Shortly after passing the 5-year anniversary since my recovery from breast cancer, I started thinking about dedicating a corner of my site to share some of my experiences about my journey.

If you've come to one of my shows post-breast cancer, it's likely that you've witnessed one of my 'public service announcements' where I tell the quick version of the story of how I found this tiny lump in my breast in late 1998. It was no bigger than a lentil and rather hard to find but you could feel it.

I went to my regular gynecologist and he too could feel it and so ordered a mammogram. The results of that test showed nothing. My doctor advised me to wait and watch and maybe not drink too much coffee. This was not good advice.

What I came to learn the hard way, is that anytime you can feel a lump, regardless of whether or not you can see it on a mammogram, it is essential that some other method of diagnosis be engaged to actually determine that it is not cancerous.

Unfortunately, many young medical students are trained to be conservative about testing. It seems medical system we have in the US is often propelled and dictated to by the insurance companies and the drug companies.

It's true that further testing adds cost. If upon further testing it is clearly benign one could argue that the test was "unnecessary". But the cost of my surgery, chemo and radiation to my insurance company wipes out any argument for "conservative testing".

Not to mention the cost to my body, the stress, and all the difficulty of coming through cancer! I would have happily paid for an ultrasound or needle biopsy out of my own pocket had I known then what I know now.

We "watched" through a few mammograms until this little lump was about the size of a small grape. Finally my doctor suggested an 'ultrasound' still with the attitude that it was 'probably nothing to worry about'. This story happens over and over again.

Especially with younger women who are not supposed to be as likely to have cancer, doctors routinely discourage the kind of aggressive investigation into lumps with a 'let's wait and see' attitude. So my mission has been to say loud and clear—"if you can feel it and it doesn't show up on a mammogram you aren't done looking for it!"

During my ultrasound, the nurse had chatted with me amicably while putting the gel on the instrument, pressing it into my breast and gliding over the area where the lump resided. Then she gasped. There it was. A big dark cloud that was now stage two and 2 ½ centimeters. The sound of her breath sucking back into her body will forever be remembered as the moment I knew my life was about to change. Of course she was given no permission to discuss what she thought she saw. So immediately she pulled her smile back into place and became professionally 'vague' as I started firing questions at her. "I really can't say…you'll have to wait for the results to come from your doctor."

A full 24 hours later I finally got the call from my doctor. In my shock it didn't register to ask him why he didn't do this test earlier. In my shock I just dumbly took in his words. Still vague. "I think we may have seen something we need to have further checked out."

With that he passed my case over to another doctor to do the biopsy. Within a day or two it was absolutely clear. Stage two-breast cancer. These final results came from the breast doctor who had done the biopsy. I never heard another word from my gynecologist. I never spoke to him again. I have no way of knowing how or if this affected him. Up until now I've not dealt with my feelings about his abandonment of me when the diagnosis became known. It has been going on eight years. So this week as I write this for my new web page I am also writing a letter to him and clearing that last piece out of my psyche. One of the many lessons I learned through this passage has been that emotions that become congested within us have a very subtle but negative effect. It's funny that it's taken me this long to be ready to let him know my feelings about the way his incompetence affected my life and future.

This is one of the paintings I did while going through chemo. I was working a lot with energy and other healing modalities in addition to western wisdom. I pretty much did everything I could think of to compliment the treatment I was getting. I think accupunture, massage, meditation, and eating very healthy organic foods all were a part of my recovery.

I want to walk you though some of the details of those difficult days following my diagnosis. Of course my family and loved ones completely surrounded me with love and support. My dear friend Annie Roboff (with whom I've written so many songs) was my advocate throughout many consultations with doctors, surgeons, plastic surgeons, oncologists, etc.

I was spinning out of control with indecision about who to pick for my surgery, and follow up chemo and radiation….these are all different doctors. I was thinking that I needed to jump on planes and meet the best doctors in NY or LA to be sure.

Olivia Newton John was also an angel to me during that time. I remember being at a Japanese restaurant on a Sunday afternoon during those first few days and having a meltdown. At that moment Olivia, who had, herself, come through and survived the diagnosis of breast cancer, called me on my cell phone. Just hearing her voice really calmed me down. She gave me the home phone number of one of the top oncologists in LA who had been her doctor. I dialed the number and spent the next 15 minutes talking to this wonderful doctor. His advice saved me a lot of unnecessary stress. He said that there were some of the best doctors in the world at Vanderbilt University and I should stay right here and not wear myself out running around the country looking for a doctor.

