and, even though she wasn’t licensed in any way shape or form, I felt completely terrified, lost, and in need of some sense of direction toward health and healing, and she pointed me in a direction I was open to.

With her guidance, I became vegan, and was introduced to so many supplements. So many. And started detoxing my body with regular ionic foot baths, colonics, lymphatic massages, and sitting in an infrared sauna among other things. I started to work more deeply with this healer on the emotional pain I had experienced a few years prior. I spent hours in meditation. 

Meanwhile, I had switched my care to a top hospital in Chicago who took my insurance (the insurance journey is real) but one that also had an amazing reputation and world renowned doctors. The problem was, a cancer diagnosis doesn’t put you at the top of any lists for care. I had to wait three weeks to be seen by any doctors to go over a proposed treatment plan. When you’re waiting to understand if you’re going to live or die, three weeks is flat-out unacceptable. But alas, I waited. 

When the day of my appointment finally hit, I was nervous but ready to get the show on the road. My daughter, who was about to turn three, had started to refer to the lump as “mommy’s hard rock”. It was time to take care of this hard rock and get it the heck out.

The early stages of a diagnosis are the hardest. I didn’t know anything, except that I had cancer, and that was very, very bad. I remember telling my husband that if I didn’t make it, he had my blessing to find love in someone else. Not easy to say, and not easy to write about here. 

Going into the appointment with the doctors at this new hospital I knew one thing: I was not going to be over-treated. If I didn’t think I needed chemotherapy, I wasn’t going to do it. 

The proposed-treatment-plan-day turned out to be very long. We thought we were going for one appointment with the surgeon, but wound up meeting the oncologist and the plastic surgeon. All in, we were there for around 12 hours and all the news was overwhelming.

YOU’VE GOT TO FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT (to party the way YOU deem appropriate)

The original surgeon I met with told me in order to treat the cancer I needed a mastectomy. This was completely shocking information to receive. I was not prepared to agree to a mastectomy. Why wouldn’t a lumpectomy suffice? 

The oncologist told me I definitely needed chemotherapy and she wanted to treat me with chemotherapy before surgery to shrink the tumor. This made no sense to me.

The plastic surgeon was great, and frankly the light during this dark day. Life was passing very quickly in slow motion. Everything was surreal. How was this happening to ME? Me, who never gets sick and doesn’t even have a doctor? I felt lost and confused and very, very disappointed that safer, better treatment options had not been developed, and if they had, were not currently part of my awareness or understanding. 

At this point I was working very deeply with my healer and was receiving calls from the surgeon to schedule the mastectomy, which I had not yet come to terms with or accepted as a viable option. Cancer or not, I loved my body and wasn’t ready to lop part of it off without further investigation into whether-or-not the dis-eased part could be salvaged. Before we were able to discuss the matter further, the surgeon explained she would be going on vacation for two months, so if I didn’t schedule with her by Memorial Day (two weeks away), I would either need to wait until August for surgery or find another surgeon. 

I decided to find another surgeon.

But finding a new surgeon meant I had to do that horrible proposed-treatment-plan-day of meetings all over again. And even though I didn’t have to meet with the oncologist or plastic surgeon, we had to sit in the small room looking at pictures of the tumor and rip open the massive wound of despair all over again. But this time around, surgeon #2 agreed to a lumpectomy! Along with a strong counsel to do a mastectomy because a lumpectomy would leave my left breast looking very different in size and shape to the right one. What they never said was that the plastic surgeon, if I opted for that after surgery, would take care of all of this and wouldn’t be a long term problem. But I digress. 

I was happy to move forward with the plan that would remove the cancer but leave the healthy portion of my breast intact, even if it was just a small portion. But in order to proceed with a lumpectomy they needed to run more tests. Two MRI biopsies later they had the results they needed and surgery was set for late June. 

At this point, my morale was low. I questioned my decision to delay the initial surgery and was ready to get my life back. I had been so consumed in taking care of my health I put my family on the back burner. My amazing husband managed the kids while working full time and hid the worst of his own fears and distress from me, giving me space for my now full time job of detoxing and reducing all stressors and negativity from my life as much as humanly possible. Family members also stepped up and helped him out and I would be remiss to leave out our incredible nanny, Sandra, who cared for our young son, Wilder, while my husband was working (Noah was at school) throughout the days and during the endless appointments we attended during that time. Sandra became a second mother to my kids and the most nurturing, loving second mother to me. Her time with our family was a blessing that brings me to tears now. I am forever grateful to Sandra for her support of my family when I wasn’t able to be present with them.

