My Years of Magical Drinking

POST-MASTECTOMY DELUSIONS

Going rogue isn’t always righteous

At least I still have my hair.

That’s what I mumbled to the surgeon right before my mastectomy. She told me to listen to my CD player. I had chosen a big loud Verdi Requiem Mass to mark and mask the occasion. I asked if she wanted me to play it loud enough so she could listen.

She said, No. Please.

For all the help I got from medical folks during that health scare, you would think I’d have been grateful and willing to follow the next suggested treatment steps.

And I did, at first.

I would have preferred if the surgeon had declared — Hallelujah! I have healed you. That’s probably more like what a faith healer would say.

A less theatrical proclamation would also have worked.

Instead, the surgeon referred me to an oncologist colleague to manage ongoing preventative treatment. My fear rose at our first appointment.

She let me know, right away, that she would follow standard medical protocols. She was not interested in fielding my rapid-fire questions. She also disliked my contrarian attitude.

She insisted that I start taking Tamoxifen immediately. The drug would launch me into menopause and have other unpleasant side effects. She also suggested I limit — if not eliminate — my alcohol intake.

I covered my ears metaphorically and sang to myself. I wasn’t ready for either of the oncologist’s suggestions. I was still finding it hard to accept my breast cancer diagnosis.

It must have been a fluke, an oversensitive machine, or an emerging trend toward over-diagnosing.

I talked to the new oncologist about supplementing Tamoxifen with alternative treatments — Naturopathy, acupuncture, nutrition, and massage. In response, she handed me a post-it note with the website for Quack.com scrawled on it.

She followed up this gesture by saying, The site offers evidence-based proof about how unhelpful alternative treatments are for cancer.

A caveat here — the oncologist gave this snarky response in 2004. These days…

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