ARE YOU HEALTHY? I THOUGHT I WAS!

I never asked this question to myself and I assume I am healthy as long as I do not have known illnesses and my yearly medical checkup showed every indicators were in normal range. I used to think that obidiently going to do my pepsmear and medical check up is the best way to keep an watch over my health, and praise myself that I am not overeating person, though not scoring very high on daily exercise routine but I assume that enough walking during shopping will do the job since my health statistic in medical report are within range and cholesterol level is perfect. Then I go on happily enjoying my life, eat "balance diet" and moderate on everything in my own arrowed opinion.
Then the big news hit me that I have breast cancer. Since the diagnosis, I grabbed any chances to control my health and learn so much about my body that I never did before, the biggest realization is that I did not proactively manage my health! 80% of all degenarating diseases can be avoided thru diet and detoxification. My oncologist give me a 5% non-survival rate for my stage of cancer, I pray so hard so hard in desperation to have more control over the 5% and feeling so so so helpless that the 5% is not much I can do as I am already in the statistic. I wish someone could have tell me earlier that I have total control of not falling sick at all, the 80% is in my control!! Here I am sharing with you, so that you can control your 80% !!

I proactively send my car for oil change/filter change/over haul and parts cleaning to make sure that all its internal organs are cleansed so that it will not breakdown in the middle of the road. I also clean my air-con filter on a regular basis, But I never thought of cleaning up my own organs before it fail me! I only know that my organ need cleaning when the doctor says I have cancer ALREADY growing in it! It doesn't mean I need to clean my breast when I have breast cancer, our body is ONE integrated system that is maintained by Input(good nutrients) and Output(effective excreations). Wrong input(eat for pleasure vs eat for nutrients) or ineffecient output (constipation that clog the intestine, no exercise to sweat thru the skin, inadequate water to flushed the kidney, toxic build up in liver), free redicals are not effectively being removed from the system fast enough while todays environment toxins are faster than ever entering our body. Our main filtering systems (kidney/liver/skin/lungs/intestines) are so overwhelmed working round the clock to removes waster and yet we did not eat sufficient nutrients to give fuel for them to do their work. When the turf is weak, illness will pop up in any area it finds fit.

What is health? it's not just 'no illness', but proactively cleansing of your body which consist of 5 major machines. These machines help you to 'clean up' your body but who is cleaning them? My air-con filter help me to clean my air in turn I clean the filter for the air-con to perform its best.
So I started to house cleaning and join the peg of people whose language is 'detox' !! and the first club I joined is, off course the "Coffee" club, welcome to coffee enema!!!

THE DIAGNOSIS

Some time in May 2008, I noticed a small bump like a size of a small green bean on my left breast, I thought nothing more than a usual oil seed under the surface of the skin which I have a few on my arms for years. I told my gynaecologist during my routine check up in October and she assured me that it was nothing, anyway I insisted to do a mammogram, but the mammogram did not show any lump at all, probably it was too small to pick up in the image. Whatever it is, my policy is never leave anything unusual in 'there' be it malignant or benign. Urgency was not in my thought so I told myself that I would get it removed during the year end school holiday, somehow I was so caught up with something else and also a last minute Australia vacation in November, then came Christmas and Chinese New Year. So I finally made myself available to remove the 'oil seed', thought nothing serious about it so I just opted for the nearest hospital, Dr Neoh in Pantai hospital for convenient sake. It was just a half-day in patient surgery, the surgeon told me after the operation that he did not think the lump is cancerous at all, anyhow is is a routine to send it for a pathology test. He schedule me for a follow up I presumed the main task was to remove the tiny little plaster on the surgery site. God knew what is ahead of me and put a burden in my husband's heart to follow me to the doctor office, it was Wednesday I thought that was unnecessary since it's just a routine follow up but he insisted, so he took a day off and went with me. We were completely caught off guard with the big news, asking the doctor to repeat what he said. I stared at my husband and he stared back! We asked him what would be his suggestion for us to do next, without hesitation, he said 'you can come back this Saturday and I will remove the whole breast' in cold blood. "Is this the only option?", he said yes and he has been performing at least 30 mastectomy surgeries per month and assured us that is normal protocol.
Thank God we did not sign up for that and went straight to our care-group for prayer on the same day. I called couple of friends to find out about other well known oncologists and surgeons in Penang. We spend the next whole week collecting data including sending the tissue for 2nd opinion and talked to at least two doctors on each field of oncologist and surgeon. We felt much better after knowing that I need not have to do mastectomy, it make sense, you don't burn the whole garage to remove a single rat. It surprise me that it is possible for doctor to be so ignorant and failing to upgrade their knowledge which will ruin a women's body for life. I later found out and talked to women who had mastectomy without knowing that they have a choice.

Lessons learn:
1. Never trust a doctor who told you 'I don't think its cancer'. No one will be able to know the truth unless the tissue is biopsied and confirmed by pathologist. Many women trusted that remarks and had a false sense of security and never took action only to find out after a few months that the cancer has spread to other part of the body.

2. Mastectomy is no longer the only option for many cases of breast cancer, research has shown that the survival rate is no different between lumpectomy and mastectomy. There are many surgeon who never upgrade themselves are still performing the aged old protocol and many young women lost their breast unnecessarily.

3. Ask for second opinion and take some time to research. The cancer will not do much harm if you take couple of weeks to do your data collecting before committing to a life changing decision.