The lumpectomy was scheduled for a Monday. The Thursday before surgery, the surgeon’s office called to say they needed to run more tests so Monday’s surgery would have to be rescheduled. The only problem with rescheduling was, the surgeon was going out of town for a month and I wouldn’t be able to get on her calendar until August. Again, WTF? What’s with all these surgeon’s vacationing for months at a time?

I scheduled the fourth biopsy for the following week and made an appointment to meet with the third and final surgeon. I didn’t know it at the beginning of this circus otherwise I would have requested him from the beginning, but surgeon #3 was the hospital’s OG surgeon. He was the most senior, most requested, longest wait list, and longest list of notable names he’d operated on. This was my surgeon. 

My husband and I walked into our third proposed-treatment-plan-day meeting to go over the game plan for surgery. As usual, I brought my spiritual team, a group of angels, saints, and ascended masters, with me into the appointment for courage and support, along with my sister’s words, “Sometimes, it’s necessary to cut the karma out.” A semi-calm came over my normally racing heart-rate, and I agreed to the mastectomy the surgeon recommended, with one exception: I’m keeping my nipple. With some push-back, he finally agreed and we set a date for surgery: July 11, 2023. 

OUT WITH THE OLD

The day of surgery came. I was instructed not to eat anything but I could have black coffee and apple juice. The rebel in me came out. Screw the hospital’s rules. If I can have coffee and apple juice, what’s wrong with orange juice? So I casually sipped my fresh squeezed as we walked our daughter to school, then we drove to the hospital. I blasted Beyoncé’s “Countdown” as we rolled through the parking garage, prepping my psyche for the day ahead. I walked into surgery nervous, but ready. A calm I hadn’t ever experienced coated the day. Like love was padding me from all fear.

Pre-surgery began. They found out I had orange juice. The surgeon said the surgery would likely be canceled. I was devastated, although that calm stayed with me. In my gut, I knew everything would be ok.

I had to get clearance from the anesthetist, the breast cancer surgeon, and the plastic surgeon, confirming each of them could push the surgery to later in the day than originally scheduled. Miraculously, all of them signed off and I went into surgery around 2:30 that day. 

The choice to defy the rules and drink orange juice, coupled with the fear of having surgery canceled, taught me that I’m not better than anyone, or any system. I can be angry, and scared, and pissed that I’m in a situation I didn’t want to be in, but that’s no reason to risk the whole mission. The experience was an abrupt wake-up call to get over myself and accept the help of others rather than be upset that help is being offered. 

For as nervous as I was, surgery was easier than I thought it would be. Probably because I was unconscious and didn’t have to deal with the persistent fear that lurked around my life expectancy leading up to this event. 

There were two surgeons. The breast cancer surgeon removed the tumor then the plastic surgeon came in and placed an expander so my chest would appear to have a small breast after the mastectomy. I would need to go in and have the expander, or plastic baggie boob as I came to call it, filled until I reached the size I wanted. You can imagine, it’s an odd ask. Watching your boob slowly expand over a month or so until you dictate the size you want it to be. Very strange. The nurses said to fill it one size bigger than I thought I wanted because most women regret not going bigger. The plastic surgeon’s office was always a joy to visit. The nurses had a good sense of humor and it was the only office that didn’t have the heavy weight of cancer consuming the energy of each room.   

A few days after surgery I got the pathology report. The surgeon reported clean margins, which meant they got all the cancer out and I was officially (even if only by my accounts) cancer free!

Recovery wasn’t pleasant. After each biopsy I wasn’t allowed to lift heavy weights, which meant I couldn’t lift my now 8-month old out of his crib or pick him up off the ground. Post-surgery, I wasn’t allowed to lift my children for a month. I had drains coming out of the side of my body for close to two weeks–which earned me the nickname (with my husband and close friends) “bionic woman” because of the alien-like nature of having cords draping out of your armpit–and my husband had to sponge bathe me. This experience had us regularly laughing about the realities of the vows we said to each other eight years earlier. All in, post-surgery was a disgusting phase of this process. If the roles were reversed, I can’t say I’d be as light hearted or as eager to help with the post-surgery duties as he was. 

