Breast Cancer: Round One

I’ve always been a healthy person. 

I worked out three times a week at the gym, practiced yoga twice a week, and walked my dog every single day. Plus, the bulk of my diet consisted of organic protein, vegetables, and a handful of supplements. I never imbibed in more than the occasional cocktail and my active schedule and eating habits had always kept me slim and trim.

So how did I end up with breast cancer at the age of 46?

That was the question I screamed into the heavens for weeks after my diagnosis. How the heck did this happen to ME?

It was near the conclusion of a three-week dietary cleanse that I discovered the lump. The morning after having a lymphatic drainage massage, I woke up to a right breast that was feverish, painful, and the size of a coconut. “Ouch,” I grumbled to my now-husband. “That therapist went a little too hard on me.” 

One week and two acupuncture appointments later, the swelling had dissipated but a palpable lump had formed and hurt closest to my bicep. Two more weeks went by before I found myself laying on my side in a purple hospital gown in Costa Rica’s capital city, as a radiologist inserted a long, thick needle to take a biopsy sample.

I wish I could tell you the rest of my breast cancer story was a blur, but that was far from the case. Being diagnosed with cancer while living in a developing nation – even with the best of private healthcare available – led to a number of appointments and a lot of waiting before a positive diagnosis was made and confirmed: an aggressive form of ductal carcinoma.

Having been raised in a family where alternative forms of medicine were practiced and accepted, my first mode of coping was to conduct copious amounts of online research. I consulted with seven physicians and received all kinds of opinions about my options for treatment. Once a specialist in the United States had confirmed the initial diagnosis, I elected to undergo an alternative form of treatment out of Ecuador. I won’t go into a lot of details about this treatment except to say that it required I go completely vegan, cut all sugar and inflammatory agents out of my (already restrictive) diet and the treatment itself brought on flu-like symptoms accompanied by significant pain.

While initial results from this treatment appeared to be shrinking the tumor, at the end of ten months, things went downhill fast. My energy drained from my body, I felt zapped and spent a lot of time in bed. Plus, the swelling in my breast had spread and hardened.

Follow-up tests revealed the most dreaded word for a cancer patient: metastasis. At that point, the original tumor had grown and was now taking up 1/3 of the real estate in my breast. The PET scan my doctor ordered showed what appeared to be a constellation of stars in my chest. “What is that?” I asked. The radiologist’s tone changed from matter-of-fact to apologetic: “Your lungs.” 

Tumors were visible in 12 places.

I’ll never forget the following appointment with the medical oncologist. He was a kind man with buffed red shoes. His words rang in my ears for weeks after: serious, stage four, terminal.

It took days, weeks to sink in. Terminal? Isn’t that what happened to old ladies and crinkly old men who smoked and didn’t take care of themselves? I was about to turn 48. I was fit and felt pretty normal…well, I had before I’d started cancer treatment anyway. 

The question ‘How could this be?’ accompanied my daily round. I moved around in a haze.

My husband and I traveled back to our home in Costa Rica and started packing. We felt we had little choice. “You need to start chemo immediately,” the oncologist had said. “It’s urgent.”

We accepted that this was a fight for my life. Desperate times called for difficult decisions. And we made them. Within weeks, we boarded a flight to return to the U.S. to live which entailed closing our real estate business, moving our belongings into storage, selling our cars, and transporting four pets. 

In May 2018, I was admitted to a clinical trial. I accepted the risk of submitting to the highest dose in what is referred to as a “Phase One” experiment. That means the drug had been successful for two other types of cancer but it was the first time to be tested in treating breast cancer. The stakes were high because nothing was proven but we were hopeful.

But the initial round of IV drips – a 16-hour affair that began at 7 am and ended at 11 pm on a Thursday – landed me in the hospital with a fever of 104. 

Over a matter of days, like dominoes, I lost control of my bodily faculties. But the experience was still surreal to me as if my hospital room were the set of a bad movie and I were watching the scene unroll. There were many moments where I would rouse and think, “What’s happening?” before the reality would hit me: the elephant was sitting on my chest, it was my nose the oxygen tube was attached to, my organs that attempting to shut down, one by one.

The doctor’s handwritten diagnosis on the clipboard at the end of my bed read: sepsis. I didn’t know what that meant so I googled it.

After test after test showed nothing conclusive, the attending oncologist stood at the foot of my hospital bed to address my family, “It’s time to be realistic. JuliAnne is a stage, four cancer patient.” What she did not say but what we all heard was, “Prepare yourselves. She’s not going to make it.”

I almost didn’t. 

Five days in, I started to see things and hear sounds that weren’t there. Within hours, with my family surrounding my bed, I lost consciousness. What happened next was beyond surreal and what I can only describe as a near-death out-of-body experience with God. 

I’ve written more about that experience in-depth on my blog, but in short, let me say it was life-changing. In short, I was given a choice: you can stay or you can go. As much pain as I was in, it was a very difficult decision. 

In the end, I chose to stay and the moment I did, I felt the doctor prying open my eyelid and shining a light into my retina. Bang! I was back in my body. And from that moment on, my physical body started to turn around.

While the doctors thought I would never walk out of that hospital, I did: three days later. And within a matter of weeks, the large tumors in my breast were gone. Completely. My doctors were flabbergasted. Beyond amazed. My oncologist had been practicing for more than. 30 years told me, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Recovery was far from easy. As most chemo patients do, I lost my hair. I lost my balance and had to have support while walking for weeks to come. My skin had turned a pale shade of grey and it was as if my anime – my very life – had drained from me. I slept a lot. For days and weeks and even months. And then there were days that I seemed pretty normal. But they were few.

It took a long time to return to myself.

After some weeks, I did choose to continue receiving the clinical trial treatments. Yes, part of me was scared and I delayed doing it right away. But once I decided, I did it in faith – which was renewed post my near-death experience. I hadn’t died when I was “supposed to”, so I gave up my fear to God and said, “okay, Lord, use the rest of this medicine to help and heal me.”

Four months later, the PET scan showed that the network of tumors in both my lungs was gone. Only scars were left. Some hours after the review of the scan with the radiologist in his office, the doctor chased my husband down in my hallway of the cancer center, grabbed him by the arm, and exclaimed, “You don’t understand. This just doesn’t happen! Your wife’s case truly is a miracle.”

We just smiled. We knew in the deepest part of our hearts that it was a miracle and God had done it. 

All the odds had been tilted in the other direction as I lay in that hospital bed, as all the doctors were giving me tests that showed everything was failing and that none of their medicines were working. 

Every indication had been that I was going to die.

But I didn’t.

It was and still is a miracle. 

What I know is that I am standing here today, living –  breathing – thriving, when no one ever thought I would be.

But. I. Am. And for that, I give every bit of glory and thanks to God.

My cancer story does not end here. Tune back in next month to hear Round Two. It’s an equally amazing story because I’m still here – alive, kicking, and grateful.