Don’t Count Yourself Out!
SNAPSHOT of the past year:
My mom dies of end-stage renal failure in January
My big brother, age 61, doesn’t wake up after a heart attack
Four days after my brother’s celebration of life, my Dad, 87, is diagnosed with a terminal liver tumor
Skip forward to six months ago: I happily exit my annual mammogram, saying, “See you next year!” and prep for my scheduled flight to Dallas to shop BugHub.TV—a show I created and produced for helping kids understand their superpowers.
But the next day, a cluster of masses in my breast tissue canceled my flight.
There I was, back with the nurse, looking at these small shadows in my chart, attempting to make sense of what I was seeing. A faraway echo broke my concentration, “You’ll need biopsies immediately,” the nurse said dryly. I was still engrossed in checking my chart. Yes, there was my name. There was my birthday. It was indeed my chart. These shadows were in me.
My core was shaken.
Similar to how your focus changes in an accident and becomes clear and slow, well there I was, peering through a black vignetted frame into at a crystal-clear picture of a theatrical tragedy in a foreign language, unfolding before me that was my life. Diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, I prayed for clarity, but my mind insisted on swimming in confusion.
From that point on, however, time sped up. The coming weeks brought with them a barrage of tests and evaluations. Finally, I was told I had Invasive Ductal Carcinoma – an aggressive cancer -- and would need so many weeks of chemo followed by surgery, possibly radiation, and then more chemo.
I asked to have a bi-lateral mastectomy. “Now!”
The nurse strongly discouraged it. “That is not the protocol,” she said, and repeated the chemo regimen.
Those first few weeks I kept asking for more information but the answers I received continued to stoke my worst fears. Anxiety transported me back to the innocence of childhood. I was a little girl being plucked from a world of wonder and possibilities and being forced into the cold arena of protocols and statistics of this insidious disease. I am a nurse by trade, and I practiced holistic healing for many years, so I continued to ask what I could do to help heal my body.
But I kept hitting a wall of silence.
When I think about it, my dread was less a reaction to the cancer—because I still wasn’t sure I had my head wrapped around it—and more about a gut-feeling of helplessness. I felt like I was not participating in my own healthcare. So, I began to devour information. I read up on the side effects of the chemo and radiation regimen being offered and discerned the statistics. The treatments being offered to kill the cancer also looked suspiciously lethal to me.
So I turned to holistic health and engaged a functional MD to partner with me in my healing journey. Once I began studying how to strengthen my immune system, I was empowered! Finally, I was finding and claiming my voice, and realizing, “I am responsible for my health and my healing team.”
Three important things we all need to remember:
YOU are the leader of your healthcare team; you must step up and take the lead; you must find your voice in order to take charge of your healing journey.
Control what you can; a diagnosis of cancer is a diagnosis, but it is not you.
This is a time to ask for help, and to lead your own research. We always need to be informed in order to ask better questions.
Cancer, at best, is horrible! It brazenly ambushes your life as well as those around you. But cancer does not have to define you. Cancer is a message. It gives us feedback on our life choices and genetics. It forces us to see that it is easier to stay well than get well.
Cancer. You can succumb to its mercilessness and become a victim; or you can be just as formidable in your response—muster your mettle and choose to celebrate…onward and upward!
In a fear-driven system, you must find courage in order to use your voice.
Let us heal our bodies.
There are many resources available regarding integrative medicine. One resource who expanded my mind is Suzanne Somers. I believe that I, as an “average American citizen” who was shocked to learn of a cancer diagnosis, had to hit the “pause” button in order to educate myself regarding how to heal my body. Suzanne had a cancer diagnosis and spent the next part of her life gathering resources to help not only herself, but others as well. Because of her research, I now have a functional physician, and I learned how to ask better questions. In many instances our conventional medical model refers to cancer treatment and recovery being a 5-year plan, but I’m not into a 5-year plan – I’m in this for the long game and want to put my body in position to be around for another 40 years.
Rochelle Forrest Hankins
Rochelle Forrest Hankins is an acclaimed author, speaker, philanthropist.
From her career as a nurse and holistic health coach, to authoring the children’s book series Shelly Shines Books, to establishing the foundation Tummies Minds Spirits, to traveling across the world to spread Shelly’s story, to being the brain behind the educational and nurturing world of BugHub, Rochelle has always found creative and inclusive ways to share her joy and enthusiasm with others.
Rochelle strives to create the kind of world we all want to live in, where gratitude abounds, and all people feel comfortable and empowered just by being themselves. Her latest project is the Miracle Movement on Facebook—a space where people can share tales of where we have seen miracles in our lives, the people who have changed us for the better, and how we have seen people change the world around them in remarkable ways.
It is her hope that by talking about miracles in public, that more people will start to believe in them and ask the community to pray for their miracles.