The Healing Effects of Fudge

12/9/2023

Carol Anne Martin

610 G Street # 10

Chula Vista Ca. 91910

    (619) 424-9302

    xxxCarolMartinxxx@gmail.com

Prompts

Reedsy Prompts                                                                                     

Dear Editors,

               This is a non-fiction story for Contest #228 in which a certain food makes your character travel back in time. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I knew nothing about the disease. I think people might be interested in someone's personal experience with breast cancer, should they or someone they love find themselves in this position. Each case is indeed unique, but each case also has similarities. I have a Master's degree in Social Work (MSW) from SDSU. I worked with mentally ill adults and senior citizens for fifteen years. I also worked in a drug rehab program. I am a retired, disabled, baby boomer. I grew up in the city of Rochester, New York, and I’ve never been published. I’ve lived in San Diego County, California for about 45 years. Thank you for your interest in my story.

                                                                                                                         Sincerely,

                                                                                                                         Carol A. Martin

1935 words

The Healing Effects of Fudge

By Carol Martin

For a decade I was living a healthy lifestyle. I ate all the right foods, no added sugars, no white flour, no red meat, no pork, no drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, and no birth control pills. I didn't want to put anything into my body that could cause harm. I also had a regular exercise routine that included weight-bearing and aerobic exercises. Some people may find it hard to believe that I kept up that pace for ten years, but it's true. Part of the reason for doing this was because I was planning to have kids. However, I must admit that I wasn’t doing these things in my teens and 20s. That was over a decade of doing all the wrong things, which I will leave to the reader's imagination. As I got closer to the age of thirty I began to think about how much time I had on the planet, and if there were things I wanted to do I had better get busy.

At the age of thirty, I made big changes in my life. I returned to school, got married, and decided to have kids. Mike and I were together for eight years before we got married. Mike was the last one in his family’s bloodline and he wanted to have kids. He also wanted to please his parents, who wanted grandchildren. Mike had liver disease from drinking too much alcohol. He thought taking vitamins and exercising would counteract any damage done. I think the vitamins he took put extra stress on his liver. While he was going through a liver transplant, I was being treated for stage 2 breast Cancer. We were a sick pair and needed my mother-in-law to help us with the kids. We had three kids by then. Mike's parents were wonderful people and I was fortunate to have them in my life.

When I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer, I was resigned to it. I never could relate to people who said they fought it. I followed the path of least resistance. I was ready to meet my maker if it was God’s will. Following the path of least resistance didn’t mean I wouldn’t do treatment. I would continue to live like I always did take the next logical step and keep going. I had learned not to waste time and energy being angry. That energy could be better utilized toward maintaining my health, and too much anger is not good for anybody's health. Whining, complaining, and blaming does no good. Well, maybe I complained a little bit. Ten years of healthy living and what did I get for it - Cancer. I had thoughts of being the best-looking 40-year-old in the neighborhood. Well, that wasn't going to happen, not that it would have anyway, but it was like a type of Motivational thinking. Sometimes you need a little extra motivation to exercise and eat right. Vanity is a lot like pride, one of the seven deadly sins. I think God was saving me from myself. My attitude about healthy living changed after the diagnosis. I started eating steak and pork chops with scalloped potatoes, desserts, and whatever else (food-wise) I deprived myself of in recent years. But the truth is if I had not lived a healthy life, I would have never survived Cancer. I also give the doctors credit of course. Treatment consisted of seven weeks of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and surgery. In addition, I was supposed to take tamoxifen for five years, but I stopped taking it after three years without my doctor's approval. I felt I didn't need it anymore.

The first surgery I had was called a lumpectomy, and according to my doctor, it was something that had to be done right away. It was a fast-growing Cancer. The lump wasn't painful and I would have never known it was there if my husband had not told me. He was the one who first noticed it. After the surgery, I was still groggy, and coming out of the anesthesia when the doctor came in and told me he didn’t get it all and would have to go back in. I didn’t have much time to digest that. Soon after that, I had another surgery and they removed twelve lymph nodes. Somehow I came out on the other side without too much damage done. I didn’t expect to survive, and I thought if these were my last days I was going to make the most of it. So I ate whatever I wanted and maxed out all my credit cards, which I wouldn’t recommend doing.

