[Update: I wrote this in October of 2014. It’s been 3 years, and I’m still doing great. Thanks to all of you who continue to check up on me and wish me well!]
It was February 5th, my mother’s birthday and a month before the 20th anniversary of my becoming vegan. I was sitting in a breast surgeon’s office in a paper gown, cradling my biopsied breast and waiting. After about an hour and a half, my surgeon finally appeared, apologizing for keeping me waiting because the results had only just come in. He took a deep breath and said, “You don’t have cancer.” I thought, “I didn’t think I did.” Unfortunately, as I would later find out, we both were wrong.
He went on to explain that the biopsy found abnormal cells, officially called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), but often referred to as Stage 0 or pre-cancer. While I was still reeling from the word “carcinoma,” he explained that these cells might become cancer, so they had to be treated like cancer. My options were a lumpectomy with radiation or a mastectomy. I asked whether there was any chance that the pathology report could be wrong, and my doctor said no.
I was stunned. I left in a daze and went over to my husband’s office nearby to give him the news.
Three months before, a routine mammogram had spotted a place that looked different from my last mammogram. I was sent to the Breast Health Center for another mam and then an ultrasound to get a closer look. The spot was so small and deep inside the breast that the ultrasound technician couldn’t find it at all, so I was given an appointment to return in three months. At that three month mammogram, the “spot” was clearly visible even to me as a glowing white circle in a sea of black and gray. A ultrasound-guided biopsy was scheduled for early the next week.
I’d had one of these biopsies four years ago, and that spot had turned out to be nothing but a harmless cyst, so I had been expecting the same results this time. Like most women, I didn’t think “The Big C” could happen to me. But because I was a vegan, I think I was even more positive that I couldn’t have cancer. After all, wasn’t I doing everything the vegan doctors tell us to do to protect ourselves from heart disease and cancer? Low-fat, lots of green and cruciferous vegetables and brightly colored fruit? No animal products? Moreover, no one in my family had ever had cancer. I naively thought I was immune.
So I didn’t really believe the pathology report, and I became even more skeptical when I read an article that said that DCIS is sometimes misdiagnosed. I decided to get a second opinion from one of the doctors mentioned in that article, a pathologist specializing in breast cancer in San Francisco. I had the hospital send him my biopsy slides, and a week later, I had a consultation with him on the phone. He was unable to confirm DCIS or rule out actual cancer because the radiologist who had performed the biopsy had noted that he had actually missed the “mass.” The biopsy needle had gone in front of the suspected tumor and gathered cells from there, just a few that looked abnormal. But until the actual mass was tested, the pathology specialist couldn’t rule out either DCIS or invasive cancer. He suggested I get another, more accurate, biopsy called a stereotactic biopsy, and I asked my doctor to schedule it.
I had high hopes that this second biopsy would show no DCIS and no cancer. Those hopes were shot down when my new medical oncologist called to give me the results: I had a small invasive cancer, Stage 1, that showed signs of being aggressive. She recommended surgery within the next 3-4 weeks. Just to be sure, I had the slides sent to the pathologist in San Francisco, who agreed with her diagnosis.
Snowball Fight with Daughter E at Oberlin College
So I did what any logical person would do: I took a vacation. It was Spring Break, and my husband and I had planned a 5-day trip to take our high school junior (now senior) to visit 6 colleges in the Midwest. We wanted to do it while we could because we knew that after the surgery, I would need 6 ½ weeks of daily radiation treatments and might not be able to get away during the summer. The trip was a great distraction, but as soon as we got home, I made an appointment with the surgeon and scheduled my lumpectomy for the following week.
The surgery went perfectly. The surgeon removed the tumor and the area around it, as well as three lymph nodes which tested negative: the cancer had not spread to them. A week later, I returned to the surgeon’s office for more good news: The final pathology report showed that the “margins” or edges of the material he had removed were clean, meaning that all of the targeted cancer cells had probably been removed. The only worrisome thing to my husband and me were some figures in the report that seemed a little scary, particularly a “grade” of 3, meaning the cancer was aggressive. My surgeon was unconcerned, and my oncologist said that she would order a genetic test called Oncotype DX to more conclusively determine my chances of having the cancer recur.
