My story with breast cancer.

Dharma Barbara Rose October 14 at 7:25pm
I am a three time survivor, its hard to accept or understand what its like to seemly hold your breath for three years... until the doc says, You beat it kid.

I remember thinking is he crazy, then slowly in the last two months I find I am breathing and my panic is worse due to the stress of being panic stricken for so long. I got up one morning felt this tiny bead, in my right breast. I thought its like pea a tiny one. I didn’t have any insurance, my immediate response was what a weird way to die. Because I had no insurance. So I didn’t do anything right away, then in two months it was still there only much bigger.

That morning I called and told my doc’s office, “I found this pea thing in my breast and I don’t have insurance.” And she said, there is insurance out there for you, the government set a side a certain amount of money for breast and cervical cancers, here is the number but lets get you a mammogram.So I went and it was true BREAST CANCER! But there was insurance out there (side bar note - that money - insurance which is given to each state and unfortunately many of the states do not use it for anything other than mammograms. Instead they put it into their infectious disease funds which is used for other issues.)

That insurance was there to take care of my medical needs, the first operation, I knew that day I would be cancer free. However the next two times it was in Florida and this state uses that money for other things, so I was given Medicaid and found there were no doctors that took it or would take it for surgeries, finally I found a general surgeon who did the next two operations, he hadn’t done one yet so he did lots of looking into how to do this and what to do, his wife had died from cancer. I believe he saved my life. His knowledge how he realized certain put staples in instead of putting a needle in over and over again to close to possibly pass any cancer cells around. I believe he found a way to save another artist, he wife was an artist.

My story is like millions who didn’t have anyone around to stand close to them. I feel we have a long way to go but everyone of us can beat this. For me I had special doctors the first one in NY who herself had this disease and treats us it’s a very isolating disease so if you know someone who has this please offer your support and presence take that or those steps to nurture them. Thanks