Listen
to Lily share a cancer experience in her own words. (456 K .au
file)
Listen
to Lily share a cancer experience in her own words. (456 K .au
file)
Lily was 49 years old when she learned that the lump she had found in her breast was cancerous. Nothing about her life style or her general health made her suspect that she might have breast cancer. Now, almost 4 years later, she is active in helping other women deal with cancer.
Lily found a lump during a breast self exam and notified her health care provider. She was surprised to discover that she had cancer. Follow-up tests showed that the cancer had not spread to other parts of her body.
Lily¹s mascetomy was followed by chemotherapy. She had to deal with the fears of just what chemotherapy would do to her body. Lily was able to adapt to the chemo routine and was even able to find humor in trying to adjust to her wig.
Exercises, supportive people and a familiar routine all helped in Lily's recovery. Going back to work part time enabled her to get on with her life and feel worthwhile. She did not want to sit at home and do nothing.
Lily's Introduction: Why me?
I quit eating red meat. I was eating lot of vegetables, alot of
fruit. I walk every day. That's why I was so, hospital make a
mistake, you know that? And he came back, tell me, Lily, you got a
cancer. So, whew, you know what? All the energy from your body just
whew, all gone. That's how I felt. "Why?" I said, "why now? Why now?"
And there was a drug dealer, there was a criminal. They never got
cancer. Why do I get cancer? I got so mad.
Lily's Introduction: My husband was impatient
He asked the doctor, "Why do you have to go through all this
testing? Have surgery right now, right now! Don't even wait!" But the
doctor won't do it, from what I understand. So, I really have to ask
anybody who has any doubt about the lump they have, you have to
insist the doctor go further studies.
Lily's Introduction: I don't wait anymore
I feel I started my second life and I'm going to enjoy it more. A
lot of things important to me before my cancer. Now its oh, let it
go. The sky is not going to fall. Well, so what if the sky fall? The
ground is going to hold it up, not me. I'm not going to hold it up.
It's okay, you know. You know, small things. Sometimes you say, hey,
I need this onion for my dish, you know. Forget get it. Without onion
I can still cook. Enjoy every minute is the important thing, you
know. And I wanted to learn ice skating because, why not? When I see
something I like, I buy it. I don't wait anymore. If I want to take a
vacation, I say let's go take a vacation. Don't wait.
Lily's Introduction: I thought it would take two weeks
I say, two weeks, okay. Just give me two weeks. I'll be back. It
takes a couple of days. At most I would be hospital in a week, and
then I rest up another week at home, then I'm coming back, in two
weeks. I didn't know anything about chemotherapy. And it was the
operation, cut, that's all of it. That's done. Well, it's not that
simple.
Lily's Introduction: Everyone should self-check
So I wasn't afraid to talk about it. I talked to everybody. I say
"go have it checked." I mean, mammogram number one. Number two,
self-checking every month and the best time to do it is after your
period - because the breast is soft. In the shower with some soap you
can check. That's how I found mine. The doctor didn't find it. So, do
self-checking. Definitely, okay.
Lily's Introduction: I wanted to help others
I was down when I heard the news about cancer, and then I was
angry, then I accepted. Once I said that, I wanted to help other
people. I volunteer in American Cancer Society. I say "I can help." I
speak Japanese, I speak Chinese, I speak Cantonese, Indo-Chinese
style, I speak three different dialects and I speak Japanese. So I
say if you have cancer patients from those areas, I can translate. I
can do whatever I can to help them, to talk to them.
Return
to Lily's Outline
Lily's Diagnosis: Could it be a cyst?
I had a mammogram in spring, in April and nothing showed up. Then
six months later, in October, I found a lump, pretty big lump, too.
So, I went to my doctor right away and he took another mammogram.