A few weeks went by as I recovered from the surgery and waited for the results of the Oncotype test. I was expecting to start radiation soon when my medical oncologist called with the test results. They indicated that I was at a moderately high risk of recurrence. She was recommending that I have chemo.
This was the first time the other Big C word had been mentioned, and for some reason, “chemotherapy” scared me more than “cancer.” The oncologist explained that the type of chemo she was recommending was “well-tolerated” and without all of the serious long-term consequences of other treatments. I wasn’t convinced, and I began frantically researching the chemo itself and alternatives to it.
Walking and thinking in a cypress swamp
I was in a panic. On the one hand, I’ve always believed in fighting disease with nutrition and had always been opposed to taking any medication if it could be avoided. On the other hand, hadn’t I been doing just that for the past 20 years? My oncologist was telling me that chemo could reduce my risk of having the cancer recur and spread, that preventing it now would be much easier than trying to stop if it spread to my other organs. I went back and forth, one day deciding that chemo was just too dangerous and the next deciding that I didn’t want to take the risk of the cancer coming back. I was, frankly, a mess. I couldn’t sleep or eat for worrying about the chemo. I finally decided to get a second opinion from a highly recommended breast cancer oncologist at the University Medical Center.
My second opinion doctor came back with the same recommendation as the first: Have the chemo. She assured me that I was young (me!) and healthy and I could handle it. And it would cut my chance of recurrence in half.
My husband was very careful to stand back and let me make the decision for myself, but I knew that he hoped that I would have the chemo. And I was afraid that if I didn’t have it, I would be anxious for the rest of my life, afraid that I hadn’t done everything I possibly could to prevent a recurrence. I’d read the stories of people who had fought their cancer with diet and lifestyle choices, but those people weren’t already eating a whole foods, plant-based diet like I was.
So I decided to do the chemo, four rounds, three weeks apart. I read everything I could find about the treatments and armed myself with supplements that could help prevent side effects. And I found out my oncologist was right: the treatments, though no fun, we’re not as bad as I’d feared. My side effects were minimal, the most annoying being a bad taste in my mouth that would come and go and made it difficult to create new recipes.
Just after my initial diagnosis, I’d begun getting up at 5:30 every morning and walking with my husband and our dog. During chemo, and later radiation, I considered it a point of honor that I never missed a walk. On the weekends, my family and I tried to get out of the house and do a little hiking or local sightseeing so that I wouldn’t feel like the treatment was making me isolated. I ate lots of fruits and vegetables to support my immune system and was careful to avoid coming into contact with people who were sick, and I sailed through my summer of chemo without so much as a sniffle.
A Visit to “My” Lake at Montreat, NC
When chemo ended, I was determined to take a family vacation before I had to start radiation therapy, so at the beginning of August, we spent a week in the mountains of North Carolina and a few days in Nashville, seeing my newest niece for the first time (and, of course, my brother and sister-in-law).
I got back home and jumped right into daily radiation treatments–33 of them. Again, the treatments weren’t nearly as bad as I expected, but I was thrilled when they ended last week. I couldn’t wait to put all of this cancer stuff behind me.
I didn’t write about this while it was going on mainly because I was afraid that people would offer suggestions and criticisms of my decision to go through with chemo and radiation, and I just couldn’t risk the additional stress that would have put on me. So why am I telling you now? Even though this blog is recipe-oriented and not usually very personal, I wasn’t sure if I could go on writing it if I had to pretend like something this big hadn’t happened to me, something that has consumed the last eight months of my life and has changed the way I see myself and the way I think about diet, veganism, and health.
