The Tale of Three Dear Friends

Hello bOObs Bloggettes:

The memory of my three dear friend’s passing floated through my thoughts this morning so I thought I’d share their breast cancer (BC) stories, as all were quite different. Two were quite inspiring, while the third saddens me to think of it. So while I believe you’ll learn a few things from their stories, I wanted to warn you to read at your own risk as it is about their different BC journeys, all ultimately ending the same way.

CHRISTY’s STORY: My first friend, Christy, and her full story will be in my upcoming film, “A New Standard of Care: Alternative Cancer Therapies.” Christy was something! Amazing sense of humor, quick, very bright and headstrong. Christy and I had a frank conversation soon after her BC returned after 18 years of remission — and it returned with a vengeance (as most of do).

Her aggressive BC soon progressed to Stage 4 (for which the average survival rate across all cancers for patients using conventional therapies is about 2% for 5 years), but she didn’t want to hear anything about alternative treatments. She was instead hellbent on standing with her trusted oncologist and bravely decided that she would get into an NIH randomized trial for a new immunotherapy — which was great and gave her much hope!  We were all praying day and night for her long-term remission in this trial. But alas, within months, her tumor began growing again and she was kicked out of the trial.

Now, here’s where it get interesting: Christy’s doctor assured her she would be “unblinded” if she were dropped from the trial, which meant she could find out then if she had been receiving the immunotherapy or the placebo. But guess what? The doctor reneged, and said those running the trial wouldn’t allow that to happen. Christy was very upset and confounded with medicine as a result. At that point, medicine ran out of viable treatments for her and so she slowing slipped away.

PJ’s STORY:  PJ’s story will also be in my film. Her BC returned after about 15 years in remission. The second time around, she had found a lump on her sternum and told her doctor; they assured her it wasn’t her BC returning — but they were unfortunately wrong. More precious treatment time had disappeared, and by the time her BC was finally confirmed she was already Stage 4.

PJ was headstrong, a real trooper, and smart as a whip. She would research her tail off and tell her oncologist — when he would inform her that he’d run out of treatment options — that she’d found another new drug to try or trial to enter. And so it went on and on for some time with her finding a new drug and convincing her doctor to let her try it out. (This in itself is a real lesson in patient advocacy and for doing your own research!)

But here’s the real bottom line: PJ was doing great in remission, she felt, because she was using some alternatives as adjuncts to the conventional drugs. She was detoxing herself, watching what she ate (non-GMO/organic), exercising, and researching the best supplements to keep her BC at bay — but then, she said, she got cocky. She went off the supplements, and started to eat crappy food again, and stopped detoxing and soon after her cancer returned.

She tried to get back on her regime after it returned, but by then it was very difficult to reverse and she eventually passed with much grace. (Watch Ty Bollinger’s series on “The Truth About Cancer” if you’re interesting in learning about non-conventional cancer therapies.)

GRETEL’s STORY: Gretel is not in my film, so I have given her an alias. Gretel was also very headstrong, bright, and superlative in many ways. When her BC returned just after we celebrated her 10-year remission landmark, she was devastated. I had a conversation with her about my victory over my “incurable” chronic Lyme disease (Gretel had witnessed my miraculous defeat of Lyme using alternative medicine), and asked if she’d like to learn about non-conventional cancer therapies. She asked if I really thought it would be wise of her to choose those therapies over the advice of her doctor who worked at a well-known university.  I said it was entirely up to her — it was her journey after all. She chose the prestigious school instead and went down there for radiation treatments.

However, they radiated her chest so extensively that she got open radiation burns that would never heal, she was told. She had no idea this was one of the risks prior to going into radiation, and  the open wounds were extremely painful. I couldn’t believe such a renowned institution had made such an awful blunder on poor Gretel’s treatment and hated watching her suffer so. But she died with dignity nonetheless.

*****

I loved these women dearly and lost them all within two years of each other shortly after the passing of my husband in 2009. These four deaths were the impetus for my journey into filming and now authoring a book and blogging. I hope and pray my endeavors help some of you out there.

Blog at you soon, thanks for reading and helping to spread the word!  (Please see the “share” links below.)  And we’d love to hear comments from you! (see below as well)

Stay healthy,

Megan

Megan Smith, M.S.
Director, bOObs: The War on Women’s Breasts

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