Nothing. So he said well let's go for ultrasound. He said it may be a
cyst, okay. Because cancer doesn't grow that fast, and the last
mammogram was in the spring, and this is only six months, that it
can't grow that fast, from zero to that big. So, he said it could be
a cyst, so ultrasound can tell you it is a cyst or not. That's all
ultrasound can do. So ultrasound came out, said no, it's not a cyst.
So okay. The last method to find out what is a biopsy.
Lily's Diagnosis: He told my husband first
He said well I'm going to remove that - do a biopsy. So, on the
operation table, I'm still awake. They don't numb me, the whole body,
just locally because small cut. Then I say "Where did you take it
out?" He said, "No I didn't take it out." I said "Why not." He said
"Well, it's too big but I cut a slice off and I sent it to the lab."
So they call freezing something. And he said we will hear from the
lab soon. So five minutes later the lab called and he talked to them
on the phone and when he hung up the phone he said "I'm going to..."
--well, he finished sewing me up already because he sent a piece to
the lab. He said let's go out and I'll talk to your husband. Oh, I
said, fine. I thought, you know, nothing maybe. So he didn't dare to
tell me because he didn't know how I would react. He thought maybe I
was afraid or something. So he went and talked to my husband. He told
my husband the news and then my husband came up to me and said,
"Lily, you've got cancer." I said, "What? I can't believe it." I just
come out of some blue. I wasn't sick, I didn't feel anything, no
pain, nothing.
Lily's Diagnosis: Waiting was torture
They said "We know you have a cancer now. We're going to have a
modified mastectomy." But we still wanted to know if the cancer has
spread to you liver, or your lungs, and to your bones. So they to do
liver scan, bone scan, and x-ray. Everything came out negative, then
they will do surgery on me. That's another torture, you wait. One
came back. Oh, good, nothing there. Okay, waited for two more to
come. So this waiting period is awful. Now what happens if it already
spread to the bone? You really say "sayonara" this time. But it came
out all negative.
Lily's Diagnosis: They took 17 lymph nodes
They take the lymph nodes out to find out how far your cancer got,
if the lymph nodes are full of cancer. Every one they took out has
cancer, that means you're pretty late stage and they give you a
different dosage of chemotherapy. Mine was sterile. I was lucky. That
took seventeen out, none of them had cancer. So it didn't spread to
the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are the first station they go, the first
stop they will spread to. So that's good news.
Return
to Lily's Outline
Lily's Treatment: Deciding what I wanted
I had a modified mastectomy. And my breast wasn't that big to
start and the doctor said we could remove the tumor out and an inch
around it, all the way around it, and then not much left. Or, remove
the whole breast. I said remove the whole thing. I don't want
anything left there. So remove the whole thing.
Lily's Treatment: Side effects are scary
I take chemotherapy. The doctor told me you will have hair fall
off, and you might have these side effects. They have a booklet for
you to read. When you read those side effects, oh, very scary, but
you have to go through that to prevent any cancer cell left in you
body. And the medicine doesn't recognize good cells or bad cells,
they just kill. So they're talking about new methods. Genetic therapy
changes your genes or boosts up your immune system. Chemotherapy
looks very primitive compared to those new methods. So I hope that
researchers will go that direction so we don't have to suffer that
much as a patient.
Lily's Treatment: Six months of chemotherapy
Chemotherapy you have every other week. You take chemotherapy for
six months. So that's twelve treatments. I usually get them on Friday
so I can rest Saturday, Sunday, and go back to work on Monday. So
first week, Friday get shot and they give me a break, and then third
week go back to the clinic and get a second shot and then every month
like that. Now sometimes when my white blood cells go down too low,
they turn me down. They say, Lily, come back next week. You have to
have strong enough white blood cells to take that medicine. But I was
turned away just once and I said "What can I do to boost up my white
blood cells?" Nothing you can do, it just builds by itself.