My first month post-diagnosis, before I had the specter of chemo to worry me, all I could think about was “why” and “how”: Why did I, a vegan who tries to eat healthy, get cancer when no one else in my Standard American Diet-eating family has ever had cancer? What had I done wrong? Had I eaten too few nuts? Too little cilantro? Not enough flax seeds? BPA? Soy?! I worried that I had caused my cancer by never being able to get to my goal weight and stay there, that I didn’t exercise consistently, that I had had only one child late in life and that I hadn’t breastfed her long enough.
I was blaming myself, and I had a lot of help from the Internet. I couldn’t visit Facebook without seeing posts about how eating X (broccoli, nuts, soy, orange) would help prevent cancer. Or people posting about their frustration that a friend or family member had breast cancer and refused to treat it by adopting a plant-based diet. If I, someone who had been eating all the right things (and not eating all the wrong ones), got the message that I was to blame for my cancer, how must other cancer patients feel, the ones who hadn’t been stuffing themselves with kale and mushrooms? Is there a way to promote a plant-based diet that doesn’t point the finger of blame, that doesn’t make grand promises of health, and that doesn’t make people like me feel so confident in the invincibility of our diets that we put off mammograms or other screening tests?
I don’t know. But for me, it’s been helpful to think of the vegan diet as promoting health, but not providing a “Get out of Disease Free” card. My friend Maria made me see that even if my diet didn’t prevent me from getting cancer, perhaps the cancer would have grown much more quickly if I hadn’t been vegan. Perhaps I wouldn’t have sailed through chemo without ever needing nausea meds if I hadn’t been nourishing my body with fruits and vegetables. Perhaps my immune system wouldn’t have stayed as strong as it did or my energy as high if I had been consuming animal products.
It’s also been helpful to me to remember my real reason for being vegan. Though I’ve followed a McDougall-type diet ever since I became vegan, my ultimate reason for becoming vegan was not to improve my own health but to decrease the suffering of animals. So if you’re reading this and worrying that I’m going to be another vegan blogger who goes back to eating animals for her own health, don’t. No diagnosis in the world could convince me to eat another animal or animal product.
As for my current health, I feel great, and I’m confident that I caught this cancer early and have done and am doing everything medically and nutritionally possible to make sure I never have to worry about it again. I’ve tweaked my diet to reduce or eliminate foods I don’t need (sugar, soy, wine, and coffee) and to increase those I wasn’t eating enough of before (broccoli sprouts, flax seeds, organics). I walk at least once and sometimes twice a day, and soon I’ll be starting a workout routine at the gym. I plan to lose the extra weight I’ve been carrying around, which is the biggest threat to my health.
I think the hardest struggle I’ve faced isn’t physical but emotional. My image of myself as a healthy person who never took pills and was confident her vegan diet would protect her from anything–that image took a pretty big hit. I’ve been worried about “coming out” as a vegan with cancer for fear that non-vegans would see it as proof that a vegan diet “doesn’t work” and that some vegans would skewer me for resorting to traditional medicine. In the end, I decided that I had to put my truth out there so that I can get past it and get back to blogging as usual. Next post, you can expect a recipe. Cancer isn’t on the menu.
Loki has become an excellent therapy cat–when he isn’t destroying the house.
Thank you to all my family, friends, and friends of friends who offered love and support. And to my church, the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Jackson, and my parents’ church, The First Presbyterian Church of Hammond, LA (love the shawl and cap, y’all!) And to Maria Maggi, Nava Atlas, Dreena Burton, and Stephanie Weaver–wise women all, whose words of advice and offers of support helped me more than they probably know.
Jean D.
Thank you for this beautiful post. AND for your beautiful recipes.
Peace.
Sherri Koehler
What a difficult journey you have been through, sending so much Metta to you and your family.
Thank you for making the couragaeous decision to share your journey so publically.
Deborah Jackson
Also, this is a must read/share regarding disease/cancer….new, researched, stand out info. The book and this website. http://www.radicalremission.com
Annie B
Susan – you are an inspiration. Your positive outlook is wonderful. So happy you have a great outcome with a happy ending.
Carol
Susan, we are all so Blessed that you are now on the road to recovery and got through your chemo and radiation.
