Naturopathic Oncology

My lates Huff Po piece published today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-rothenberg-nd/naturopathic-oncology_b_4625768.html

Love & light,

AMY

I Am Being Carried Right Along

I have not written this last week because I was SICK!  Like real sick, not cancer sick! Had a nasty cold & cough and spent 4 days slithering from the bed to one couch or another back to bed. Felt good to be SICK!! And now, I’m better and good to go. Paul accompanied me to see the plastic surgeon today and I got to pick out my new boobs!

Now there’s a sentence I never would have imagined writing.

A dear friend asked me what I need most right now and I said what’s working for me is lots of short little emails where I know you are thinking about me & sending me +++thoughts,  but such that I do not necessarily need to reply! Least interested in talking by phone. Of course, I love an old fashioned note or card (AND I know a lot of you have received hand made cards from me over the years  but don’t worry—I have ZERO expectation that this illness- even in me- is going to get you to pull out the construction paper, or make a collage or to all of a sudden find your box of colored pencils!) And while I'm saying what I  love, I also want to say how amazing Paul is, steady, smart, funny and unflappable as usual, keep him right in your prayers too!

Surgery is slated for 2/4/14. I am feeling happy, clear, strong, calm and ready to roll. I will be in the hospital for two days and then home recuperating for some weeks. Still requesting this prayer: May Amy have negative nodes & smooth sailing. 

I am a very impressionable person gal and take words to heart, so I have asked the anesthesiologist nurse to say this to me each hour during the (four hour) operation. Amy! You’re doing beautifully & you will have an uneventful and full recovery. Apparently they believe in this stuff now- at long last! 

Thank you for all your love & sweet thoughts & blessings, I am being carried right along.

Love & light,

AMY

Bittersweet

Bittersweet was hanging at rakish angles all over the paths I walked today. It’s the perfect word for something in my world at the moment. Bitter because, really, who wants, as my kids used to say, stoooopid cancer!

Sweet because having cancer has given me the opportunity to be in touch from so many people I love. And now among the quotes, songs, cards, gifts, the words & hugs of encouragement and support, well, I find so many different kinds of sweet.  The other thing about bittersweet is that it adds color to the drabby winter landscape and reminds me that the colors of spring are not too far off!

I love your recommended book titles (skip the mysteries & sci fi!) & funny movies or TV series on your must see list (I should warn you, in my small-minded way, favorite genres are a baseball movie or a romantic comedy—in other words, nothing heavy, sad, scary, fast moving, action-filled, violent, loud or explicit- oh & also not a fan of animation……what’s left you might ask?!)  Keep ‘em coming; apparently I am going to have some time on my hands. ‘Til then (surgery date: 2/4/14), I am doing life & enjoying it as I usually do: working some, hanging out with Paul, chatting with the kids, writing, noodling around my art room, seeing friends, going to board meetings, dancing….

And lastly, sometimes I worry that you are worried about me, which makes me feel badly. I believe strongly that when I send love, healing thoughts or prayers --a longstanding habit of mine-- that all that positivity first moves through me. So I trust the same is true for you and that you are benefiting in all kinds of ways. I am also linking all the waves of goodness together with a clear intention that it is amplified or magnified on some cosmic channel & coming your way. So, stay tuned folks!

Love & light,

AMY

Perennial Harvest on Middle Street

On my walk yesterday through the fields and meadows across from my house, I was mesmerized by the way the long grasses were matted down in swirling patterns on the soft damp ground. Birds were going bananas in the warm January sunshine. When I got back to the road, my favorite garbage truck was passing by. The trash collector, a ruddy, robust woman at that job for decades, I had not seen in several years. I remember bringing my brand new babies to the end of the driveway on trash day, holding them up... 3 kids/ 4 years, it was like a perennial harvest on Middle Street. Today she slowed down to wave; and when she drove away...call me nuts, but here's what I thought: Wow, that nice lady is taking away all the negativity associated with this cancer. 

Ta-ta, Ta-ta!! 

I am feeling all your love and prayers, trying to stay open to it all. 

Love & light,

AMY

Apron On!

I was taking out the compost this morning and coming back in off the deck, when I found this perfectly sculpted moss-integrated bird's nest right by the door. I cannot say it was there on my way out.  

And not 100% clear where it came from, i.e., there are no obvious trees nearby, though perhaps the gutter area? Having spent the better part of the morning making soup, putting up yogurt, stirring homemade applesauce. I realized this little omen was my overt permission to fully embrace & relish some nesting time as I await treatment. I might well have a loose screw here, but am re-framing this whole cancer thing into an opportunity to do a whole bunch of stuff I love to do, much of which is domestic & creative and well, truth be told, I find quite satisfying. I always thought I'd make a superior housewife in an old fashioned kind of way. Apron on!

