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Oct 15, 2018 11:45AM
- edited
Oct 15, 2018 12:36PM
by
DivineMrsM
I was diagnosed stage four right out the gate in early 2011.
I did the big treatments that year (see my signature line) and I'm all for complimentary medicine. Upon educating myself, I began taking tumeric, vitamin D and fish oil. I upped my water and added more fruits and veggies to my diet.
For various reasons, I didn't exercise and eventually weighed 25 more pounds than I did prior to diagnosis. I eat something with sugar every day, I eat meat and ocassionally drink alcohol. At stage iv, I chose not to deprive myself of delicious food and some memorable meals as it felt like I'd be punishing myself. Nor could I throw myself in to juicing and enemas and such as it felt far too drastic. About a year ago, tho, I began a walking routine and lost 20 pounds over 6 months and am happy about that.
I'm not one who believes stress “causes" bc, but I'm a huge believer in eliminating stress as a healing method, and I cut as much out as I can. A big component of that is learning to put myself first and not feel guilty about it, learning to stand up for myself and learning to value my opinions and insights and to have confidence in my perspectives. This has been an ongoing process.
Also, very importantly, and I'm not sure the alternative/complimentary fields give this enough attention, but I started doing *more* of what I really wanted to do and less of what I didn't want and was doing out of obligation. I've learned to simplify chores and my household clutter. I speak up when others are crowding into my space and taking advantage of my time. I started traveling more and developed new hobbies like coin collecting.
It is in hindsight that I see how suppressed I was in so many areas of my life. I went around thinking life was good enough when in fact, I wanted more but did not allow myself to go after it. I was conditioned into being submissive.
A common statistic is that women with mbc live about 3 to 5 years after diagnosis. Yet, here I am, stable and living with metastatic breast cancer for almost 8 years.
It wouldn't have happened without conventional treatment. Tho I made adjustments in my life, I did not deprive myself of parts of my life that I still loved.
Radical Remission was an excellent book, and another great book along the same lines is Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin MD. Also, The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons For Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest is another book that’s very insightful.
found lump 12/22/10~er+/pr+/her2- stage iv bone mets------------- Chemo~lumpectomy~radiation~arimidex------------- March2019/Ibrance-Aromasin---------- Sept2019/Verzenio-Aromasin