Transformational Experiences
I Survived the Cancer They Said Would Kill Me
25 years later and I’m still standing
“You get what you step into.” — Kyle Cease
In 1995, after a routine visit to my regular family doctor, I was referred to an oncologist for a biopsy.
Days later, I was sitting in their office, hearing a pronouncement that I had inflammatory breast cancer. And the prognosis was not good, and I needed immediate surgery.
That week was a whirlwind of activity. The tumor was huge, a breast and 32 lymph nodes under the arm were removed, and 28 were found positive for the cancer. It was a certainty that it was all over my body, floating around in my bloodstream, waiting to attach to other organs.
With a straight face, the doctor told me I had 6 months to a year to live.
My son, the zen master, was 9 months old at the time.
I told the doctors, “You don’t get to tell me that. You don’t get to tell me how long I will live. I am a mother, and I have a 9 month old child. He needs a mother.”
In 1996, before Google, before the internet had become the tremendous research engine it is today, I became determined to become my own research project.
The project was, “Save My Own Life.”
My manager at IBM told me to take all the time off I needed. I was given a year, with full pay, to fund my project. I would have been without pay after 12 months.
Immediately after my surgery, I booked a flight to the Caribbean to spend a few weeks with my grandparents. They lived on the tiny island of Montserrat.
The doctors tried to shame me into not taking that trip. They said I was jeopardizing my treatment. They had plans for high dose chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
I told them I was leaving and would speak with them upon my return.
The words swirled around me, and I needed to ground myself. My safe space was always with my grandparents, and that was where I headed.
I spent those weeks meditating, doing yoga, and reading old nutrition books that my Nana had in her personal library. They were her resources for keeping my grandfather alive, with all his health issues. That was why they had originally moved to the island — to keep him alive. I found so many answers in those books.
While in that silence, peacefully ensconced on a hilltop with the sounds of the surf surrounding me constantly, going for daily walks with my grandfather, feasting on my grandmother’s fresh fruits and veggies from her tropical garden, I developed a plan for myself — a plan for healing.
There were things I read and learned there that I still have not seen become widely published or discussed, even today. Back then, cleanses and veganism were not mainstream topics. I felt very alone in that work.
When I came back to the United States, people thought I had gone a little crazy. Doctors continued to accuse me of sabotaging their treatment plans.
I juiced and drank carrot juice until my palms turned orange. The doctors became more angry with me. They thought I was crazy. I did not care. I was determined, and armed with my research.
“When they call you crazy,
that’s code for ‘keep going’.” — Kyle Cease
People around me thought I was dying. That is what the doctors told everyone was going to happen.
I was not convinced they were the ultimate authority about my life.
When I didn’t die, people were shocked. I had a radiance and energy after the ordeal that prompted one of my sisters to say, “You look better than me, and you’re the one that’s supposed to be sick!”
And it was true. I was glowing. I had been a vegan for a year, and ate no cooked foods. No meat, lots of tofu though, much to the dismay of my husband at the time. That certainly was one of the things that caused him to decide to divorce me. Tofu — one of the last straws for many.
In 2005, while I was still alive after this ordeal — ten years later after they predicted my demise — I took a retreat to this beautiful space in my backyard — Mohonk Mountain House. There, I wrote a little book, and self published it. KDP wasn’t even a thing until 2007. I called it Battlefield Hope. It’s still out there, and you can still get it in its crude early form.
I’m working on a proper revision and update to this book, to be released this year.
I continue to go on those retreats to Mohonk, gratefully, once a month, and celebrate life each time I go. I even take my VisionQuest mentees there. And share pearls of wisdom so they can jump start their lives.
Why am I telling you all this? It’s all in the past — 25 years ago.
A few years after I, and everyone else, realized that I was not going to die, according to the predictions of the smartest and best paid doctors I had at my disposal, thanks to a full medical insurance paid for by IBM — I began to tell my story in public gatherings — at church groups, reading circles, women’s clubs, or any place I was invited to speak. I spoke in states all over the country. At one of these gatherings in Florida, I was approached in the parking lot by a very large black man named Leon. He was the size of a football player. I was worried I had said something wrong.
He simply looked at me, and said, “TELL YOUR STORY.”
I had thought that was what I had been doing. I think I must have felt timid in front of my audience. I was the only white woman in the restaurant, and likely, in the neighborhood.
But what I realized that day, was that when we tell a story, sometimes we think we are telling it for ourselves. To benefit us in some way. Maybe it’s a catharsis, maybe it’s for money, or for any other of a number of reasons why we tell ourselves the story is important.
You never know who will read, or listen to your story and be touched. You just don’t know who will be inspired. And for that person who is supposed to read or hear your story, your words can mean everything. They can be a turning point.
I cannot know how many people I have inspired to take hope because of challenging situations I have had in my life, and then shared the story about it. I don’t live in the stories. They are just experiences I have had. They are here to be shared.
I know I will never stop telling my stories.
I will never stop dropping those pebbles. I will never stop living this life that produces more new experiences, more new stories to share.
When I look around me today and see so many young people doing cleanses, eating healthy foods — organic, vegan, grown in their own gardens — and taking precautions to keep their bodies healthy and vibrant — I feel grateful that I’m still here and that I planted so many seeds in the 1990’s. I couldn’t track or follow the results of all those presentations I did back then. There was no such thing as BIG DATA then. And even had there been, I likely would not have cared.
What I do know is, I played a part in where we are today.
Always tell your story. Always share your words. They are always the way out of the darkness, the path to free your spirit and let it soar.
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Susan Brearley is a brilliant strategist, a published book author, writer, seasoned editor, essayist, occasional comedy writer, and an accidental poet.
Reach out if you need a writing coach, or a life coach. She does that too.
She is currently based in the mid-Hudson Valley, New York.
