Recipe for Success, Story Time

A Tale of Two C’s        

Part II

It started with fatigue and then pain. Mood swings and weird symptoms associated with her cycle appeared, which had been short and pain-free for over a decade! She started to gain a startling amount of weight. She figured that all of this must be due to those pure pleasure foods she’d allowed back in. She was disheartened but resigned. She also concluded that perimenopause was playing a role. As the symptoms worsened, resigned to the fact that this suffering would continue for the typical 5 to 7 years, she settled in to ride it out. She was tough. She could do this. Yes, it had occurred to her that she could go on hormone replacement therapy, but she had always avoided taking medications as much as possible, while not being foolhardy with her health. She hadn’t had to take medication for twelve years and she was very happy and proud of that!

As the months dragged on, doubt started to creep in. Was this normal for perimenopause? She read and tried to research but there wasn’t much to find on that front. She watched videos of other women telling their stories and most of what she was experiencing could be explained away. In the back of her mind, she kept seeing that study that indicated that women on a plant based diet usually had a significantly easier transition to menopause. Her system was very sensitive though, and she had come to terms with the fact that she could not get away with many of the things others seemed to.

Finally, after waiting longer than was wise, she made an appointment with a brand-new doctor. They had moved a year and a half earlier to a city over 7 hours away. Miraculously, she found a plant based doctor in a very small pool of doctors near her. She was chastised for waiting so long to get checked out, but she was pretty much up to date with all standard health checks. She had gotten everything she could think of checked, blood work, pap, colon cancer test, even a mammogram, before moving, realizing that it might be tricky to find a doctor in her new rural home. All had been clear.

The new amazing doctor listened to her whole story and decided to do a biopsy on the spot. The results would be available in a few days. She went about her days with some fear, but also hope, that these issues would soon be resolved one way or the other.

A few days later, she was on the road, about an hour from home when she got a phone call from her doctor’s office asking her to come in to discuss her results. That can’t be good. And the doctor was available tonight if she could make it. Yikes, that really cannot be good. She asked the person at the other end of the line if she should bring her husband. While disavowing any knowledge of the results, the medical assistant indicated that that was not a bad idea.

She had pulled over to take the call, and after taking a few minutes to take some deep breaths to try to calm down, she called her partner and asked if he could get off work a little early that night to go with her. Of course, he would. She very carefully found her way home. Knowing in her state that she might very well be a danger to any other travelers on or near the road. Out loud she kept repeating, “we don’t know anything yet.” Over and over. And she continued to do that at home with her partner until it was time to leave.

They arrived at the office a little too early but were mercifully taken back fairly quickly. The MA took pity on her and skipped the weight and blood pressure checks since she had just been there a few days before. The doctor was wonderful, the first thing she said was, “if I could pick one to get, this would be the one. Typically, surgery is the only treatment needed.” And then she said the big scary words, “it’s endometrioid adenocarcinoma, also known as uterine cancer.”