Lily's Treatment: I called myself "Bionic Woman"
So I was in the hospital five days and I came home and I started
chemo in November. I went through the IV. I had an implant device put
in. They will poke there; everything goes through that and I call
myself a bionic woman because I have this metal device there. So I
about an hour and I just lay there and dose off. And I was usually
after treatment, I keep sleeping for about twelve hours. And then the
medicine was great, not very much side effect because they give you
anti-vomit, anti-dizziness, all these anti- medicines to prevent
those side effects, so that was pretty good.
Lily's Treatment: A wig helped
I got one wig and nobody knew that was my wig. I have to prove to
them that's my wig. One day I was in the car. I was coming out from a
friend's house. They were by the door seeing me off. And then by
accident, I hit my head, my wig came off. They were in shock. Lily
look quite different without the wig. I thought it was funny. You
have to take time to put it on, not in a hurry. And winter was great,
just like wearing a hat, keep your head warm. And this is all my new
hair, my own hair. It came out really nice.
Return
to Lily's Outline
Lily's Recovery: No pain from the mastectomy
Well, one good thing about a mastectomy is it has no pain because
it cuts across here, a long cut, and that broke all the nerves there.
So any other operation you will have pain, right? After the
operation, but on the breast there's no pain. That was blessing. I
mean, that was really nice.
Lily's Recovery: I decided against reconstruction
I use a prosthesis. "Should I do a reconstruction because they can
do it at the same time when they take out the tumor?" I asked my
husband and he said I don't care how many breasts you have, two, or
three, or one. I said "Okay, fine then. I just won't do it." Because
I mean, just for looks you cannot tell what's a prosthesis, right? I
think another thing is the philosophy between east and west. The west
society you can see all the advertisements, the girls wear swimming
suits, you know. You have to have this sex appeal. The Orientals
think different. Really, the function of breasts is to nurse the
baby, so it didn't bother me at all. I think it might bother some
American women.
Lily's Recovery: Support is important
My friend, she calls herself twenty/twenty because she had twenty
lymph nodes and all twenty had a cancer cell. And we call each other
every day. We compare the notes. "How do you feel, how was your
chemo?" And we say, "Oh, my fingernails are turning black. How about
your fingernails?" "Oh, yeah, mine, too." I think the female support
is very important. You both have the same feeling, went through the
same experience. But my husband was very supportive, and he was doing
a lot of reading, asking a lot of questions. He knows more than I do
now about the drug I was taking for chemotherapy and about how to
recover, what to eat, what not to eat. He won't let me have any ice
cream.
Lily's Recovery: I learned about lymph nodes
Lymph nodes, I saw not the real thing, but I saw the picture. Its
like grapes, a whole bunch of them connected together. That's lymph
nodes. So they remove the lymph nodes. So if you get cut, nothing
will come out to fight germs. We have other lymph nodes. The other
lymph nodes will help, but it comes slow so they say wear gloves when
you do things. Don't get cut. Even for too much blood pressure, they
advise me to use the other hand, not this one, so be careful with
this side.
Lily's Recovery: I exercise to relax
They give me exercises, but I found it wasn't that helpful. I did
Tai Chi. I took Tai Chi last time before, so I knew how to do Tai Chi
so I was doing that every day. Chi Gong relax your muscles, relax
everything from top of your head to the toe. When you're relaxed,
everything flows easier in your body. That's the purpose of Chi Gong.
When you're tight its not good for your body, so that helped me.
Lily's Recovery: I worked 4 hours a day
So I was in the hospital five days and I came home. On November 4
I checked out of the hospital, my birthday. January 1, I went back to
work. I said "I don't want to stay home." School was nicer. They
asked me, they say you can work part-time, so I was working just
part-time. I wasn't teaching though. I was taking care of the
internship and preparing new courses, putting in four hours a day. I
could take off because I saved up a lot of vacation time and sick
leave, everything. I figure if I work, the day goes by faster.
There's no sense to sit home, you know.
Return
to Lily's Outline
up
to Contents of this Page