As much as it appears to, life does not actually stop with any health crisis. Around May I had started making noise that it was time to leave Chicago. We’d been talking about leaving the city to be closer to nature and hopefully find a house that was better able to accommodate the four people and three pets that made up our family. We also had a kid-free trip to Croatia and Montenegro on the books for early September for a friend’s wedding. Little did we know the cancer treatment journey was just getting started.

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

We met with the oncologist for a post-op meeting two weeks after surgery. I was so nervous for this appointment my blood pressure and heart rate were off the charts, according to the nurse, and the deep breaths I was instructed to take didn’t help.

The oncologist came in. She was a kind woman and talked slowly so we could take in all the information she had for us. She asked if the surgeon had called with the pathology reports. I said yes, he had and there were clear margins. She began to go through the pathology report, repeating information we already knew about the size and shape of the tumor but then went on to explain that despite all three biopsies which came back as being HER2 negative, the post-surgery pathology report came back as HER2 positive. There was also cancer found in one of my lymph nodes, which meant there was a possibility it could spread.

The earth began to spin much slower when she said that. Blood rushed to my face and I grew very quiet. Something switched in me. I had expected to come into this appointment and decline chemotherapy, but the new information of a HER2 positive diagnosis changed everything. I was willing to do anything to eradicate any chance for cancer ever growing in my body again. I was going to say yes to chemotherapy and all the treatments. 

Three days later we closed on a house in the suburbs.

Since we were moving out of the city, I would need to change doctors again. Thankfully, this was a fairly straightforward process. The new hospital (under the same medical network) was also less than 15 minutes from our new home and I could park right in front. Things were starting to look up, in a way. 

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

If the time before surgery felt like the wild wild west, without rules or knowns or plans, the time after surgery felt safer because it was more structured. We finally had a plan. 

I met with the new oncologist. He came with great reviews. Everyone seemed to love this guy, and I’ll admit he was pretty friendly. I wanted to know if he was going to change up the treatment plan initially laid out by the oncologist in Chicago but he kept the plan the same, which I liked, so I liked him. 

It turns out that HER2 positive used to be a diagnosis with a very low survival rate, but after advancements that came about in 2006, it’s now widely viewed as treatable, and much to my shock, both oncologists said the cancer was “curable”, a term I thought was never used in the same sentence as cancer. 

I was starting to feel very fortunate about the details of my diagnosis. I was incredibly grateful for having a plan and for the love I began to feel from the world around me. Not so much from the people (although there was a lot of love there), but from the world behind the veil, is how I’ll phrase it. I was definitely being looked out for and there were many serendipitous events that occurred over the next several months.

For one, I told the oncologist I wouldn’t start chemo until after our European adventure and, despite his reluctance, there wasn’t more to be said on the matter. 

Scott and I left for Dubrovnik, then headed on to Montenegro for the wedding. For someone who had turned vegan and became very ascetic for about six months, I denied myself nothing on our trip and loved every minute of it. We also sold our house in Chicago while we were away (over ask, nonetheless!), so we had a lot to celebrate! The trip was the fairytale adventure I was blessed to receive before chemo started and the timing of it couldn’t have been more perfect.

I AM NOT MY HAIR

I got my port placed on September 11, 2022, two days after returning from our trip (a port is a small, implantable reservoir with a thin silicone tube that attaches to a vein for easy drug administration. It’s inserted via a minor surgery and eventually removed the same way). The following Tuesday, I drove to the suburbs for my first round of chemo and we moved into our new house that following weekend. There was a lot of change happening and although it was overwhelming at times, it was all change that felt good because it was moving in the right direction. 

The first round of chemo was interesting. I didn’t feel safe driving for a few days after because my body felt like it was on drugs (but not in a good way). It felt like there was an undercurrent of haziness slowing my reaction time and a general “icky” (for lack of better words) feeling inside of my body. I was probably a little more tired than usual, but not enough to make any significant alterations to my usual day-to-day.

My hair started to fall out three weeks later, just before round 2 (there would be six chemo rounds, or doses, total, administered every 3 weeks). I got a pixie haircut after the first round, cut by a wonderful woman who, as I found out at my appointment, specializes in pixies. She spent 2 hours on a haircut that would fall out in a week or so and then didn’t charge me when the appointment was over. There truly are such wonderful people on earth. 

