Chapter Nine – Questioning My Decision

    By the end of March the Oprah segment had aired, I had been inundated with hundreds of emails and was still searching for a cure.

    Half the emails applauded me on my choice to search for a cure, the other half either shared with me protocols that had worked for someone else or were trying to sell me some new product that would 'cure my cancer' and that I would be more than welcome to share with the rest of the world.

    Unfortunately, a few emails were mean. I have often wondered what caused these people to take the time and trouble of finding me and sharing their opinions and negative prophecies with me. I was doing what I thought was best for me and they thought it their duty and many their 'God Ordained' mission to tell me that I was killing myself.

    These negative emails were written by the kind of people who would swerve to hit animal in the road when they could easily miss it. They would run over the poor animal and then mumble about animals should not be in the road and that they saved them from a life of hunger and disease. These were those kind of people. Self righteous and self justified.

    I will never forget one email that I received where the woman actually told me that God would not heal me because I would not trust in conventional medicine. She quoted biblical scripture to back up her case. When she was finished I was the one laying broke and bleeding in the middle of her road. Tire tracks on my back and her words of self righteousness about how she saved me from a worse fate trailing behind her as she sped away crossing herself.

    I read some of these emails over and over. The positive ones kept me searching for a cure. The negative ones threw fuel on my fire anytime I questioned my decision. I would not let these doomsayers win. I would not let them do this to anyone and get away with it. How dare they have a negative effect on my life! THEY were the cancer. They were the reason no cure had been found and if found not shared. They were the reason that more and more money was being poured into 'research' and this disease was still out there.

I often asked myself why no cure had been found yet when so many people supposedly were searching for it. Maybe a cure for cancer cost too much money? Not in research, but in monies lost to those who benefit from keeping cancer alive and well. Maybe these people who wrote to me with their negative comments represented this group that fought to keep cancer in our lives.

    Only God knows; but God knows.

    

Chapter Three – Breakdown Behind The Wheel)

    I found my truck, slowly climbed inside of it and pulled the seatbelt across my chest. Ouch! The strap had landed directly on the lump that was now hot and very sore. It was if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers and I had come to. Except I wasn't waking refreshed.

I came back to earth feeling numb. What had just happened? Okay. The double mammogram. The sonogram. The talk about the possibility of it being malignant…doing the biopsy. No, wait. Not doing the biopsy.

    Okay, okay. I'm in control. In my truck. In the parking lot. I started up my truck and began the 45 minute drive home. I wish I could tell you what I thought about during the drive home but I can't. I don't remember, and frankly I am not sure that it even made sense.

    I do remember thinking What am I going to tell Scott? I usually had the answers or at least several options. I had neither. Fifteen minutes into my drive I began to cry. The crying didn't last long. I had never felt comfortable as a cryer. The crying abruptly ended and then I began to get mad. I don't have time for this. I don't have insurance. I don't have the right questions to ask. Whose fault is this anyway? What did I do to deserve this? For what must have been 20 minutes I ranted and raved out loud.

    By the end I was exhausted but had calmed down considerably. My optimism kicked in. Hey, it's probably nothing. Just because Dr. V had been doing this for 10 years doesn't mean that my lump was malignant. I bet that it would be gone in a week, two weeks tops.

    With that I concluded my breakdown and started working on the conversation that I would have with Scott. I grabbed my cell phone and called him. He was so concerned that I was okay.

"How was the mammogram? …. Two times! Wow, that must have been uncomfortable. …. How are you feeling now? …You know everything will be alright. It's probably nothing. Doctors have been wrong before. … I'll see you when you get home… Drive safe. Love you … Bye."

    That was it. I was hopeful. He was hopeful. We both figured that the doctor was going to be wrong and that everything would be alright.

It was still a long drive home.