I was 33 when I went to my doctor with a lump in my breast. He said it was nothing. A year later, I went back complaining that it was becoming painful. (He denied that I had already brought this up with him in a prior visit, doctors will lie to save their skin.) Now he sent me for a mammogram. Well, there wasn’t much to see as the lump actually was flat and very close to my ribs.

Then he sent me to a surgeon and a needle biopsy was done. 1 month later, I got the results of stage 4 breast cancer with probable metastasis. In Canada, the medical establishment will not check you out to see if it has metastasized until they’ve had a go at treating the cancer. So 10 days later, I’m in the hospital, a nurse hands me a legal document. I’m really upset and ask what the document says, because I have to sign it to have the lumpectomy. She describes that the surgeon can basically cut and remove whatever he/she deems necessary. So I wrote across the face of the document “no mastectomy” and signed it. In the end, this replacement surgeon (not the one that did the biopsy) only took the mass out (the total amount was about the size of a small egg). 2 days later, I found out that the lab (funny thing is that I’m a lab tech) made a mistake and I didn’t have cancer at all. (in actual fact, several mistakes had been made for my biopsy to have been declared stage 4). Measures are put in place to catch mistakes and in my case, they were lucky that I had no cancer and a mastectomy was not done.

The 10 days between the result of stage 4 cancer and the lumpectomy was hell. Even with the final result of no cancer, it was almost impossible to believe that they hadn’t made another error. My faith in doctors has definitely gone way down.

I have a wonderful MD now that is a functional medicine doctor. I have another breast lump, and he is happy to monitor it. I can’t bring myself to submit to having another surgery to my breast. In fact, it is getting smaller so I think I will just wait and see.

There is a lab in the Philippines that does cancer testing. It is not specific for certain kinds of cancer, but gives a number and with each testing, you can see if you are getting worse or better (check out the Navarro Medical clinic). This was very helpful for me when I had developed a cancer in my lymphatics. My doctor at that time told me I had autoimmune disease. So having the results of the testing helped me sort through the issues with my doctor and fire her. I changed to a natural approach, got help from an experienced coach and in 2 months I was a new person. I have come to believe that once you have cancer, you never really get rid of it.

I never want to put my choices in the hands of medical experts as their training is so limited. Pharmaceutical companies basically educate MD’s today and mostly what they know is cut, burn and poison, especially when it comes to cancer.