It was supposed to be a happy time; my son was 13 months old, and I was absolutely besotted with motherhood and everything that came with it. Even though I’d found myself as a single mother to a small child, I was excited about the future and what lay ahead for us.
I was still breastfeeding when I noticed the lump in my breast, but I didn’t worry too much about it. I was sure it was a blocked milk duct; I’d had one before, and this felt just like it. Still, I decided to have it checked.
A few days later, I received the phone call. I was running an event at work when I took the call. Time stood still as I heard the words ‘you have breast cancer’, I felt my knees buckle and I quickly sat down. In a daze, I felt like I was either going to pass out or vomit or both!!
Was this real?
Is this really happening?
I left as soon as I could and drove home on autopilot with so many questions running through my mind.
How could this be possible?
Was I going to die?
Who would care for my baby?
I felt completely shattered.
Over the next 6 months, I went through the conventional medicine machine. Lumpectomy followed by 12 rounds of chemo and 25 rounds of radiation that left me so debilitated that I couldn’t even walk to the letterbox without breaking into a sweat! Everything felt hard, I couldn’t play with my son who was always calling out for me and there were days I felt so completely broken that I didn’t even know how I was going to continue moving forward.
At my lowest point, I had ulcers down my throat, no hair, no energy and no motivation for anything. Nobody prepares you for what happens at the end of ‘active treatment’. It’s as if you get spat out the other end of the ‘machine’ or the treatment conveyor belt and be expected to return to normal as if nothing had happened but I was different after my treatment, my energy and vitality was gone and it would take 2years before it returned.
12 months after my active treatment finished, I went through my first annual check-up. Having been told all went well with my treatment and how I had achieved an excellent response to treatment, I was expecting to fly through my check-up with flying colours; however, during my ultrasound, I could see the nurse looking at the screen with a concerned look on her face. I asked ‘is everything ok?’ Her response ‘I just take the scan, you’ll need to discuss the results with your breast surgeon’. I immediately felt uneasy. Something was wrong, I just knew it.
I went to meet my surgeon, who broke the news to me that there were 10 new micro tumours in the same breast area where previously there was one lump.
I was shocked. What the hell? How could this be? After everything I’d been through! What now? I’d only just returned to work and was trying to get our lives back to some kind of normality, and now this? I was completely devastated.
My breast surgeon was recommending a double mastectomy, and so I spent Christmas Day 2020 alone in the hospital recovering from surgery. I’ll never forget waking up on day 2 with my chest feeling as though it had been set alight. The burning and pain from having all those nerve endings cut was excruciating! 4 days later, I was sent home with tissue expanders, which are like water balloons in your chest and drains coming out each side. Again, life was put on hold as I recovered from surgery.
I would later go on to have 9 more surgeries over the next two years, including implants in, implants out due to complications, ovaries out and a bilateral DIEP flap reconstruction that left me with a gaping hole beneath my belly button oozing the most god-awful smelling ooze that I later learnt was fat necrosis. It took another 6 surgeries to correct. I was left disfigured, disappointed and downright miserable.
As much as I tried returning to work as a Marketing Executive for a global IT company, I just couldn’t perform at the level I had previously, and decided to step back from work completely to try to heal my body and process the journey I’d been on.
It was bloody hard! Who was this person I had become? Whose body was this I now have? It didn’t look or feel like mine, and it didn’t behave as it did prior to my cancer journey. I had zero energy and zero motivation for anything!!!
I found out about an integrative oncologist in my area and started a round of vitamin C and Curcumin IV’s twice a week, as well as hyperbaric oxygen and in 12 weeks, I could feel my whole body start to heal. My energy returned, not just a little but a lot!! I could slowly feel my old self again. The response my body had to these natural therapies was truly life-changing for me, and after the 12-week protocol, I was feeling so much better.
I returned to work, and all was well for the next 3 and a half years until, again, one day, I discovered another lump. Same area and position as the original lump. I felt defeated all over again. I expected to have the lump removed, and that would be the end of it, so imagine the shock I felt when my Oncologist broke the news to me that my PET scan also showed lesions on my spine in L2 and L3, meaning my cancer was now stage 4.
