today we have a guest blog. this is a letter I got from a friend, and it was so moving I thought I would share it. Yes she said OK. It really contains some food for thought (pun intended) about what we eat and the problems it can cause.

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Hi Doss,

Well, many thanks for the link to your blog.....yes, it made me weep a bit....I have nothing like your problems, but I know the fear and tears in a small way because there was a definite suspicion that my 'fibroid' might have been a leiomyosarcoma because of my age (I'm hitting the big five-oh) and coupled with the unusual fact that the tumour grew from something the size of a pea to something the size of a melon all in a year. Gynaecologists said I was too young to have a sarcoma (they would, wouldn't they?) My gp said not so. I wasn't on HRT, so he was suspicious.... So I waited. And waited.

Like you, I read online endlessly and sure enough, the leiomyos peak around 50. The perimenopause sarcoma, they are called. Deadly, no cure, unresponsive to any treatment, fast metastasising, and the average life expectancy upon post-hysterctomy diagnosis was about a year. Two percent of intramural fibroids in women at peak age for sarcoma, turn out to be leimyosarcoma. The age incidence is from 45 to 55. I feared the worst. I knew my own oestrogen was crapping out beause of the usual menopause
symptoms of drying skin, etc, though I wasn't yet post menopausal. So where was the big oestrogen whack coming from to give such a spurt to a fibroid at my age? - they being oestrogen/progesterone dependant? I couldn't see that it could be anything other than a sarcoma, I reasoned. Every new symptom seemed to confirm it, though I knew that the symptoms were identical in the main to those of a fibroid. My gp even told me what to expect if I were to end up having a Wertheim's hysterectomy and that he would refer me to an
oncogynaecologist immediately it was necessary.

So I cried. Like you, I was alone with it. I joined a gyncancer list. I joined Exit, the voluntary euthanasia society (I had no intention of dying in pain), I made a will, I gave away many of my books and things to reduce the litter I would leave behind me so my husband would have less mess to sort out. I spent weeks delivering clothes and such like to charitable organisations for cats in my town.....they thought I was wonderful (the people, not the cats). Little did they know. I hugged my old cat and wept into his fur, to his distress. He meowed at me. He has since died anyway - he was ancient at 20. What an age for a cat. I wished I was him. I also
hoped he would die before me because he was a dependent creature in his advanced years, and had become timid through going deaf. He was like a little old man. I feared for him on his own with my husband at work. The cat followed me around and would copy my actions. Copycat. Lol. That was so true of him sometimes.

I worried about my garden and what would become of it, since my husband doesn't do it. I wondered how he would cope with a good diet, knowing how sloppy he is over cooking for himself. P___ and I discussed palliative care and nursing homes.....I asked him if he would sell our bungalow afterwards and that made *him* cry. I wrote a farewell note for my website. I wished I could have finished it, etc. I began a farewell letter to my husband thanking him for being a nice person.....After all those weeks of wallowing I felt better.

God, this is morbid. But it's also true.

So it was a fibroid after all, it's growth spurt probably caused by diary oestrogen and my weight gain at the time. Just enough to send it haywire. White fat is a good producer of oestrogen too. I was big on milk and yoghurt and cheese and cream...

Anyhoo, months before my operation, working on the assumption that I could do something constructive about things, I reduced my dairy diet and increased my consumption of organic everything - veg, fruit, some soya (it has it's own drawback when used as a large part of your diet), cut down on oestrogen-packed chicken and beef, ate more fish a shellfish. Hm. I lost 20 pounds before I had my hyst, and have lost another 7 since, Back to my old weight now, which is encouraging.

What I'm getting at is simply that gyn cancers (ovary, womb), breast cancers - and prostate too, it's believed - are heavily influenced by dietary oestrogen and environmental oestrogens - it is fed to cattle and chickens certainly, to fatten them cheaply and give cows a high milk yield....so we live in an oestrogen dominanant world. You no doubt know this. I can't imagine your not knowing by now. I belong to a hysterectomy list too, and women on it have attempted successfully to control all kinds of gyn symptoms by dropping dairy foods from their diet and going off the pill. Drastic. I read of a woman who sent her own ovarian cancer into recession by stopping
HRT and going strictly vegan. It had nothing to feed on any more. I read of women ridding themselves of their advanced breast cancer by dropping dairy food and going organic too - organic veg has reduced levels of pcbs and dioxins - some common pesticides mimic oestrogen in the human body. Blah blah blah. I could go on forever.

I'm not recommending you do anything like this. You'll work out your own recovery, but it's food (no pun intended) for thought. But it's never too late to couple your own self-help with your consultant's treatment and see how you get on. You've nothing to lose. I've read a couple of books on controlling cancer by diet, and they make absolute sense to me - without getting too faddy about things, from my own pov. I try not to get carried away.

Please don't feel I'm preaching at you! That's not my intention, and forgive me if I'm only pointing out the obvious to you - I don't know if you still have ovaries or if they went at the same time as your fibroids - I know you don't need ovaries to get ovarian cancer, though. And a diet rethink is time consuming and costly, and then you have to go search for the foods you want.

You are brave in telling your friends and family about your cancer. I've told no family member about my hysterctomy - don't know why really. I did tell a couple of close friends, but that's all. But I'm sure you'll use their support as much as you need to. It's a big help. When I was worried about sarcoma, my husband's friend J____, who's gay, was very kind in that he'd phone me a couple of times a week to see how I was doing. I did appreciate that.

Hope this hasn't come over as a rant, Doss! I mean well. I daresay once you're home from your surgery you'll be planning what you intend to do for your immediate future. Let me know how you get on, and lay in plenty of vitamin and mineral supplements for getting over your chemo!

hugs and kisses,

S.

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- posted by dossier @ 12:34:00 PM