This is Where My Cancer Story Begins
1) Breast lump discovery:
Life was normal until Sept 15, 2023. I believe God has been leading and revealing and helping me discover this cancer. On that Friday, I met a patient in clinic for a different reason. She showed me a breast lump that her primary care physician was working up, and I examined it as part of our work up. I don’t normally examine any breasts. I am a general internal medicine and nephrology consultant. That day, I went home, and while in the shower, I just decided to examine myself since we have some family history of breast cancer on my father’s side, but not enough to qualify for genetic testing according to government guidelines. At this time, breast cancer screening on Ontario started at age 50. I am 44.
In the shower, I found two palpable masses adjacent each other in an area of 6 cm diameter. I had also been suffering neck and back pain that I thought were just from bad posture at the computer (radiculopathy common with being in the 40’s). While common responses to fears of breast cancer include denial (could it be fibrocystic breasts? Fibroadenoma? I myself knew that with 2 discrete masses, this was probably the breast cancer that runs in my family).
That weekend, I wasn’t just nervous, I was hit with waves of sadness as I had to look at my own mortality in the context of my very young children. Given the back pain, I might even have stage 4 disease. In my line of work, stage 4 disease of any cancer usually yielded you a prognosis of 6-12 months. I had to entertain the possibility that this could be a real possibility.
Overnight, my husband and I realized that a lot of efforts and energy that we were putting into our family life, the daily grind, optimizing everything that we possibly could, earning money/skills, or our own pursuits – were not the things that God wanted us to spend or want. What was important instead, if I was going to die soon, is that the Lord wanted us to live differently. Jesus wanted us to be generous to others. He wanted us to forgive. He wanted us to love others, as we loved ourselves.
We repented. All the value that we placed on vain good and neutral things evaporated as I faced my own mortality. We immediately changed our perspective and values to align with what God was asking of us. No matter how long we have left – long or short – we will put our focus back on Jesus. We had been a bit adrift the last few years, and losing purpose. The months preceding this even had me wondering, after all the miracles that we walked through with our children alive, that we would blend back into mundane secular ways of living for ourselves that we saw everyone else in church and society doing.
I also realized how strange and silly that it seemed that we thought we would live long lives when people that we knew died young all of the time. The only difference with cancer is that you are always aware of that mortality, rather than with sudden death from infection or heart attack or motor vehicle accident, while very shocking, doesn’t affect how we live or feel everyday. We knew several Christians who died of cancer in their 30’s. We know a Christian who died in their sleep, leaving her newborn and husband behind. We know other Christians who live with cancer in their 40’s. Our expectation of longevity should not dictate how we live for Christ – it should be the same, whether that time is long or short.
Something that I learned from the Lord in my 20’s is that only God can dictate when we live and when we die. This is something very clear to me, as I have known that my father walk away from a car accident on the 401 with no injury during my childhood that usually would kill 100% of people in that situation (which was impossible – another miracle – miracles were quite common for us growing up because the conditions/stuff that my family went through were pretty adverse too). From that story, I understood from God that, you really can’t go home to Jesus until you are finished doing everything that God has asked you to do. If you’re not done, you can’t/won’t die. This is a general rule, really, and I saw it applied when I encountered death in others in my church life in adulthood.
That weekend after discovering the breast mass, I was anxious for myself and my family. I was sad because it might mean that I might die with high probability. Women who get breast cancer in their 40’s usually have advanced stage and it’s usually more aggressive. I’m a doctor. I really know the stats.
I was super sad at the implications for my young children, if I die in the next 1-3 years. I’m not like other mothers who might say that my children need me to be alive in their prayer petitions. I am not arrogant enough to say to God that my children need me to be alive. Because the truth is, they don’t need me, because Jesus Christ will take care of them NO MATTER WHAT, whatever the circumstances. They will be okay because we have Jesus. However, I did tell God that I would like to be alive to see and help them learn to follow Him, and to teach them Bible. My kids made me a gift last year for mother’s day, where they write what Mommy does best. They did not write, “doctor”, or “cooking”, but wrote instead, “teach Bible.” While I can’t say that my kids need me, when they have Jesus Himself, I would like to be there to teach my kids Bible, and how to live out the living faith in our lives – much like our parents did.
I went to God in prayer to find out just how much longer I have to live – short or long. I told him that I feel like I am only in the middle of my story. Have I really finished everything that He had asked of me in this life? Is this the time that I write the book in my head for Him too? The Bible verse that He spoke to me through was Jeremiah 30:11 RSV.
For I am with you to save you,
says the Lord;
I will make a full end of all the nations
among whom I scattered you,
but of you I will not make a full end.
I will chasten you in just measure,
and I will by no means leave you unpunished.
From this verse, I immediately knew what God was saying to me in my mind. He is going to save me from my breast cancer – this is His promise to me. But this coming year is not going to be easy, and He has forewarned me this. And in some ways, while repentant, I am also aware that we are living the consequences of some of our own neglect of God and health while we pursued vain things too. Not only this, but we have entered, what I term to my husband, “the season of the sanctifying fires.” God has jolted us awake from our slumber and stupour in floating through life that would lead to our spiritual deaths. And while what we walk through with God may be terrifying or painful, this difficulty and calamity is actually spiritually GOOD for us and our family.