When my hair finally did start to fall out, I decided to shave it myself. It was itchy and I wasn’t going to allow this treatment to take anything more from me than it already was. And since I knew my hair falling out was inevitable (although I did hold out hope I’d be one of the rare, lucky few whose hair didn’t fall out), nobody but me was going to cut it off. 

The wig search was real. I ordered many wigs before my hair fell out, trying to find something that resembled my long, brown hair but nothing looked, or felt right. I ended up with one I NEVER would have ordered while I still had my long hair, but it looked and felt right. It was a short, platinum pixie cut I deemed my pop-star look, and I was happy with it.

It’s natural to feel a little self-conscious the first time in public wearing a wig when you’re not used to it. I just wanted to blend in and look like a normal person, since inside I felt anything but. The funny thing was, I received compliments on my hair ALL the time when I wore my wig. Apparently, people didn’t know it was a wig! Like I was just another person enjoying a normal day, and not a cancer patient in the middle of treatment. The compliments were a small thing that made me feel incredibly special. 

A highlight during this time was a pre-planned girls trip made earlier that year, before the diagnosis, that happened to fall just before round #3 (weekends before the next round are usually when I felt the best because enough time had passed for the drugs to mostly wear off). I met up with them in Palm Springs and had a blast spa-ing, wining and dining, laughing with old friends, and getting away from the realities that existed for me at home. 

THE HARD TRUTHS

Many lessons came out of chemo. Mainly, the need to take care of myself first and others second, which is super common for breast cancer patients. And as a mother of a 3 year old, and 1 year old (at the time), it’s even more difficult to find time for yourself, cancer diagnosis or not. So, it took me some time to feel OK (because I won’t say I ever felt comfortable with it), making the choice to stay in bed and rest instead of assisting my crying/screaming children and overworked husband downstairs. 

The funny thing is, I always thought I was great at taking care of myself. I knew what I needed and I wasn’t afraid to nurture myself. But what I’m still learning is there are many ways to nurture yourself and I was missing the mark in some departments. One of which was asking for help. 

I don’t like to bother other people with my “stuff” or interject my thoughts and opinions on anyone but my family (who will tell you I do so annoyingly). But I found myself reading “The Power of Eight” by Lynn McTaggart, and decided to ask for help from my friends and family in the form of a 10-minute meditation on the Monday evenings before each chemo treatment. 

I sent them a picture of me and asked them to focus on me being cancer-free, with healthy, balanced hormones. It was uncomfortable being open about my health. I felt a lot of shame around being diagnosed with cancer. Like I did something wrong, or wasn’t perfect, and now my secret was out and everybody would know it. But asking others to support me felt like a vital ingredient in my ultimate health and healing, so I bit the bullet and asked for help, and it was worth it. The love and support I received from those long-distance, show-up-if-you-like meditations were a major key to my health and healing. I’ll never know who or how many people meditated for me, but knowing that even just one person was meditating on my behalf was a massive healing on its own.

PSA: A catalyst for the breast cancer I had was a hormonal imbalance. A simple blood test from a naturopath can tell you if you have healthy hormone levels. If you’re not sleeping well, experience a lot of stress, have a low libido, and/or irregular periods, get your hormones checked out. 

Thankfully, with the self-care work I’m doing today, I’m being made aware of areas I could improve on, which is eye-opening and cracking open parts of me I didn’t know needed cracking. I’m sure this process is very individualized, so I won’t go into details about it here.

About midway through chemo, we were informed that my oldest was having trouble in school, and after the rat-race of finding an early childhood intervention specialist, she was diagnosed with ADHD, which is another story, but a notable weight that I feel is necessary to mention. Again, when it rains it pours. 

Other than trying not to overexert myself, detoxing became a full-time job during chemo. I saw my acupuncturist every week, who I know saved my life! I sat in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for an hour or so every week, infrared sauna, colonics between each round, lymphatic massages to help the body detox, castor oil packs every night, healthy eating, walking, etc. Chemo serves its purpose, but it destroys a lot in its path and I’ll be working on rebuilding the internal health of my body for years to come.  

I made a calendar and would check off every day, from start to finish, of chemo. There were 108 days total. I became very intrigued with numerology during this process, and 108 days becomes a 9, or a sign of completion. I knew I wouldn’t have to do chemotherapy again after this. My last treatment was December 27, 2022. I was happy to close out the year of hell with chemotherapy behind me. 

