Well it has been a very interesting learning curve and crash course on the ‘C’ (cancer) word over the last two weeks or more. Quite unplanned, as we know. My appointment with the surgeon yesterday confirmed everything they discovered in Panama and more: that the main lump is approximately 4.7cm in size and the six smaller ones range from 1.5cm and down. I compare the large one to an egg that is now starting to grow little ‘arms’ (I can just picture a face too!) and the smaller ones to jellybeans ;-).

I have learned that 85% of cancer tumors are called ductal carcinoma, 10% are lobular and 5% are unknown. Mine is ‘not otherwise specified’… or of the unknown percentage. I have also learned that they don’t like to class C in stages anymore, but prefer to treat each case independently. Yet, they do class them in grades which class their abnormality: 1 = low risk, 2 = intermediate and 3 = high. Mine is Grade 3.

Eating appropriately in terms of the big C is also clearly quite key – which I thought I was doing quite well at even before this! However, from everything I have read and been told by amazing friends, cancer feeds on sugar. Thus, NO sugar, carbs (especially wheat), grains or alcohol, as they all turn into sugar eventually as they are processed. I was pretty much off refined sugar as much as possible anyway, just in an ongoing effort to eat healthy and ‘clean’. This has taken it to an entirely different level though! I’ve been reading about the Keto Diet as well, but will look forward to seeing a Naturopath in a couple of days for confirmation on all of these things.

They will do a bone scan on Monday as well as a CT scan some time next week to check whether it has spread to other parts of my body. I guess I better get used to being poked, prodded and cut open. I will now experience what my husband has dealt with over the past 14 years of his life! I suppose that is how one can have true empathy for someone else – when they have actually experienced similar things.

This leads me to this amazing song that I came across the other day when I was listening to some music on YouTube (which I rarely ever do) and I just kept playing it. Today it actually brought tears to my eyes. The really lyrics hit me and I instantly downloaded it – some of the lyrics include:

It takes some silence to make sound
It takes a loss before you found it
And it takes a road to go nowhere
It takes a toll to make you care
It takes a hole to make a mountain
….life is wonderful
….life goes full circle
….life is meaningful
….life is our love

The song is called Life is Wonderful by Jason Mraz. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did: