Prior to my 2011 diagnosis, I spent considerable time futzing with doctors who said I was fine and steered me away from the mammogram. The first visit was in 2005 to my OBGYN, who felt the pea sized mass I was worried about. He told me I was too young to have breast cancer and I was fine (I was 33 at the time).

I’d like to say all of this is his fault because my life would probably be different had I caught everything that early. But the truth is I walked around afraid of Western medicine for a long time. I looked for healers and doctors who also shied away from traditional modalities or who supported my intentional blindness to what was to come.

Even so, from most of those practitioners (minus the lousy OBGYN), I learned how to connect to my body in a different way. Through Ayurveda, I learned how to eat for the seasons, and for my body type. From Chiropractic, I was able to tap into certain muscle groups and improve my gait. My workout regimen got better. Actually I embarked on a workout regimen at all. Acupuncture helped with stress management.

So while I walked into this journey late for the party and terrified of traditional medicine, I did have the sense that my body and I were a team. Something I might not have felt in 2005. This doesn’t mean I’m happy it took an extra 6 years to get diagnosed. Or that there aren’t times when I want to give up, drop this body because of the pain. But it does mean that I now know the difference between diagnostics and support. It also means that I am conscientiously throwing everything at this disease with the hope that something will work. Stay tuned for the results…