My team of doctors were truly incredible. Dr. David H. Johnson was my oncologist.

He himself had survived very intense chemo when he went through non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is the type of cancer that took the life of my husband Ernest in 1994. So on many levels Dr. Johnson could relate to patients going through this.

My surgeon was Dr. Kelly at Vanderbilt University who performed a lumpectomy and also a "sentinel node biopsy" which is a procedure that involved shooting radioactive dye into the "tumor bed" (or under my tumor) in order to get a picture of the order in which my lymph nodes drained. I know. It sounds crazy! But it was a very good thing. In the not so long ago days, doctors would routinely rip out all the lymph nodes along with any removal of breast tissue. Long term complications of this can be a condition known as "lymphodema".

For more information visit: The Lymphoedema Association of Victoria and The Lymphoedema Support Network.

It would have been so difficult for me as a musician, guitar player, piano player etc. if I had developed this condition. The lymph nodes provide much needed drainage for lymphatic fluid, which goes all through our bodies. With no nodes the fluid collects in the tissues and causes outrageous and sometimes dangerous swelling of the limb.

Fortunately I only had to have four lymph nodes removed to determine whether or not my cancer had spread.

Having the sentinel node biopsy was excruciating. They had to do this procedure without any anesthesia, as that it would have rendered the radioactive dye useless. Then, in surgery, they shine a light on the lymph nodes under the arm of the breast with the tumor. Fluid from the breast drains into the lymph nodes in a certain order. The first node that it drains into is called the "sentinel" node. So they remove that node and the next three or four after that. During surgery they do a quick biopsy on that sample of nodes. If it's not in the first one it's a very very good sign that the cancer has not spread. I got to wake up to that great news and the fact that the brilliant Dr. Kelly so artistically performed my lumpectomy that the scarring would be minimal. Considering the days preceding the surgery, where I had to prepare myself for the possibility that they would have to take the whole breast and maybe my lymph nodes on that side, I was overjoyed. Three days before I was finding out about all sorts of options for reconstruction or plastic surgery. One procedure involved moving some of my back muscle into my breast cavity. Annie was getting all the info on that one as I sat in a daze trying to figure out if my back needed to be scratched would I be scratching my breast? Whew!

So walking around with a healthy little dimple on one side has been a great relief!

I love this picture. That's my son's hand holding the guitar with me. He was an amazing help to me during those months even as my heart was breaking for him. But he got to see me get well and that was very healing for us both.

Going through chemo was a different story. While I did tolerate it pretty well, it was devastating. I was given AC which is adriomyacin and cytoxin. This cocktail was typical for my kind of cancer. So I was scheduled for three months of that and six and a half weeks of radiation. Oh boy! And I thought I'd be putting out my new record!

This painting is called "Day Three". Usually the third day after a treatment proved to be the most difficult. Here I'm quietly visualizing white healing light all surrounding me and healing my body. Sounds very "New Age" I know…but it helped tremendously to feel that I could be actively focusing my attention on getting better and feeling better. It's an interesting experience of trying to regain control and learning at the same time that the only thing there is to control is remembering to let go.

The record I had just completed was "Deeper Still" and it is ironic that so many of the songs written, recorded and mixed on that record days before I was diagnosed, had so much to do with the emotional journey through breast cancer. In fact, the songs themselves were emotional medicine for me as I healed through that winter.

I felt a comfort that my creative spirit had prepared the landscape for me on some level. What was pushed forward in my writing, preceded events once again, just as it had with many of the songs on "Sand &Water".

So I sang to myself a song I'd written two years earlier as I sat on the couch looking out the window…..as my hair disappeared with the leaves on the trees that fall, growing back in with the new buds in the spring.

"Every December sky
Must lose its faith in leaves
And dream of the spring inside the trees
How heavy the empty heart
How light the hear that's full
Sometimes I have to trust what I can't know

We're walking to paradise
The angels lend us shoes
Cause all that we own we'll come to lose
And heaven is not so far
Outside this womb of words
With every rose that blooms my soul is assured
It's just like the song I know that's still unheard.

