It stops here and it stops now

I was booked to have the second round of surgery last week, but I cancelled it the week before. I have really struggled with understanding the difference between fear, denial, intuition and education. It is so hard to hear the heart when the head keeps talking. Harder to hear my own internal wisdom when fear speaks so loudly. It’s frightening to think that a wrong choice will kill me. It’s also very difficult to not be influenced or intimidated by expert authority. Everyone seems to be an expert when it comes to cancer and everyone disagrees with everyone else. No matter which way I go on this I do know that ultimately it is me who lives or dies with the choices and consequences.

I went walking, barefoot, in the park. The winter sun, the cool green grass and the clean fragrant air baptised me. My body, my life and my death finally came to rest within my own spirit. I am not a lab rat, not meat to be processed and not a statistic to be counted. I am not a disease. I am not cancer. Maybe the time for me to die has come – it might be as simple as that. Maybe the time has come for me to live – it might be as simple as that.

No one and no thing will fight for me the way my own body and spirit will. No intelligence on the planet can heal me like my own immune system will. My question is “How can I strengthen my immune system?” Before I begin to answer, another question surfaces, “How will radiation or Chemotherapy or hormone therapy improve or assist my immune system?” It won’t. Removing more lymph nodes, frying cells and poisoning my body can not possibly strengthen me. Additional surgery is an additional trauma and additional risk. More anaesthetic, antibiotics, and who knows what other drugs are used or what the true risks of blood clots and or other infections and complications are.

The stats which were offered up as proof or persuasion no longer make sense at all. The research and the database of statistics come from people who go through this system; no one is comparing these numbers with stats from people outside of this protocol. Where are the stats on people who declined all medical intervention? Where are the stats on people who made diet or lifestyle changes? How good or reliable are these stats? The trials are really only over a 5 year period and even so, many people still get secondary cancers and many still die from the disease. How would this compare with others who had no treatment at all? How many of the so called successes died of stroke, infection, drug related or post surgery complications? Maybe people appear to live longer simply because cancers are detected earlier. In my case I am addressing pre cancerous cells. Maybe those precancerous cells might have never become tumours or maybe they would have taken 5 or 10 years to become cancerous. So, how can we call a 5 year clearance a success?

In my case I am being advised that there is a possibility of cells in other lymph nodes. I think that this is unlikely as although one node was positive the others were clear. To now take out all of the other nodes on the off chance that they might be positive seems very unlikely. It seems to me that this would be similar to tearing out a rose garden because an aphid was found on one rose.

The tumour was taken out, five lymph nodes were taken and an additional margin of tissue was taken. Mammograms, ultra sounds and pathology, at this point, shows no cancer. So, why continue on with more surgery, radiation and possibly chemo and drugs? Is it gone or not? At what point am I cancer free? Am I expected to keep chasing around the fear of a possibility indefinitely?

I had a tumour, I caught it early, it has been removed; the margins are clear and the lymph nodes are clear. Finally, I have my answer, “I used to have cancer.” I don’t have cancer. Don’t try to fix what isn’t broken! Maybe I do have cells somewhere within my body and maybe I don’t. That makes me exactly the same as everyone else out there. No one expects everyone to undergo radiation or chemo in case they have cells. Radiation is not inoculation! Chemotherapy is not preventative medicine!

“It stops here and it stops now.” I decided that from that moment I was cancer free. I cancelled all appointments, further treatment and surgery.

Copyright Sonya Green 2008 www.reinventingmyself.com
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