You have worked to give us so many great recipes and I for just one am very thankful to you.
I will definitely keep you in my thoughts and prayers for a happy, healthy and very long life.
Dana
A privilege for you to share this with me. Thank you, Susan. Just this morning I was again appreciating your photos in one of Nava’s books and thinking of you. Your message is so very important that there are no get out free cards, nor is any one to blame for illness. You made the decisions that are right for you and that’s all we can do for ourselves. Blessings to you and your family. Peace and love, Dana
Jane88
As a survivor of ovarian cancer (28 years ago!), I can promise you there will come a day when you wake up and it is NOT the first, second, or even third thing that pops into your head. Stay strong, and thank you for your recipes. They are truly the best of any online or printed healthy vegan recipes.
Mary Mataja
Dear Susan,
I’m so sorry you had to go through the Cancer thing. Although your cancer treatment was different from mine, your “eating”, “emotions” and “what could I/should I have done differently” story is similar to mine. Thank you for sharing your story. Best wishes to you as you continue on your journey. Looking forward to more wonderful recipes.
Heather Clisby
Thank you for sharing all this info about your health challenges. I’m glad you have the loving support of your family. No, none of us are immune from the the Big C but I know how strong you are so hang in there, girl.
I’ll be in Mississippi in November and if I don’t make it up to Jackson (I’ll be in Ocean Springs), I’ll send some healing vibes northward.
Ashley
Thank you for sharing your story!
What a difficult thing to go through – I wish you a cancer-free future.
No judgment for following your own treatment plan and doing what you could to prevent the disease from recurring with the information available to you. What else can a person do in a situation like that one?
Best of luck.
Katie S.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. This was a real eye-opener, and it’s important for we vegans to know that we’re not invincible. There are so many other factors that play into our health (stress, toxic substances, heredity, etc.) and although we’re taking huge steps to protect ourselves, it may not always be enough. I know it must be difficult to share such personal details about your life, but I want you to know that this was an important thing for vegans to read. I hope you continue to be well and find joy in what you do – your readers certainly do. 🙂 Thanks again!
Amey
Oh Susan, So much love and hugs to you and your family. What an experience you have been through. I am so glad that today you are feeling comfortable with the difficult choices you made. I am sending so much love and warmth and support your way. You are such a special person.
Dawn
Wow Susan. You have certainly been under some serious strain! I am so happy you are feeling better and I hope your health continues to improve. Keep taking good care of yourself. Best wishes!
Jennifer Kays
Thank you for sharing that. I too believed being Vegan would protect me from serious illness/disease. My husband and I have been Vegan since November 1992. We were both always healthy. Last December 17th 2013 he came home from work sick. We thought it was the flu and didn’t want to take Tamiflu, so we didn’t rush to see the Dr. I woke up on Christmas Eve and he was dead. He was pneumonia. It changed the way I look at everything. I am still Vegan and still take all my supplements. I have been devastated by his death. I try not to blame myself for not seeking medical help sooner. We just didn’t know.
Yes, even though we are Vegan, we will still have our challenges.
I am so glad you caught it early and had treatment.
I send my best to you.
Jenny
Susan Voisin
Jenny, I am so sorry for your loss. Devastating. There is no way you could have known, so I hope you are able to keep from blaming yourself. My heart goes out to you.
Jennifer Kays
Thank you for sharing that. I too believed being Vegan would protect me from serious illness/disease. My husband and I have been Vegan since November 1992. We were both always healthy. Last December 17th 2013 he came home from work sick. We thought it was the flu and didn’t want to take Tamiflu, so we didn’t rush to see the Dr. I woke up on Christmas Eve and he was dead. It was pneumonia. It changed the way I look at everything. I am still Vegan and still take all my supplements. I have been devastated by his death. I try not to blame myself for not seeking medical help sooner. We just didn’t know.
Yes, even though we are Vegan, we will still have our challenges.
I am so glad you caught it early and had treatment.
I send my best to you.
