Just a Bad Memory

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

Many years ago, 24 to be precise, I had just given birth to baby #4. He was a delightful, easy baby, but life was stressful. I was doing my best to breastfeed, run a business, keep the household running, volunteer at school, and fulfill volunteer assignments at church, and it was just getting to be too much. I wasn’t getting enough sleep. I wasn’t getting any exercise. I was just getting run down, and I suffered repeated bouts of mastitis for it.

When baby was about four months I had another round of mastitis. Once the fever and weakness were gone and the infection had cleared out, I was left with a lump in my left breast. The lump remained, and four months later Hubby insisted I go and get it checked. His exact words were, “These things can turn into cancer, and I don’t want you leaving me with four kids to raise alone.” So, off I went to the doctor. She examined the lump, aspirated it, and drew milk into the needle, so she wasn’t worried.

Baby #4 weaned at 22 months. Four months later the lump remained. Hubby urged me to get it checked again. This time the doctor examined it, aspirated it, and didn’t get anything. The lump was solid, not liquid-filled. She left the room and came back a few minutes later saying she had booked me in with the breast clinic and had secured an appointment for eight days hence.

Now, the medical system here in Canada isn’t that fast. It’s been overloaded for years. The only way to get in with a specialist in less than a year is to either be a child, or be an adult whose doctor is very concerned, and then you may get in faster. To get an appointment in eight days screamed that my doctor was worried.

My doctor said one thing – “it doesn’t feel like a cancer and it doesn’t move like a cancer” – but she did another. She fast-tracked me in a slow-moving medical system. That literally put the fear of God into me.

As I drove home I assessed what I needed to do. I needed to get rid of the lump as fast as I could, regardless of what it was made of. I stopped at the health food store, picked up gallons of organic juices, and made my way home. I told Hubby what had transpired and announced that for the next week I would be doing an intense juice fast and that I would not be able to maintain my normal mom/wife/homemaker duties. Hubby rallied, and I started the cleanse.

To put this all in perspective – the lump was the size of a marble.

Over the course of the next week I drank juice. I took cleansing supplements. I did an enema every day. By two days before the appointment with the specialist, I had shrunk the lump to the size of a glass pinhead. I booked an appointment with my own doctor for the next day. When she saw me in the examining room she asked why I was there. I said I wanted her to re-examine the lump. As she palpated it she said, “Well, I don’t know what you’ve done to shrink it, but that’s great. It’s obviously not a cancer. You can cancel your appointment with the breast clinic.”

Three months later I did another shortened version of the cleanse and got rid of that last little bit of the lump. The truth is – we’ll never know what it was. Another truth is – I have a cancer marker in the breast zone of my left eye that reminds me frequently to be proactive and protective of my breasts and my health in general.

Today’s article is about breast health. I hope you’ll read it, take it seriously, and do what you need to to protect your breasts and your health.