My mother passed away at a young age from cervical Cancer; so I had to mother myself. When we were young, my mother occasionally made a batch of homemade fudge. There were six of us kids and we would each get one piece. It was scrumptious. I let it slowly melt in my mouth and savored every morsel knowing I wouldn't get more. So that first year after the surgery I made two batches of fudge, one for the kids and one for myself, and I gorged on it. My mother would always add a scoop of peanut butter to her recipe as did I. I don’t know how many times I made fudge that year, but suffice it to say it was frequent enough. The fudge was probably not good for my body, but it was somehow good for my mental health, and I think overall it had a healing effect. I must have done something right because I remained Cancer-free for the next fourteen years.

So after fourteen years, I found another lump this time on my right breast. Unlike the first time, this lump was quite painful. I had heard that fibroids were painful; so I thought it was a fibroid. I wasn't expecting it to be Cancer. It turned out to be a high-grade (3 of 3), aggressive breast Cancer. Interestingly, I got tested and I do not have the breast cancer gene, yet I’ve had two different types of breast cancer. I still don't know how many types of breast cancer there are. A Nurse Practitioner gave me the information and support I needed to make a difficult decision. She also gave me a cute wig. The chemotherapy this time was so strong it caused all my hair to fall out in one day. The first time I had Cancer my hair also fell out, but only gradually over several months. Even though there was a fad of young people shaving their heads, I didn’t like the look of myself bald. I wore scarves and wigs. I wasn’t afraid of dying because this was not something I could control, and I figured after you're dead you can't feel pain anymore. I believe when it's your time to go nothing can stop it. I also live my life one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time. There’s no way to know when death will come, so why worry about it? I learned from my mother how to live in the now. Chemotherapy is what frightened me. The second time I went for treatment it took all my might to turn the wheel right into the hospital parking lot. I wanted to go left, do a quick U-turn, and return home.

For the third and fourth treatments I was too weak to drive myself; I asked a friend to take me. I was expected to go through six chemotherapy treatments, and I just could not do it. There were also complications. They have you sit in a chair for several hours with an IV in your arm while they pump poison into your body. If a drug helps the body it's a medicine. If a drug harms the body, it's a poison. In this case, it was both because even though the chemotherapy kills the cancer cells, it also kills healthy cells in the body. Things haven’t changed much since great-grandma’s day. They used to cut off their body parts and give them poison. They amputated Great Grandma’s entire arm and she died soon after probably of shock. Things have improved because fewer people are dying from breast cancer, but there should still be a better way to treat cancer in this day and age.

During the third treatment, the nurse didn’t get the needle in the vein, and the solution went under my skin. After a couple of hours, I noticed my arm was swollen. My right hand and lower arm were numb. The numbing partially diminished over several months, but I still could not use my right hand due to severe pain. I couldn't even push a button on the remote control. I later went to a skilled chiropractor, who completely healed it in one treatment. It was amazing!

Before the fourth treatment, I told the doctor that the chemo was too strong for me, but he was hardcore. He said if I discontinued the treatment, the cancer would return with a vengeance, and I’d have to come back and start treatment all over again. I cried. A Nurse Practitioner, who was with us in the office timidly spoke to the doctor: “They used to only do four treatments and had success with many of the patients." The doctor cut her off and said: "Well, that's not how we do it anymore." I thought the treatment was going to kill me before the Cancer did, so armed with this information I only did the four treatments, and I’ve been Cancer-free for fifteen years. I suspect the Nurse Practitioner was in trouble with the doctor, but I had a new-found respect for Nurse practitioners and will be forever grateful to her. So between the first and second episodes of Cancer, I had a total of 30 years added to my life. That’s saying a lot.

The next surgery was for breast reconstruction. I had silicone gel-filled implants. I felt silly about the whole thing. During one of the office visits, I told my doctor that I felt like the bride of Frankenstein. He chuckled. I looked hideous after the whole process was completed, and I had failed surgery syndrome. They offered to do a free “Tram Flap Breast Reconstruction”, but I didn’t feel strong enough to go through another surgery, so I was resigned to live with it. My husband had passed away, and I thought I would never date again; so what did it matter?

Interestingly, my husband was given a woman's liver which lasted ten years. He died at the age of fifty-five. God gave me extra years for reasons I may never know. I’ve lived long enough to spend time with my grandchildren and couldn’t ask for more. My youngest daughter had four children including, twin boys one named after my husband and one after Pa Pa (my father-in-law). It's too bad that my husband didn't live long enough to see his grandchildren. He would have enjoyed these little guys. I have eleven grandchildren now, and I never anticipated the joy I would feel from seeing their beautiful faces, listening to their laughter, and watching them run, play, and learn. A hug from a grandchild is pure heaven. And that’s an undisputed fact, and only a grandparent can testify to that. It's something one needs to experience first-hand. I think it's time to make some fudge, one batch for the grandkids and one for me.