And every leaf of fire lets go
Melting in the arms of earth and snow

And if I could hold you now
You'd enter like a sigh
You'd be the wind that blows the answer to why
You'd be the spring filled trees of
Every December sky"

I navigated that hard cold winter through my fear of death and through a deep first hand experience of chemo, realizing so much more clearly the pain my husband endured to try to buy more time during his illness. My son and I both grieved again for his Dad, and from a different place, ironically, lifting and moving out from under that grief when I started to recover and get my energy and my life force back.

One of the many 'angels by my side' that showed up in my life to guide me through those treatments was Gabrielle Mittlestadt. I had known Gabrielle through friends and her reputation as a divine being and healer whose main medicine is cuisine! Gabrielle came to my house during the first few days of treatment. She cooks incredible organic and deeply nourishing food on a level that I cannot even describe. All I can say is, it's not that "weeds and seeds" healthy stuff you have to have the intestines of a carburetor to digest. Gabrielle has perfected mouth-watering-meets-pure-meets-healthy food art!

Of course, following my first chemo treatment the worst time to have Gabrielle cooking in my kitchen—as my stomach was not exactly feeling overjoyed to be taking in food? She was way ahead of me however and prepared all sorts of gentle delicious magical "tastes of things" since even the word "meal" had a profoundly nauseating effect on me.

One of the elixirs that became a staple of my healing-soothing foods was this broth that she taught me to make from kale. Don't grimace! Kale would have been the last thing on my mind in those days. I always liked it but many things I normally liked were meeting a brick wall in my system during chemo.

Gabrielle's broth, it turns out, was more that a comfort food with good properties. It actually was a super duper liver supporting, natural cleansing and replenishing wonder-soup! So I've formally named it

"Gabrielle's Wonder Soup"

Get a big bunch of organic kale. Fresh!!
Put it in a large stainless steel pot (get rid of toxic tephlon! Check the link to CHEC!)

Add a cup or two of water and put a good cover on the pot
The kale doesn't need to be submerged…it'll steam down into it
Bring it to a boil and let the kale steam and simmer on low flame for a while. 10 minutes or so.

If you want to eat the kale you can just put a couple inches of water and only steam a few minutes …still save the water to drink as it's got great stuff in it!

If you're just making broth let the kale empty out it's flavor into the water and then you can discard the mushy kale.

To this broth you add drops of Ume Plum Vinegar. This is to taste…so taste as you go. It's pretty salty…so try a bit and taste your way to what seems right. You also splash some toasted sesame oil into this brew.

If you're going with the "eat the kale" version of this you'd splash Ume Plum Vinegar first on the leaves to taste and then some toasted sesame oil. Then for a really amazing thing you can add toasted sesame seeds that have been slightly cracked.

The Ume plum is one of the most powerful antioxidants on the planet. Gabrielle had me go buy the ume plum paste just to get it into my body during my recovery. But everyone would benefit from this amazing stuff. Again, it's very salty, but powerful stuff! Great to just spread on crackers and veggies too!

Vinegar is fermented and that's not the best thing to put in the body during treatment. I learned it's much better to stay with foods that keep up the level of "alkaline" as opposed to "acid". Ume plum vinegar feels and tastes fermented but it's not. So this was a great way to get my jones and avoid balsamic vinaigrette, which was working against the tide of my health.

Ok…so you make a slew of this liquid gold. I would sip it warm from a very fancy wine glass as if it were very expensive stuff!

I still love having it and I'm convinced that my liver was greatly helped during the onslaught of chemicals that it had to process. My recovery time from chemo was record breaking! So if you're going through it –consider the "Gabrielle's Wonder-Soup!

:)BNC

I'm pictured here with some very powerful women! Amy McDonald to my right is a survivor of breast cancer. To my left is Amy Sky who was producing a CD for Olivia Newton John (also a survivor) and Mindi Smith who's Mom died of breast cancer.

We had all sung harmonies on the project which partially went to raise money for breast cancer.

Some great organizations to contact:

Gilda's Club
Susan G. Komen for the Cure
breastcancer.org
Optimum Health Institute

 

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