dear jackie,
your doctors let your down by not finding the cancer sooner. that is malpractice. that is quite sad.
you have chosen a dangerous path. you are only going to have radiotherapy, you have declined chemotherapy, and you are putting your faith and life in the hands of con artists who are looking to only to sell you their products. they have done a good job of that. you seem totally brainwashed.
During the year before you were diagnosed, we know that the breast cancer cells spread to 22 lymph nodes. That is a lot of lymph nodes. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that one or more cancer cell slipped past a lymph node and spread to your brain, lungs, or liver. they had a year to do it. that is a long time. if most of the lymph nodes were over-run with cancer, their ability to prevent more cancer cells from slipping through would be impaired. think about it.
These microscopic cancer cells are growing at the same rate that your initial cancer grew. Since you did not describe a cancer the size of a baseball after a year of growth, I would guess your cancer cells are growing slowly. So any cancer cells that spread to the brain, lungs, or liver have developed by now only into a small nest of cells the size of the head of a pin. Still too small to be seen by PET scan which cannot see things smaller than the size of a marble.
You have chosen radiation. They are not going to radiate your brain, lungs, or liver. They are not going to radiate anything except your chest and armpit. Any cancer cells outside this small area are not going to be affected by the radiation and will continue to grow unchecked.
The reason for the chemotherapy that you refused is to clean up rogue cancer cells in places that are not radiated, such as the brain, lungs, and liver. (don't even think about radiating things like the liver - radiation would destroy the liver completely before killing the cancer cells.)
If there are any cancer cells left in your chest or armpit, they may be killed by the radiation. You have chosen to not take the chemo to kill cancer cells that may be elsewhere. The alternative products you mentioned have no value whatsoever. In fact, since they are giving you a false sense of hope, perhaps your decision to refuse chemotherapy was in part supported by your feeling that the alternative products might accomplish the same thing as the chemotherapy, but in a less toxic way, which they will not, for they are worthless and do nothing.
basically, you are young and ignorant, and easily fooled by con artists. everyone was young and ignorant once. it is not a crime. but you are risking you life on something that does not work.
your primary care doctor is an idiot for not picking up on the cancer sooner. anyone recommended by an idiot is an idiot, so the oncologist you are seeing is an idiot until proven otherwise. so you need to ditch them both.
what you need to do: get a second opinion from a top cancer center. where do you live? at the bottom of this post is a link to the top 50 cancer centers in the country, and i have listed the top 10 in this reply as well. they all have web sites and you can make an appointment on their web sites or by phone, and they all have appointment phone lines with the numbers listed on the web sites. have an open mind, listen to what they say, do not be afraid to ask questions, take a close friend or a parent to listen to them as well, and everyone take notes so you can review later things that were said. bring pads of paper and pens. make a list of questions for the doctor.
commentary: you can be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams if you sue the well meaning moron that missed your cancer for a year. picture in your mind seeing a poor young female with cancer at one table, and an old rich doctor who missed diagnosing it for a YEAR at the other table. pretend you were a juror. even before hearing the facts of the case, who would YOU award the money to? yes, that is how it works. even if there was good reason to have missed the diagnosis, jurors would not care. they wish to take the money from the faceless rich malpractice insurance company, and give it to the poor girl with the cancer. you and your lawyer would easily walk out of there with many many millions of dollars (unless you live in wisconsin, indiana, south carolina, or a few other states with intelligent tort reform laws).
25 ways to spot Quackery:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/spotquack. How Quackery Sells:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/quacksell. How Quackery Harms Cancer Patients:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/harmquack. ^^
this link has a story of a woman who
died from treating her breast cancer
with natural products. read it.
Unfortunately, there are many people who make unfounded claims so they may profit from the misfortune of others. This is the case with mangosteen juice and many other natural products. In my opinion, the single largest advance in medicine in the last hundred years isn't vaccines or antibiotics, it is the randomized clinical trial. A randomized trial is the only way to determine whether or not a treatment is effective. Somebody stating "this treatment worked for me" is what is known as 'testimonial evidence' and is statistically invalid. I urge you to view unproven treatments with a high degree of suspicion and thoroughly investigate the scientific basis of those claims. Good luck.
here they are. if someplace is close-by, go there. if it means a plane ride to any of them, might as well take a plane ride to #1 or #2.
TOP 50 BEST *CANCER* CENTERS 2006
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-hospitals/rankings/ 1. Memorial Sloan - Kettering Cancer Center, New York
2. University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
4. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
5. Dana - Farber Cancer Institute, Boston
6. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle
7. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
8. University of Chicago Hospitals
9. UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
10. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center