I remember feeling so many emotions all at the same time: shock, anger, resentment, the disappointment turned to a deep anger within me. In that moment, I knew if I kept going, I wasn’t going to make it. Everything I’d been through was only making things worse! I had no faith left in conventional medicine at all by this point. I politely declined the toxic drug my Oncologist was asking me to now take. A drug that, when I asked to read further information about, had 1 page detailing how the drug worked and 9 pages of potential side effects, including organ failure and death! I said I’d think about it when asked if I would take it by my Oncologist, who immediately responded with ‘well, don’t take too long’, ‘you have stage 4 cancer now and things could get very serious very quickly’. I told her I’d like to take 12 weeks to do more integrative therapies, to which she flat out laughed in my face and said ‘I wouldn’t waste your time or your money, those things don’t work’!
I remember leaving, thinking about the irony of her words. Chemo and radiation didn’t work for me either!
3 months later, I returned for another PET scan, having completed another 12-week round of IV therapy twice a week and hyperbaric oxygen 3 times a week and this time I also added mistletoe injections 3 times a week, which left me feeling quite euphoric!
I was feeling better than I ever had, even better than before my diagnosis. I felt within me that my body was healing, and sure enough, my PET scan results showed a complete metabolic response.
No evidence of disease was found ‘ at any level’. I’ll never forget that feeling, it was as if I’d won the lottery! My body was clear! The lesions were gone! I had healed my body, and now I was stage zero!
It’s been 2 years now, and my scans continue to be clear.
My son is 8 years old now, and life is slowly returning to a new kind of normal. I know I need to continue to heal my body, and I have done a lot of work mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well as physically to keep everything in check, but I now know and believe that we can heal because I did.
My perspective on Cancer is different now. I no longer have the fear I once had about Cancer being a death sentence – it’s not. I believe Cancer is our body’s way of telling us that we are living out of alignment with how nature intended.
When I think back to my life before Cancer and becoming a Mum, I was a chronically stressed Executive who was too afraid to say no to anything for fear I wouldn’t continue to excel in my chosen field. Spending far too much time at Airports waiting for planes, often drinking in the evenings just to wind down from a busy day’s work. That’s not living, instead it was slowly killing me. I know that now.
They say every cloud has a silver lining, and while it’s taken me a while to understand what the silver lining has been for me throughout this journey, I can now say that it has given me so much more than it has taken away. It’s given me the ability to lean into my body, feel with my heart and move forward in life with the belief that I have an opportunity now to build a new life for myself, one that will allow me to use the gifts I’ve been given to perhaps help others learn that maybe Cancer isn’t this big, bad thing to be poisoned, burnt and cut out of us, maybe it’s our bodies way of telling us that something is out of alignment and needs to be corrected. It’s just information at the end of the day and an opportunity to change our lives for the better. I no longer believe it will shorten my life; in fact, I now live a life where I am so much more appreciative and grateful for everything in my life in a way I never used to be.
It’s certainly been an epic journey, and I’m now once again excited for the future and what it holds for me.
If you or someone you love is or has been affected by Cancer, I would invite you to see it as an invitation to explore further.
Ask your body ‘what is it I need to heal’?
‘Where is my body and my emotions out of alignment?
‘What do I need to do to change course?’
It takes courage, and it takes a level of determination to face the journey with a positive mindset and a humble heart. These days, I prioritise cultivating a positive mindset, and I listen to my heart when it whispers quietly to me. Gently guiding me forward. I know, and I believe that everything is going to be ok.
Ann Maree Bonica – Melbourne
I hope Ann Maree’s story reminds you that even in the darkest chapters, hope, courage and deep inner alignment can light a path forward. One incredible woman, huh!
Ann Maree’s images are of her before the diagnosis, during the treatment and today – alive & well with her son and NED! (No Evidence of Disease)
If you have walked a similar path, what has your journey taught you about your own strength and capacity to heal?
