INSPIRING HISTORY ABOUT WOMEN RECOVERED FROM THE BREAST CANCER PREVENTION: SECOND STORY

Zoe Lindgren's story-Listening to Zoe tell her story I became very aware of the excitement in her voice as she got to the turning point in her life. She was having a blood transfusion, needed because her red blood cell count had plummeted after chemotherapy, when 'The clouds parted and I realized that I must take charge, must make what I was going through a positive experience and learn something from it all'

Zoe's story began when she was diagnosed with breast cancer when six months pregnant in 1988 at the age of thirty-one. She already had a nine-month-old son, and eventually her daughter was induced about six weeks early. It had been suggested that she have a termination - which she refused - and she was given a partial mastectomy, with lymph node clearance, while pregnant. Radiotherapy was postponed until after the birth. Zoe's mother died of breast cancer in 1990 and it is difficult to understand the kind of mixed emotions and pressures that accompanied her own experience with the disease at such a vulnerable point in her life.

The next dramatic turn of events came when Zoe was told, in 1991, that she had metastases in her lungs, for which she needed chemotherapy.

From day one Zoe threw herself into the business of getting well, what she describes as a 'healing journey'. As the years progressed she learned more and more about what worked for her and used a number of disciplines alongside her hospital treatment - diet, supplements, acupuncture (which helped to normalize her red blood cell count), meditation, visualization, reflexology and progesterone cream. The day she was informed of her breast cancer she became a vegetarian - 'I think I had always been looking for an excuse to do so.' Zoe attended the Bristol Cancer Help Centre and discovered the power of healing foods including raw foods, soya, and spices such as ginger and garlic. She also started a regime of supplemented nutrients, including high doses of beta-carotene, vitamin N and other antioxidants. The hospital also put her on Tamoxifen, and Zoe has used progesterone cream which offset the resultant menopausal problems and restored her well-being. After her fourth chemotherapy for the lung metastases Zoe went on holiday to New York with her husband, and with no children and the opportunity to think about other things they really enjoyed themselves. On her return she began to work for the same architectural practice as her husband (they are both architects). She felt that the holiday helped to make a shift in her thinking and to normalize her life. Then came the payoff - she was told that no more cancer was showing in her lungs. 'I felt I had conquered the disease.'

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Cancer