Living on the edge

It is terrifying to find a lump in your neck. You also feel slightly embarrassed. How long has it been there? Could that be why you have drenching night sweats, a chronic cough, and severe chest pain, and can't walk up the stairs? I was reassured for a while by the diagnosis of tuberculosis, but six weeks later when I had turned into a walking MRCP short case by occluding my left subclavian vein—the first time I have ever felt a properly deviated trachea—I realised that it was something serious. Lying in the casualty department finding out that I had a huge tumour in my chest was strangely calming. I wasn't frightened of dying; I just suddenly realised how much I loved being alive. When I contemplated the enormous CT guided biopsy needle sticking out of my chest, I began to realise the full extent of the terrifying experiences that we doctors inflict on patients every day.

Why shouldn't alternative therapies that make you feel better boost your immune system?

Two days later we heard that it was lymphoma—B-cell non-Hodgkin's, to be precise—and cracked open a bottle of champagne as I now had a fighting chance. I think that you have to have a strong belief that you will get through, and keeping that belief strong is often hard. I became used to seeing my chances reflected back in people's eyes and found it isolating being a cancer patient. It's not that the doctors didn't care, but how much can you care in 10 minutes? I didn't strike up any friendships during chemotherapy as it seemed inappropriate to ask people on the day ward “So what sort of cancer do you have?” It's not that nobody listens, it's just that you don't feel you can talk.

To try to improve the terrible spinal headaches that I had from the intrathecal methotrexate, I went to see an aromatherapy masseuse who had been recommended to me. After I had explained why I was bald she told me she was a spiritual healer and asked if I wanted some healing. Well I was taking anything that was going and, despite being a sceptic and a scientist, I thought why not. And there it began: understanding, warmth, and healing. I can just hear you thinking “poor daft girl, all that intrathecal methotrexate has made her soft in the head,” so I'll try to explain. You know how you feel after a double overbooked clinic when everybody and everything is demanding more attention and time than you have: totally drained as if your energy has been sucked out. Now compare that with a day outside doing something you love with people that you love and how you feel energised and happy. Well that's what healing is like, rebalancing and revitalising your energy. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't about to chuck in the chemotherapy—it's just that conventional medicine treats only the part of you it can see is sick and I was stuck being viewed as a 30 year old with stage 4b non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Complementary medicine takes a more holistic approach and tries to treat all of you. I think it's vital to find the right therapy for you and the right practitioner. I'm sure much of the success is down to the relationship between you both, and different complementary therapies will suit different people. I am no idealist and I can see that as most complementary medicine is private the practitioners have the time and money to make their therapies enjoyable (well anything is, compared with chemotherapy), but surely anything that makes you feel good will keep you more positive. The mind is a powerful thing. We know that stress is immunosuppressing, we live in an age where our lifestyles are considered to be more stressful than ever before, and we know that most cancers are on the increase. Why shouldn't alternative therapies that make you feel better boost your immune system? The way I looked at my situation was that the chemotherapy and radiotherapy would blast the tumour away, but unless my body took over its job of immunosurveillance, I wouldn't go into remission. I also took echinacea, a herbal remedy which works by boosting immunity.

So I went into complete remission (uncertain)—typical oncologist-sitting-on-the-fence-speak—and went back to work. All was going well until five months later I began getting a few night sweats, felt tired, and began coughing again. I opened my CT scans in the kitchen (another long story) and read those dreaded words “recurrent lymphoma.” This was the consensus view of two teaching hospitals and I didn't feel I had the energy to do it all again. Straight after one of my hospital appointments I went to see my healer and she told me that it wasn't recurrent lymphoma and I believed her conviction. As it turned out, it wasn't.

Complementary medicine does exactly what it says: complements conventional medicine which we know has so many limitations. It can give you that edge and sometimes that's what you need to survive.