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

Sue Pembrey's story-'Looking back, my experience of cancer has acted as a great bridge between my old life, working with orthodox medicine for thirty-three years as a nurse in the NHS, and a new one which is embracing wider approaches to health and healing. I retired from full-time nursing at the age of fifty-two (in 1994), having nursed many patients with breast cancer. I discovered my own just two weeks later. Suddenly I was on the other side.

'The whole experience was, at one level, excellent. I felt safe and well cared for; the staff were competent, kind, happy to provide information and supportive when I did not take their advice, for example, not taking Tamoxifen. But inside the good experience and outcome is a more complicated personal story which is about my own responsibility for healing and

maintaining good health. The diagnosis of cancer presented a challenge; how was I going to protect my body and delicate healing mechanisms from the assaults of surgery, radiotherapy and possibly chemotherapy? Alternative therapies seemed too extreme; I trusted surgery but felt anxious that the assault on the enemy, which is how Western medicine deals with breast cancer, would over-ride my own healing resources. I did not see the cancer as an enemy but as a messenger.

'What happened next helped me trust more, that the answers would come if I remained open. The day after diagnosis I was struck down with flu. A dear friend who is an orthodox doctor and scientist, and also has some homeopathic training, came to see me. He immediately gave me homeopathic remedies which had amazingly good effects within hours. This integrated physician also gave me remedies that protected my body against harm: such as Arnica to prevent or reduce braising at the time of surgery, and X-ray and Radium to protect against the ill-effects of radiotherapy. These remedies really worked for me.

Excellent nutrition has also played a vital part in this strengthening of my immune system. Giving up milk encouraged me to eat soya instead. Soya is probably the single most important food that women with breast cancer, or other hormone-dependent cancers, can take. I eat a wide range of natural foods, organic where possible, as pesticides, fungicides ides and herbicides are implicated in the big rise in breast cancer. I try to maintain a balance between raw and cooked foods and to take as many essential nutrients as possible as food, although some supplements such as vitamin N are necessary. For me, the theory of oestrogen dominance developed by Dr John Lee from twenty years of clinical observation makes the most sense. I take progesterone as there is a family history of heart disease and osteoporosis and I have a low bone mineral density. I feel very well on it - though it has not helped my hot flushes! - but my breasts are much smoother, a point noted by the surgeon.'

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Cancer