I recognize that this would become another living faith experience for us, that we would never want to trade away. Most people ask God to take away the painful circumstances, not realizing that it is only walking THROUGH it with Christ beside you, that we would grow and gain spiritually eternal things that are far more valuable. We are changed and become our better selves in Christ Jesus on the other side of these challenges that we decide to surrender to Him and walk together with Him.
This is the song that God gave me with the scripture that He spoke to me through. I recognize these challenging seasons, because I have walked these terrifying paths with Him before. But each time, it is much more terrifying than the last.
2) Cancer Diagnosis:
God gave me colleagues who expedited my scans and biopsies due to professional courtesy. I was diagnosed with breast cancer the following week with referrals made. My access to oncology (for Canada) was in record time because of that.
The pathology report was really bad. I not only had breast cancer (which is quite a heterogeneous illness, wide spectrum of disease), but my type of breast cancer was the most difficult to treat, with fewest treatment options, and very aggressive high grade. I had high grade triple negative breast cancer. I had a poor prognosis on pathology, with tumour necrosis present. And that in this type of breast cancer, even if it was fully treated, tended to recur within 3 years in stage 4 disease. Medically, I knew the stats- and it was scary as I went through imaging to find out the extent of my disease. This is a really bad cancer to have, as I anxiously waited to see medical oncology for neoadjuvant chemotherapy to start. MRI breast showed necrotic core of the primary lesion (very bad, means very aggressive). Luckily PET scan showed the tumour only in the primary and one lymph node, no mets to bone or anywhere else. I was deemed stage 3B, with aggressive treatment intent for cure.
I grappled with my analytical medical knowledge about the stats and the reality over those weeks with my knowledge from God that He would heal me in the face of such dire circumstances. I am a very realistic type of person who relies on evidence. I am an ISTJ on Myers Briggs personality category. Throughout this time period, God spoke to me through the Bible with stories of people being healed often in the gospels by Jesus. I also heard through the scripture about promises to those of us who make God our refuge. The Lord gave me images that helped me have that insight too. The waves would come, but the city would not be moved. These are the ways that the Lord encouraged me as I struggled with faith in the face of conventional medical wisdom.
And one time, when I was really struggling with everything pointing to poor long term outcomes possible, He reminded me of a memory that I had forgotten nearly all of my life.
When I was in grade 4, I developed pneumonia that required hospitalization. This was in the 1980’s in Toronto. We lived in Jane-Finch area, an area of very low socioeconomic status. During that hospitalization, I was quite seriously ill, and I was not responding to the first 2 intravenous antibiotics that they tried on me. It was actually very serious, and I remember the looks of serious concern on every nurse and doctor that entered my hospital room. It is the same look I have when things are NOT working on my patient and we can’t fix the very serious problem that might lead to their death. My parents tell me that they were running out of options because the first 2 IV meds didn’t work and I wasn’t responding to antibiotics. I was 7 days into the hospitalization running high fevers still, and I looked toxic and could not move. I remember the daily bloodwork, and they kept pouring crystalloid through my IVs. So, my parents kept praying. In the end, the doctors just tried to give both IV antibiotics, and then I started responding (my parents told me this now). ((Aside: this is what doctors do when we run out of options, and we just kitchen sink it)). It doesn’t make logical sense that running the two antibiotics that I didn’t respond to for an entire week prior would work. In my parents eyes, this was a miracle. It was a bad bacterial pneumonia that took me 2 months to recover from. A memory that I long forgot, and never thought more of it too.
With this memory, God was reminding me that, “we have done this before, Betty. You were miraculously healed before, but you didn’t remember.” And in the face of dire medical circumstances, I was healed by the Lord. I didn’t die like my guarded prognosis would have dictated, but I recovered so completely that I forgot I was ever so sick in my life. God was giving me the evidence to believe in Him in that moment where I was truly struggling with the fear and the medicine that I understood so well. We did it before, so that means we can do it again with Christ. Especially because He said so and told me that He would heal me. We did it when we faced mortality at the birth of each of my children. According to modern medicine, they should either be dead or very disabled. My children are healthy because God answered prayers and we lived through the miracles that brought them into our world. God met me in my moment of struggling with faith, with exactly what I needed to hear/remember. He is the Lord of life and death. You can’t go before He says its time.
In addition to this, God sent at least 4 different people to tell me directly that they discerned through their prayers that I am not going to die of my breast cancer right now. There is more for me to do still. The Lord is not done with me yet. It aligns with what I discerned from God that first weekend, I am only half way through my story. So I will believe it is His will that He would will heal me. And we will be changed for the better in Christ Jesus through this. There are no mountain tops without valleys.
I will end this section with Psalm 23 NLT:
Even when I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will not be afraid,
for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff
protect and comfort me.
