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People
Tell Their Stories: A
Healing Journey Jan Adrian, MSW I first noticed a lump in my breast in November if 1988, and I dutifully had my mammogram. My OB GYN told me it was nothing to worry about and at the time I was immersed in a new business. My husband and I had started a furniture store, we were working ten hours a day, seven days a week. I wanted to so much to believe that the lump was nothing to worry about that I didn't think about it again or worry about it. Six months later I found another lump under my arm, and the lump in my breast was still there. This time I had them both biopsied and discovered that they were malignant. Of course if I had had the first lump biopsied six months earlier, it might not have spread to the lymph nodes, but, by the time we found it, it was also in a lymph node. Back then, I did not know, of course, that 20% of mammograms that are negative are false negatives. Now that I know that, I also know that I should have had a biopsy. At the time, however, my husband and I had borrowed $35,000 to start our new business and were deeply in debt. I had no health insurance, no money, and I didn't know how to deal with the possibility of cancer. Suggested Treatment The oncologist to whom I was referred was one of these very strict looking Germans. He just told me that I had to have chemotherapy and a mastectomy immediately, and that the treatment would be about $10,000. This news came when Michael, my husband and I had a vacation planned, our first in two years of working 10 hours a day, seven days a week. Some friends who owned a house in Hawaii had invited us to come spend ten days with them--no charge. We were going to get to go to Hawaii without paying for anything except our plane tickets, which only cost about $300 each. I wasn't about to give up that vacation. And I wasn't about to go to Hawaii with one breast. I had known a woman who had a mastectomy 25 years earlier, and she was still alive. So my first thought of breast cancer wasn't about death or being afraid of dying. My first thought was: I don't want to lose my breast. I had seen her without her breast and it didn't look pretty. The procedure in those days was much more drastic than now, but I didn't know that, and I didn't want to look like she did. So I opted not to take his suggestion of an immediate mastectomy. My oncologist said that since I would not do a mastectomy immediately, I should start chemotherapy. So I did two weeks of chemo just before going to Hawaii. Then I took the trip. Most of my hair fell out while I was in Hawaii--which I didn't expect. I thought I had such a positive attitude that it wouldn't happen to me, but it did. Opting against Chemo Even while I was doing chemo, though, I knew that I probably wouldn't continue it when I came back from Hawaii. This decision was based on a very powerful experience I had when I was a teenager, which had made a major difference in my life. When I was 16, I had a prolonged, though not life-threatening illness, which resulted in my missing a whole semester of high school. I had all the symptoms of mononucleosis. I was running a fever, I was tired all the time, and I couldn't go to school. But it wasn't mono. My parents took me to different doctors; they tried many things--medications that made me sick, that made me lose weight--but I continued with the symptoms of that disease. They finally took me to a man whose label was chiropractor, but he did much more than that. He said that it didn't matter what this disease was called, that I had an infection in my blood and needed to built up my own body and immune system so I could deal with it. He put me on a very strict diet, including eating no sugar or white flour, and rubbed minerals on my body. He suggested that I drink an awful-tasting tea, which I did. I stuck very strictly to his diet, and, in six months I was healthier than I had ever been in my life. My energy was back. My fever was gone. I quit having the flu every winter. My hair got curly. It was a major change in my life. That gave me a very strong belief in the power of my own body to heal itself and in the power of my immune system. As a result, taking chemotherapy did not feel right to me. I want to make it clear that I am not recommending this for anyone else. I am just saying that this is what felt right for me at the time. To do something that destroyed my immune system, which chemo does, when my belief was that it is what I needed to heal myself, didn't feel right. Dealing with a Mastectomy However, when I came back from Hawaii, I did have a mastectomy. I arranged with a friend who was a doctor to do it as an outpatient procedure. He lowered his fee for me. I had a mastectomy for $2000, which is almost unheard of, and was in the hospital less than 24 hours. By that time I had gotten over the fear of how I was going to look with a mastectomy. I also had a husband who was very supportive, who continued to love me and tell me I was beautiful. Then, I had a little incident with my 13 year-old son that was the turning point for me. In our household, we were fairly comfortable with nudity, but once I had the mastectomy, I wasn't. One day, I was in the bedroom in the middle of a conversation with my 13-year-old son and needed to get dressed. I walked into my walk-in closet to change clothes and he followed me in there to continue the conversation. I said, "Brian if you come in here with me you are going to see my scar," and he said "Okay". So I changed clothes with him watching, and when we got the point where the scar was exposed, he said "Oh, that's not so bad," and continued his conversation like nothing had happened. That incident helped me let go of the fear of what I looked like with a mastectomy. Need to Transform My Life At the time I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had been doing nothing to nurture myself for several years. Even after I was diagnosed, I was working much too much. It wasn't that work was killing me, but that I needed something else in my life besides work. I felt like it was the lack of something nurturing in my life that was starving me. I wasn't reading; I wasn't meditating; I wasn't walking on the beach; I wasn't going to the mountains; I wasn't going to movies; I wasn't doing any of that. This was a time of questioning what needed to be changed in my life, what would be nourishing to me. It was my most difficult period emotionally. I also couldn't find a support group at that time in San Jose and felt very alone. Michael was my only supporter. I ended up going to a conference for health professionals on healing, and Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen spoke on the subject of illness as a soul experience. I was very moved by her talk. I felt she was talking directly to me. She talked about how we are spiritual beings on a human path, rather than human beings who may or may not be on a spiritual path. Up until