Jenny
Snow One
Thank you for sharing so much of yourself. So glad you made the best decision for YOU and your family. That is really what matters most. Take care of yourself and say “no” when you need to. You are truly and inspiration and a huge gift to all who have the pleasure of reading your blog.
Belle Ball
You’re brave and we are all pulling for you!
Denise
Susan,
After reading through many of the comments regarding your breast cancer post, I am in awe of your readership base. So many wonderful people have posted positive, inspirational and supportive comments. Unlike so many blog posts, I do not see the annoying negative comments that just want to tear people down. It is a testimony to you that your blog has inspired such warm and loving energy.
I thank you too for sharing your story as I like some other readers was thinking about skipping some mammograms. Some of my hesitation is the issue of dense breasts and mammograms not being able to see clearly through them. But I was also telling myself as a 40 year vegetarian and 3 year vegan, cancer is not likely.
Illness does strike us though. I had surgery for a 5 pound benign tumor last year. I also have a rare skin disease called granuloma annulare. These problems despite my trying to do my best engaging in a healthy lifestyle.
It sounds like you have inner peace on your decisions and I am so happy that you are achieving that. Best of future health to you.
Conz
Even though this is a food blog, I’m glad you told us your story. We all like to think eating a healthy vegan diet will make us immune, but it won’t. Being vegan can make us healthier, but it doesn’t make us invincible, and sharing your story might persuade others to listen to the doctor, rather than trying to self medicate. You’ve done everything you could to prevent getting ill, and it could have been a lot worse if you hadn’t. Take care.
Stephanie
Thank you, Susan, for being brave and strong enough to share your story. For admitting your fears to the whole world; that is so courageous and inspiring.
I wish you a clean bill of health, many years of happiness and peace of mind.
Please do not ever blame yourself again. Look at all of the love and respect your readers have poured into the comments from this post. We love you, you are important and, whether you know it or not, you are changing people’s lives for the better.
Maritza
Hello, thanks for sharing your story. I have been recently diagnosed with invasive carcinoma and have been struggling with the same issue of how can this happen to a young healthy fit person. I have been reluctant to go the western medicine route but your words have now convinced me that I have to take what is available to help me.
Thank you for your courage to share your personal struggle.
Stay blessed,
Maritza
Katharina
http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/when-health-is-not-on-your-side/
I find this quote both comforting and inspiring:
The reality is that health is not an achievement. It’s something you already have, and it looks a bit different for every person. Health is a dynamic resource that each person carries with them, in some form, through their entire life.
I am wishing you and your loved ones all the best. Thank you for sharing your experience.
sarah
Thank you for sharing your story. Too many vegans believe their diet makes them immune to cancer. Your story will open some eyes. I’m glad you’re doing okay and hope that you will continue to do so.
Eileen
Dear Susan,
I had a similar experience a few months ago when my doctor told me that I had Parkinson’s. I know what you mean about it changing your view of yourself. Me too. Never sick, eat well, work out…I was shocked that I was not invincible. I see life thru new eyes now. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Eileen
ClaireB
Thanks for sharing your story. Best of health to you and your family.
DANNY CADE
What a lady!, strong, smart, and I’m sure you took the right path because it was right for you. Don’t worry about what others might think, just consider your family and yourself.
Live long and prosper or better yet God be with you.
Lisa Baus
Thank you for your honesty in sharing your story. My husband went plant based whole foods after his diagnosis of breast cancer, but we are careful to say he has more energy, he doesn’t get sick as often, etc. because of the way he eats. But with cancer there are never guarantees. We try to be clear it’s not a “cure”, but you bring up a good point of how tricky it can be. It can be empowering to eat foods to strengthen our bodies, but we are certainly not to blame if our body gets unwell anyway – could be environment, could be foods, could be less than if we ate SAD. Who knows? Have you read the story of Dr. Campbell’s wife in his book “Whole”? She was a plant based eater, of course, who got cancer, too. Prayers for healing and strength.
Angie
Thank you so much for your honesty. I am so glad you made the best decision for yourself and your health!