I was also being treated with immunotherapy (administered the same way, via the port, as chemo) and would need to get a full year of immunotherapy, so even though chemo would drop off, I would still need to keep the port and visit the cancer center every three weeks until September 2023. After about a month of recovery from chemo, radiation would begin.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, BUT I FEEL FINE

My mom treated my sisters and I to a spa weekend in New Mexico to celebrate the end of my chemo journey. The trip was something I thought about and looked forward to every day while in treatment. It was a wonderful, healing way to honor and celebrate the end of the hardest thing I’d ever accomplished in my life.

I got back from the trip and radiation started up a few weeks later. I was a candidate for proton therapy, a more targeted form of radiation that can also be extra harsh on the skin. Generally, I liked the routine radiation provided, however the actual treatment was more detrimental to my body than chemo, I believe. I started defining the appointments as the definition of insanity, showing up willingly every day to the very thing that I felt eating away at my aura and causing severe skin damage to my chest, all in the name of long-lasting health. But it was the simple solution to treating any potential microscopic cancer cells the other treatments may have missed, so I agreed to it.

To this day, my kids can’t lean on the area below my clavicle because it’s painful and I have to keep it protected from the sun for the rest of my life after the amount of “sun damage” my neck and chest already received.

Toward the end of radiation, I went against my doctors backs and saw a dermatologist about my blistering skin. She was truly an angel, and prescribed me a few ointments I would mix up into a paste and slather over my wounded chest. I swear, the magical concoction healed up the blisters in a week! I still have some cream left over and use it when my kids get a scrape and their skin mends overnight.

THE FINAL STEPS

Now that radiation was over I was waiting for three things: 

– reconstruction surgery to remove the plastic baggie boob and replace it with silicone (you can’t do this before radiation for many reasons)

– immunotherapy to end

– the port to be removed

The plastic surgeon’s office called and had an opening for me to get reconstruction on July 11, 2023–shockingly, the exact same day it was placed the year before! Excitedly, I said I’ll be there! The surgery went off without a hitch and recovery was a cinch.

Two months later immunotherapy wrapped up. We threw a big party and some friends flew out to celebrate the momentous event of my cancer treatment being over!

The following Monday I had my port removed on September 11, 2023, yet again, the exact same day it was placed the year before! I don’t know what to make of the coincidences, but they are wild and make me smile and wonder at the beauty and magic baked into all of life. 

CONCLUSION

Life after cancer and cancer treatment, for me, has been a journey of making sense of the life I want to live. Balance requires lightness and darkness, and before cancer, I only allowed myself to exist in the light. However today, after a year and a half of navigating the dark, I’m not able to pretend the darkness doesn’t exist. And navigating that truth is an important aspect of my healing.  

Following the end of treatment, I was faced with truths about the world, nature, and my life that I never spent time considering, simply because it didn’t feel good. I became afraid of the state of our planet in a very visceral way. That first summer, it was easier for me to see the dead trees amongst the living and feel worried and afraid about the future. Many stories of friends with loved ones who didn’t survive their cancer diagnosis came up in conversation and I would become overcome with grief for the guilt and gratitude of my healing. 

Motherhood seems to have taken over my life, for the good and the bad. I’ve been struggling to reopen my energy healing practice but constantly seem to be met with unavoidable disruptions that constantly delay my opening date goals. 

And yet…

I’m allowing myself to live with more freedom. I don’t believe I take myself as seriously as I used to. My hair is coming in super thick and crazy curly. Unruly and wild. A friend pointed out how my hair is an outward expression of the rewilding happening internally, which I love. Although I am living the same life, I definitely have a new perspective on how I’m choosing to live it. 

For one thing, I don’t drink as much as I did before and finally, FINALLY have committed to a work out routine after years of thinking and talking about it. I have a better relationship with my family and am building wonderfully loving, and nurturing relationships with new friends and other healers in our new community. I set an intention for more, welcome travel and have had at least one spontaneous, amazingly welcome trip pop out of almost every month as a result. In my work, I’ve opened my eyes to other healing modalities and am getting trained in two new energy healing techniques that I’m excited to incorporate into my practice later this year or early next. As a family, we’re enjoying much abundance and prosperity. There are endless things to celebrate, even on the days where there are setbacks or the kids are insane. 

I’m still sorting out how to use my time wisely, but I suppose figuring out life’s intricacies is what a lifetime is for. And I’m so utterly grateful to have a lifetime to keep figuring it all out.