that point, any treatment that had been recommended to me--chemo, radiation, mastectomy--was a treatment of the body only. I even asked one of my oncologists, "How are we going to treat the rest of me?" and he raised his voice and said, "Emotions have nothing to do with this." I already knew that wasn't true, because for seven years in the past, I had taught seminars for health care professionals on the mind-body connection. I had not paid much attention to it for the last two years of my own life, but I knew it existed. Around the time I heard Jean Shinoda Bolen, I also read Lawrence LeShan's book, Cancer as a Turing Point. Lawrence LeShan is a psychologist in New York who has been doing research with cancer patients for over 30 years. The patients that he worked with were all called terminal. When he started doing traditional psychotherapy with them, all of them died as predicted. Then, he stared doing a different king of therapy. Instead of looking at what was wrong with people, he started looking at what it was in their life that created excitement, what would get them excited to get them up in the morning. When he started working people in that way, he found that 50% of them went into remission. That was impressive. If there were a chemical or a drug that helped 50% of us go into remission, it would be front-page news. But because it was a therapy that couldn't be patented, and no one was going to make any money on it, it was hardly news at all. Creating a Conference for People with Cancer When I heard Jean Shinoda Bolen speak at the conference, it was all health care professionals hearing her message. I wanted those of us on the front lines dealing with the disease to hear it, too. With my own background of doing seminars for health care professionals, I felt that I could combine that expertise with other people's teaching. I didn't feel like I personally had anything to teach, but I did think I could get other people together, like Jean, who did have something to teach, and present them to people going through life-threatening illnesses. The result was the idea for having a conference. Then, I experienced a synchronicity that let me know I was on the right path.. I happened to be sitting in a restaurant waiting for a table when Lawrence LeShan sat down next to me. I got to talk to him about the conference idea, and I asked him if I could use the name, "Cancer as a Turing Point." He not only gave me his permission, but his blessing. I got some friends together, and we developed a non-profit organization called Healing Journeys. We put on the first Cancer as a Turning Point, From Surviving to Thriving™ conference in Monterey, California, in March 1994 and 280 people came. We charged $200 to attend that conference, but we also gave a scholarship to anyone who told us they wanted to come, but didn't have the money. By the end of that conference, I was personally $25,000 in debt, but I decided to keep doing it because of the response I got. So many people came to me and said "That conference saved my life." They told me, "I got a cancer diagnosis and thought I was dying. I came to that conference, and I went away with hope. I went away with life." So many people told me the same thing that I felt I couldn't not do it. I felt like it was my "assignment" and that I had to keep doing this, so I continued. After five conferences, my debt grew to $35,000. Then, I had the idea of doing the conference for free. I thought, "If I do it free, I can get grant money, the crowd will be larger, and somebody will give donations." We did our first free conference at Stanford and 1300 people showed up. We got some small grants and some donations. At the end of that conference we had not only covered our expenses, but also partially retired our $35,000 debt. It was an amazing experience. We are now committed to doing this conference on a yearly basis for free. The event costs about $45,000 to put on. For this conference, we got $22,000 in grants and the rest of it will come from donations. I know it will happen. My Cancer Journey Continues My own cancer journey has continued through this process. During all this time I've been discussing, I have had a total of four recurrences. I've now done 35 radiation treatments. I have taken Tomoxifin. I'm on Arimidex. I've change my diet, I've changed my life style. I've done everything I know of to do. I still have no idea what causes cancer, or how to cure it. Nobody does. Part of the blessing of a cancer journey, I think, is that we have to learn how to trust ourselves. Each of us has to find what works for us, and what our own personal path is. My own focus for now is more on the quality of my life rather than on the quantity. All of us are going to die. Death is not the failure. My purpose is to live until I die. It almost feels like the Cancer as a Turning Point, From Surviving to Thriving™, conference has a life of it's own now. Through working on it I have met so many powerful, loving, strong, courageous women. The women who attend the conference feel like my support group and I now have the largest support group of anybody I still make my living in the furniture business, but I don't work 10 hours a day anymore. Occasionally, the business starts sucking me in again, and all I need to do is to look in the mirror to remind myself that I need more than that in my life. Originally, my idea of doing this conference is that I could make it my vocation. I still have not been paid anything monetarily, but my rewards have been tremendous. It's been a year and four months since my last recurrence. Prior to that they were happening about every year, so this is my longest cancer free period. I don't think that I will ever say that I am healed, but I am always in the process of healing. The process is very rewarding, it's an exciting journey. I appreciate the gifts I have received in this journey, even though it is not the path I would have chosen. Thank you for receiving me and my story, and thank you for being part of my support group. © 1998 Healing Journeys. This transcript is from the 1998 Cancer as a Turning Point--From Surviving to Thriving™ Conference held in Oakland, California and is used by permission of Jan Adrian, Executive Director of Healing Journeys.
Healing Journeys (www.healingjourneys.org)
sponsors a free annual Cancer as a
Turning Point, From Surviving to Thriving™ conference in Northern California and other locations. The
purpose of the conference is to celebrate, empower, awaken and network all those
whose lives are touched by cancer or any life-threatening illness, including people
experiencing illness, healthcare providers and people supporting friends or family
with cancer. If you would like more information about Healing Journeys and its conferences
or to find out about videotapes of past conferences, call 800-423-9882.
You can also e-mail Jan Adrian of Healing Journeys at
jan@healingjourneys.com
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