I’m Now a Cancer Statistic – Survival with a Chronic Illness

Well, I have become a statistic. I’ve gotten breast cancer at 75. How’s that for being a golden survivalist, and managing a chronic condition during a disaster? I’m in the beginning stages of my cancer fight. I’ve elected to do the ‘radical’ breast surgeries.

Featured Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

I’ve been fighting lumpectomies (like 6 of them!) most of my adult life. So, at my age, let’s cut the culprit out! But, wow, was I depressed after my last doctor visit when I elected to ‘go flat.’ All I could do afterward was read my SF book about surviving an EMP. I finished the first of nine books and began the second while my son drove us home.

I was so mad when I got the letter from the radiologist telling me I needed further evaluation. Since I had so many lumpectomy cuts in the past, I thought that this was another one. Certainly not breast cancer!

I made an appointment with my primary doctor to discuss what to do. I didn’t get to see my regular PCP, so after debating a mastectomy because I figured I’d just get them both off so I don’t have to deal with this anymore, I made a statement that I didn’t need to wait and could do the surgery in the Fall.

The doctor said NO! Don’t wait – you have cancer! Have the surgery as soon as possible while it’s small!

He showed me the letter sent to the PCP from the radiologist that had the summary of ‘invasive ductal carcinoma,’ and it just went over my head. I had been determined that, in the back of my mind, I didn’t have cancer. And why don’t they send these letters to the patient so we know what’s happening?

This was a big shock! OMG. I have cancer???

I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I still haven’t. I’m still depressed sometimes, but I’ve gotten through that feeling, and I’m in ‘prepare mode’ now.  I have surgery next week. I’m not sure yet if I will need chemo. The cancer measures just 1.1cm, so it’s small, we think. Surgery will tell, and I also have lymph node testing on the same day.

My father got colon cancer when he was about the same age. His cancer was bad enough that he had to have surgery along with radiation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, NY, as a former cigarette smoker who always ‘proudly’ smoked a pipe. He had an ostomy bag, and that really depressed him. He was a very virile man who was never sick. Tall and strong, he was a former muscle-man type who used to pump iron.

One of my father’s favorite things was pounding posts into the ground to build a deck in his marshy yard. See my description on AHorseBlog.com of what he did to build our log cabin, expand it, build an in-ground tarpaper pool, and a ton more stuff when I was a youngster. He didn’t even want to know what his 5-year plan was. He died about 5-7 years later from pneumonia.

My mom died from an aneurysm at 79. She was a heavy cigarette smoker. She died while smoking after she had been wheeled into the smoking room at the nursing home; she had only been there for three weeks. She did not quit smoking even though the doctor said how bad it was for her.

My mom was the ‘real’ survivalist in the family. She was always prepared and organized everything when we went camping, boating, sailing, or traveling. She and her parents came to Florida in 1938, purchasing a plot of mostly uncleared 30 acres. Later, she had a farm with 10,000 chickens, which she went broke doing during the end of the Depression.

Just Read About It

I’m the type who reads everything about an injury, affliction, or sickness. I got migraines in my late 20s when I had an ovarian cyst removed. I think this changed my hormones, and migraines got me. After the surgery, a DNC ensued. Ten years later, I had a craniotomy for a benign meningioma on the left. I was told that it didn’t have anything to do with the migraines I had, but I swore that it would help. Well… it didn’t. It gave me left-sided migraines! (I was a right-sided migraineur.)

I saw so many different natural remedy providers for supplements, chiropractic, and deep massage. I did all of this trying to manage migraines while working more than 8-hour days (I always liked to work and worked late – not an early riser, lol) as a technical analyst for a large bank asset management system.

Later, I got a horse, and the exercise did actually help. Except for the horse competitions I was in, it was a given that I would get a migraine when they were over. By then, I had medications to help.

I finally have migraines under control now, and I will do the same with cancer. So far, I have a very strong heart and tend toward low blood pressure. I just have to deal with the dammit surgeries. I will follow up on how this turns out in future posts.

Have you or anyone you know have or have had cancer? How did you cope? Do you have any helpful tips you can share with our readers? Please leave your comments below. We can get through this together!

Teri Rehkopf

I’m the daughter of 2 original survivalists who moved from the north to sunny Florida. My mother, along with her parents, bought 30 mostly uncleared acres in 1938. The first home was made of pecky-cypress and built by a house-raising. My mother raised 10,000 chickens. My divorced mother met and married my father in 1948. From pine trees on our property, he hand-built a log cabin. He also built a tarpaper-lined 65’x45′ pool with duck pond overflow. We had an artesian well for our water and powering our hand-built waterwheel for the pool. He built a substantial cantilevered roof workshop with a car pit in the massive cement floor. Since my early teens, I have read a ton of books about survival, prepping, the bomb, an apocalypse, homestead living, and SHTF situations. As an adult, I continue to read sci-fi, survival prepping, and science. I practice a prepper lifestyle albeit a bit modified, read a lot, buy a lot, pack/store a lot of anything survival related. My GoldenSurvivalist.com blog strives to educate individuals on coping with natural and human-caused disasters using article posts about preparing for emergencies.

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