Why I Chose to do Chemotherapy

So here's the deal. I'm not going to cite all the research. I'll only give you my statistics for a cure rate of my particular cancer. The thing is, decisions about treatment come down to feelings. After you've done all the research, spoken with multiple healing practitioners (conventional and alternative), read many books -- all those head-related things -- your decision comes down to your heart and what feels right for you. You meditate, pray, consult with the trees, the angels. You ask the universe for a sign (and get it). You sleep on it. Then you make a choice and move forward. Of course if you're like me, you revisit your decision and question again. And again. Especially when it feels like you're dying inside and everything feels all wrong about doing chemotherapy. 

"Big medicine." This is how I describe chemotherapy to my two-year-old son. 

After my mastectomy and axillary lymph node dissection, I was given a 50% chance of recurrence had I done no further conventional treatment. With hormone therapy and chemotherapy, that figure dropped to 20%. In other words, I now have an 80% chance of never having cancer again. 

Chemotherapy was one of my hugest fears related to having cancer. It is the one thing I wanted to avoid (probably why I needed to face it!). It goes so far against how I want to treat my body. It is the ugly thing that shows the world that I have cancer and am ill (Crazy! I am not sick!). But I chose to include chemotherapy in my healing treatment menagerie because I want to do everything I can to prevent recurrence. It is not the only treatment I am using, however, to create a healthy, whole me. It may have the biggest teeth, but I firmly believe that for my cancer, it is the combination of conventional and alternative traditional medicine that is the most powerful. 

How do you feel about chemotherapy? Did you know that Taxol (one of the three chemotherapy drugs I have taken) comes from the Pacific Northwest Yew tree bark?