Love & light,

AMY

Say Goodbye to the Girls

As Paul is fond of saying whenever we have an issue or problem or challenge, or even just a big project for work or around the house, borrowing here from our scuba diving adventures, we need to plan the dive & dive the plan. Love this motto, because I’m a do-er and as long as I have a plan, I am good to go. All this to say, I now have an excellent plan in place for treatment and blasting this cancer to smithereens.

Brief warning here: this rest of this email might best be filed under TMI.

If in the next three weeks we happen to meet, say goodbye to the girls!

After consultations with the big brains at MGH yesterday, I have opted for an “Angelia Jolie.” Sadly, my family history is so riddled with CA and having had it once puts me at even more risk for another installment. I say- Give me some peace of mind!--which is what removing the breasts will do. I do not need this extensive surgery because this is an aggressive cancer, it is not; I am choosing this because I can.

I will most likely use chemo—and unless the tissue taken shows something unexpectedly bad, I can forego radiation. Amazing how a bit kernel of some good news wrapped up inside a whole boatload of bad news lifts the spirit!

I am going to have immediate reconstruction, which has come a very long way, i.e. no chest expanders, underlying muscles left in good shape and no added risk of anything related to cancer down the road.

Read: symmetrical, firm boobs that defy gravity!

Finally!

They will be smaller, as Paul like to say,  for an athletic build. May help the ballroom dancing, no more “boobing” people, especially if I am leading. Jonah, our son who works for the Chicago Bulls & the WNBA Chicago Sky, upon hearing this, did not miss a beat, promised me a WNBA Chicago Sky (i.e. state of the art, engineered) sports bra. Boy the goodies going along with this diagnosis are plentiful!

Bottom line is, my self image & self esteem are, as you know, top of the line,  and not at all wrapped up in my chest area.  I am lucky that way.

This dive will start 3 weeks from today or maybe sooner if my charming personality and gift-bearing nature rubbed off on the scheduler at MGH! As crazy as this sounds especially with my family history & even profession, I love a hospital, I love meeting new people, love the opportunity to find out about people’s lives and what makes them tick. So, all kinds of chances to interface with people I would otherwise never have met.

I am feeling all your love & all your prayers. They matter and they work. Keep it coming, And if you want a very specific prayer to put out to whatever god or energy you’re working with du jour it can be:

“Let Amy have all negative nodes & smooth sailing"

Love & light,

AMY

From Another Planet

Paul & I are off to Boston today for our visit at Mass General Hospital. Before we left I packed all kinds of gifts--a set of orgami boxes covering a strings of lights that I made, special chocolates, my (soon to be) famous dried pears, thank you notes, for all the people who have already helped us at Mass General. Paul says I look like I'm heading to a holiday party.

I am finding a pinch of denial and a spot of humor powerful medicine. 

Sometimes Paul looks at me like I am really from another planet. That said, I am pretty sure that's what he liked about me in the first place. :)

Should have a plan of action in the coming days.

Love & light,
Amy

A Sign of Spring and Good Things to Come

Today I had breakfast with a robin. Winterberry branches are in my flower boxes right outside the kitchen table and there sat a fat robin, puffed up in the chest for warmth against the frosty morning, leaning down and yanking these hard crimson balls, which by the way, I never knew were edible, and seemingly swallowing wholesale. And this just feet away from the premium bird seed, hanging in a feeder. Let's hear it for eating "local & in-season! HA!! Even though I know robins have been staying around these past winters, unlike years past, I find it heartening, a sign of spring and good things to come. I swear it was winking at me through the window pane.

Information gathered yesterday with docs all pretty good about receptor status, cell types etc. awaiting a few more test results. Off to Boston Thursday for a 2nd opinion at MGH through dear friends there who were able to get me in to the head of BR oncology- and will likely leave that visit with a game plan, which will be very good. LET'S get this party started!

Love & light,
Amy

Love & support

The outpouring if love and support is truly lifting me in so many ways. I had about two minutes where I thought, mmm, mb I won't tell a soul, just get through it, but of course this is much better in every way conceivable.

The day has just made its ascent over mt. pollux and is pouring into my kitchen like a big bowl of sunshine. As I sit with doctors and surgeons and the rest of the helper squad today & in the coming times, I will carry your love & this sunshine with me.

Love & light,
Amy

The Wind a Bit Out of the Sails

On New Year’s Day, I found a lump in my breast, hard and large and not right. I have a strong family history in this department. I had all the diagnostic work done in the past few days, had to wait interminable amounts of time. Got the call today telling me that I have breast cancer. Looks like some months of the whole rigamarole now. I am upbeat and getting my ducks in a row, calling in all the troops for help & support. Will get through it with God's help. Still smiling, though must say, the wind a bit out of the sails.

Love & light,
AMY