Danielle
Hello Susan,
I was wondering if you were going through a difficult time, and it seems I was correct 🙁
You are a very strong, talented, sharing person. Thank you for writing about your journey back to health. In my opinion Maria is correct. Perhaps the McDougall way of eating didn’t prevent you from getting sick, but it surely did help you survive the treatments. Way to go staying the course!
I’m sending good thoughts to you, and hope for a great holiday season for you and your family. Pumpkin is very health promoting! Bring on the pumpkin recipes!!
Danielle
Karen
Hugs! Thanks for sharing that story of courage and choices you made.
Vicky
So sorry you have had to go through all of this, I hope you soon get back to your old self ! Sending lots of good wishes your way 🙂
Lonnie
Just want to thank you for this post. I love all that you’ve shared, but I, too, am battling breast cancer. I, too, decided to fight using diet, chemo and radiation. I felt that I needed to do all possible to prevent recurrence and to assure that whatever cancer was floating around in my body, (I had lymph nodes that showed cancer cells), was attacked and hopefully killed. I did not go through chemo with the energy you describe, in fact, I nearly died. But, I still think I made the toughest, correct decision regarding treatment. I had the added pressure of being in a family that really trusts God for healing and many members of my family and friends believed I could get healing without the chemo and radiation. Cancer is hard enough to deal with–we don’t need the added guilt of not having enough faith, or not eating correctly, or weighing too much or too little, etc. Thanks again for your comments. You made me feel much better about my own decisions. God Bless!
Patricia
thank you for sharing your very moving and inspiring account of your experience. I’m so sorry about your diagnosis. I wish you continued good health, and I thank you for your wonderful blog.
Sheri A
Susan,
I cried when I read your post… I had no idea you had gone through all that this year. Your story moved me very much. My mom died of breast cancer and I have always been fearful of getting the big C. I stopped getting Mammograms 2 years ago due to Dr. McDougall not recommending them. I figured since I was now plant based I was ” safe”…. I am rethinking my decisions now. I am so happy you are doing better now. You will be in my thoughts and prayers Susan for healing and strength to be as healthy as you can in the upcoming days. Thank you for sharing your story with all of us. You have given me a lot to think about tonight. (((( hugs)))))
Deb
As a fellow survivor and a vegetarian, I congratulate you on making it through the gauntlet! Be gentle with yourself! I was so strong for everyone around me it didn’t really hit me what I’d gone through until about a year later. But there is no way we’ve brought this upon ourselves. And no one can second guess our decision for treatment – it’s our body, our life, our choice. Stay strong, stay well!
Sherry
Susan, I have always thought you are an amazing woman, and your honest telling of such an intensely personal struggle only confirms it. Ginny Messina said something on her website a few months ago that I absolutely loved. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was something like “we vegans are allowed to be humane, but not human”, meaning that vegans are held to an unattainable standard of health that just is not realistic. Bravo to you for staying true to yourself in every way!
bazu
Hi Susan,
I was so upset to read about your diagnosis, but so happy to hear that you’re on the mend! Best wishes from us! I’m sorry if anyone or anything in the vegan community made you feel that you’d done something wrong…I for one think modern medicine is pretty great.
Rachel
Thank you so much for sharing your story, and your honest reflections. So happy to hear you’re well supported and on the mend. It’s a good reminder to all vegans that we’re still human. Lots of hugs and healthy vibes your way.
Paula
I was so sad to read this as I really hate hearing anyone having cancer. I just recently had a CT scan that revealed 4-5 nodes in my lung. Although at this time my Dr feels that they are more than likely benign, we will need to wait until next scan in a year to rule out cancer. I am so happy to hear you have had a positive outcome. I really am glad that you did share this with us. I am looking forward to the new recipes. I too am looking to eliminate some crap in my diet like sugar.
Lauren
Thank you Susan, for your honesty and bravery. I understand your fears around posting this entry but am glad you went for it anyway. I pray for health and wholeness for you.
P.S. I went to Oberlin College : )