Taking a Risk Saved My Life

I’ve taken risks all my life. Sometimes they pay off. Sometimes they don’t.

The risk that paid off the most saved my life.

I was 36 years old. I woke up with a swollen right breast. The surface of the skin was mottled like a grapefruit. It was inflamed, hot, and it hurt.

To say I was alarmed is an understatement.

I barely kept the panic in check until I saw my doctor. Then he panicked.

I had inflammatory breast cancer. At the time I was diagnosed, this was a death sentence. At the time, only 15% of patients survived longer than 18 months.

It was worse for me thanks to my age and other risk factors. My doctor gave me 6 months to live. He also tried to push me into immediately chopping off both my breasts and undergoing chemo and radiation.

“Wait a minute,” I said. He didn’t hear me. He was in full panic mode and was talking a mile a minute, about how soon we could schedule the surgery.

“Wait a minute!” my husband yelled. He has a powerful set of lungs. The doctor stood in shock. I don’t think he’d ever been shouted down before.

“My wife has a question,” my husband emphatically stated.

“If I’m going to die anyway, why are we going to put me through all of these horrible treatments?” I asked.

The doctor could not give me a good answer.

“We’re going to need a day or two to think about this before I make a decision,” I said.

“That’s a mistake,” the doctor said.

“A day or two will make a difference?”

“With cancer that’s this aggressive — yes.”

I got it. I really did. I had had a mammogram just 6 weeks before I was diagnosed. They hadn’t spotted anything. THAT’S how fast this cancer grew.

I didn’t care though.

I was going to make the right decision for me, and not get steamrolled. I was determined to take the time I needed. Again, if I only had 6 months to live… well, that made it even more important that I make the right decision.

When we got home, my husband and I made some coffee and we talked.

“So, the way I look at it,” I said. “There are two options.”

I took a sip of my drink.

“We can accept that I’m going to die but do it on our terms. Cash in our investments and blow it all on making memories that will be with you long after I’m gone.”

“I’ll support that if that’s what you want to do,” he said.

“Yeah, if I’ve only got 6 months to live, I don’t want to spend them in a hospital,” I said. “I’d rather hike in the Andes, drink wine in Paris, and read novels and play Scrabble with you on a lazy Sunday. I want to visit family and friends, laugh and cry with them, go to concerts and museums, cook and eat fabulous meals… I just want to spend every day immersed in delight.”

“We can do this,” he said.

“You don’t mind?”

“I’ll quit my job. We can make this happen.”

“The other option,” I said. “Is we fight this thing.”

But how would we fight it?

Not by doing what the doctors told us, I decided. Because the only outcome the doctors were sure of was that I would die. And that was not the outcome we wanted.

So we took risks.

We decided not to do chemo or radiation, or surgery, at least not when the doctors told me I had to.

When I told my doctor that I wasn’t going to follow his advice, he told me I was making a mistake.

“But if I do what you suggest, I’m only going to be alive for 6 months anyway, right?” I asked. He could not deny this. That was the prognosis he’d given me. It made it hard for him to argue with me though.

Instead of following the treatment plan I’d been prescribed, I came up with my own. I’ll describe it in more detail in other articles.

However, to encapsulate in a nutshell — it was risky.

I researched all sorts of treatment modalities. What had Native Americans done, what about Ayurveda, what about European cutting edge clinics? Would acupuncture possibly help? How about changing my diet? What could the Hunza teach me about cancer?

Many of the things I tried had a sound scientific basis. There were journal articles in reputable publications that discussed the effects of oxygen, for example, on cancer cells. However, some of the ideas I tried were probably of dubious worth. In each case, however, I carefully analyzed the possible risk-to-reward ratio.

And, always, it came back to — if I only have 6 months to live, why not take a chance? What’s the worst thing that can happen to me? I’ll die. Well, I sorta had that covered.

Something remarkable happened as I fought cancer on my own terms.

I became healthier. My body grew stronger. I slept better. I lost weight.

I still grew tired more easily than I should have thanks to the growth of cancer in my body. Cancer saps your strength. But it did not sap the joy from my life.

And, at some point, the risks paid off. I’m alive. It’s been 17 years since I was told I had 6 months to live.

I’ve managed to survive 34 times as long as I “should” have.

Sometimes it’s worth taking a risk.

Sometimes the only option is death.

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This post was previously published on Candour.

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