On the way back home from the clinic my husband and I were in turmoil, and all the time the whole implication of this was going through my head – but at the same time everything seemed so unreal. We ended up going for a drink and getting quite drunk, which helped at the time.
I decided that the next day I would phone up one of my sisters (I come from a large family) and tell her about the cancer: I felt I had to tell someone in my family. She was great, and very supportive, and once I’d spoken to her and another of my sisters about it, I felt much more positive.
My Mum is elderly (she’s 93), so I was dreading telling her, but I knew I had to do it sooner or later. In the end she took it quite well, but she was obviously very worried and upset. My daughter was on holiday, and luckily I didn’t have to face her yet as I knew she would be terribly worried and upset as well.
After the initial shock had worn off, I began to think a bit more positively, and we waited for the nurse to arrive in a few days. She was very nice and she went through the treatment options with me again. She showed me a picture of what the operation site would look like – it looked awful – and she also showed me some false breasts that I could wear with a special bra after the operation.
I had already decided that one operation site was enough to contend with, so I decided that I would not have reconstruction surgery.
I hadn’t put much thought into it up until then but at the back of my mind I vaguely remembered something I had read about an alternative treatment involving apricots, and apple seeds but couldn’t remember what. I decided to have a look on the Internet to see if I could find any more information about alternative treatments.
This post is part of a weekly series in which Sue Insole describes her health journey. Click here to read her earlier posts. Next week, Sue tells us how she began to learn about the alternatives to conventional cancer treatment.
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SUSAN INSOLE, BSYA (N Th.) is a former NHS nurse and is now a nutritional therapist in the field of natural health. She worked in a health care setting for 16 years, firstly in the field of rehabilitation and then as a welfare officer and secretary within a hospital setting. She was also an advisor for weight loss in 2001 - 2003. She achieved a diploma in 2006 for nutritional therapy. She is the author of a downloadable eBook,
What Works in Health. Her website is:
www.naturalhealthbenefits.com