Breasts: An Owner’s Manual: Every Woman’s Guide to Reducing Cancer Risk, Making Treatment Choices and Optimising Outcomes. Kristi Funk

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СКАЧАТЬ breast surgery. Boy, was I wrong! And furthermore, that appointment was one of the big blessings to come from my cancer experience. Not only was she then—and remains now—one of the finest breast surgeons a woman could have, but she also has been an inspiration and a friend to me ever since I walked into her office.

      It was February 2006, and I was due to have my yearly mammogram. This one seemed to be more of a nuisance than ones in the past, because my engagement had just fallen apart five days before and I really didn’t want to be bothered with something I knew would be a waste of time. I was healthy and extremely fit, having spent the better part of the previous three years riding my bicycle up the sides of mountains—and I had no family history of breast cancer. I licked my wounds and went ahead and got it over with.

      A few days after my mammogram, my gynecologist called me and suggested that I have two biopsies just to answer any questions that had shown up on the film, rather than waiting the recommended six months to view the areas again. She advised me to see Kristi Funk, who performed surgery a few days later.

      I went through the painful process of a wire-localized open surgical biopsy and went home to resume the business of getting on with life. Four days later, I went in for my postoperative appointment with Dr. Funk. I will never forget the look on Kristi’s face when she told me that, although the odds of my having invasive cancer had been extremely minimal, mine was invasive, and I would need additional treatments. It was a blow of the first degree to someone who, until that point, had had complete and total control over every aspect of her life, or so I thought. And it seemed a blow to Kristi as well.

      Now that I know Dr. Funk as I do, I believe each time she has had to deliver the outcome of a cancer screening that renders a malignant diagnosis, it has felt like a blow to her.

      I got through my treatment uneventfully and went about rebuilding my life, personally and physically. Cancer was a game changer in the best and hardest of ways. I had to learn to put myself first, and I had to challenge what it means in a woman’s life to always nurture others but never to allow anyone to nurture her. I had to learn to say no and to be okay with not everyone liking or respecting me. I had to learn how symbolic breasts truly are and to accept that reality.

      Accepting these truths seemed to be the lesson in the cancer experience for me—and from what I have heard from the countless women I have met in the most random of places who come up to me and share their cancer experiences, there is a lesson in it for everyone. Additionally, cancer changed my behavior; I had to learn about self-care and quality of living through nutrition and alleviating stress.

      After some time passed, Kristi and her husband, Andy, and I met about their dream of opening a place that offered a “one-stop shop” where breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment happened seamlessly and comfortably under one roof. I was all in. Their dream would eventually become Pink Lotus, including the free care they provide to underserved women via the Pink Lotus Foundation. The Pink Lotus Breast Center would offer the first contrast-enhanced digital mammograms in North America, combining Western medicine with complementary and alternative medicine, nutrition, psychology, physical therapy, genetics, and innovative technologies — and offering women holistic, whole-body view of health and wellness.

      Over the years, I have learned so much about how to live a healthier life through diet and exercise and meditation. I wince every time I hear from someone I know or someone who is distantly connected that they’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer or cancer in general. The 1 out of 8 statistic seems to hold on, but we are learning more about prevention, and until there is a cure . . . well, early detection is a great help, but prevention is the greatest hope for us all.

      Over a decade later, I remain grateful to Kristi for continuing to be driven to learn more about how to outsmart this insidious disease. Whether you live with or without breasts, there is so much to know and so many things one can do. Navigating it all can become confusing, especially with all the contradictory advice out there. Dr. Funk’s book is a gift to women everywhere looking for answers to breast issues and to health in general. Kristi shares what she learns in the hopes that eventually she will be out of a job as a breast cancer surgeon!

       —Sheryl Crow

Author’s Note

      My mom was thirty-six years old and had five children under the age of fourteen (I was two) in December 1971. She was in peak fitness as a competitive A-level tennis player who swam daily when she suffered a stroke and inexplicably fell into a coma that lasted three weeks. The UCLA doctors told my father on multiple occasions not to leave for home that night, for she would surely die by morning. A priest administered the sacrament of last rites, which I believe made heaven take notice: Oh heck no, we aren’t ready for that ornery MaryAnn; give her another fifty-plus. So she woke up! (If you ever meet me—and I hope you do—ask me how she woke up.) My mom remained in rehab for a year before returning home, relearning how to speak and how to walk, since she would never move her right side again (hemiparesis). All of my parents’ “friends” disappeared and my dad downsized the house, but his love for her never diminished; in fact, it grew. To this day, in their late eighties, he defends her fiercely and assists her tenderly. How could you not cherish a warrior who stared down death and won—without speaking a word?

      That’s where I come from, and that’s what I offer you. I possess the dogged determination and tenacity of my mother, mixed with the empathy and compassion of my father. So when you fling excuses and hopelessness at me, I will whack you with a reality check. And when you come to me scared and broken, I will hug you until you’re whole again.

      After my relationship with God, I only really care about two things in this life: loving family and killing cancer. You picked up this book. You’re family now, so let’s get going.

Introduction

      From the age of four, I wanted to be an actress. (Ha! You thought I was going to say I always wanted to be a doctor, didn’t you?) I performed in every school play, beginning with Sleeping Beauty in the second grade and continuing all the way through college, when I starred as Oedipus in an all-female production. Yet Hollywood was never my endgame. I actually pictured myself helping children heal from illness, using drama and imaginative play to explore the feelings and fears brought on by sickness.

      Cut to my sophomore year as a psychology major at Stanford University, when I experienced an epiphany that would both change my course and guide it to this day. In the midst of studying for a neuropsychology final, painstakingly trying to memorize which neurotransmitters in the brain led to which functions of the body, I experienced an unmistakable and repetitive “interrupting thought” that made my own neurotransmitters buzz. It came from God.

      You’re going to be a doctor, it said. Whoa.

      Okay, that was interesting. Incorrect, but interesting. You see, my female role models married young, and all I wanted was to raise a family and work as a drama therapist. I traveled to Africa a week later on a summer missionary trip that had been planned for months. When I saw firsthand the health challenges that millions of men, women, and children face, my life’s purpose snapped into shape—and not in the form of theater or therapy. I felt newly inspired to care for people in the one way that matters most to them—by helping them maintain the very vessel that carries them around all day: their bodies. Disease robs far too many people of joy, replacing hope with chronic illness and death. It isn’t right. As I sat cross-legged in a dung hut, balancing potatoes on my head to make the tribal kids laugh, I decided to do something with my life to try to stop the killer of joy: I heeded God’s voice and resolved to become a doctor.

      I went to medical school, did СКАЧАТЬ