Two separate issues reported in the media in the last six months have prompted me to write about my own experience.

The first is that taking a positive attitude towards cancer is not scientifically proven to be of any real benefit in terms of survival or cure.

The second is the ongoing argument that the dangers of HRT may well outweigh the benefits.

I am known to many women in WA as an obstetrician/gynaecologist with a special interest in menopause and other hormonal problems. In the last six months I have been near death on two occasions.

I want to talk about my experiences, most importantly why and how I survived, because for the first time I was out of control of my life and my medical practice.

I have had other surgery and serious illnesses in the past but have always managed to stay in control. This time my practice had to be closed. No one knew what to tell my patients and I was beyond caring or knowing. I was completely helpless physically mentally and emotionally.

My friend Patricia has written a chapter called "A Walk in the Desert" in a book that we have co-authored - "Is it ME or My Hormones?" - to be published this year. She writes,

"Do you ever feel as if you are walking through an arid wasteland with your shoes filled with heavy dry sand? When everything seems just too hard and you have lost the reason why you were doing it anyway?"

I have been in just such a place over this last six months.

I went into hospital for surgery for a small but persistent bladder cancer.

This is major surgery but usually straightforward, so I had arranged to have six weeks off work. It became six months! Major bleeding led to major blood replacement and all the consequences; I survived this. I went into kidney failure but this was also reversible. I then had further major surgery for a bowel leak; this led to a colostomy. I did not manage this well even though I knew it was temporary.

It was not clear that I would survive. For nearly two weeks I was unconscious and on life support. My twin sister Joan came over from Melbourne and I hardly remember her presence during this time. Only now can I appreciate how devastated she must have been to see me so ill and helpless. I could not even speak to her as I had a tracheostomy all this time. (I am rarely speechless normally!)

After 6 weeks in Intensive Care I was transferred to an ordinary ward. I had another operation to drain a large internal abscess and I turned a corner physically after this, but my general recovery was very slow. I could not sit up or turn over in bed. I could not stand up let alone try to walk.

I ate nothing because I was constantly nauseated, my bowel was not working and anyway I had no appetite at all. I became an ice 'junkie'. I cunningly begged ice off everyone who came near me though I was supposed to take nothing by mouth. (When I came home from hospital my sister had to buy large bags of ice so that I could have it with everything.)

I could not read or write due to physical weakness. I did not want visitors. Several times I told my surgeon and my friends, "I would have been better off dead." I railed at them for saving my life, and even for praying for me.

As they told me what had happened I remembered some things. On two occasions I was being propelled along a corridor at the end of which was a yellow door. There was no handle on this door. I knew that to go through I would have to push the door. Each time that I tried I felt myself literally hauled back into darkness.

I cannot claim an out of body experience - though the body being propelled along the corridor felt insubstantial, more like a puffball in a dust storm than a solid body. So I do not know what is on the other side of the yellow door but I know that I had no fear of going there.

I remember much of my six weeks in intensive care. It was the loneliest place on earth even though I was surrounded at all times by people and noise. I was very depressed.

There was no night or day - just a state of semi-awareness, pain and frustration. I could not imagine that I would ever recover. I lost 15 kilogrammes in weight, mostly from my muscles. I felt frozen physically. I was helpless and hopeless. I know now that many medical colleagues visited me when I was at my worst and I don't remember them being there.

Patricia came every day to see me. I complained to her many times and I complained also to the nursing staff who cared for me with enormous compassion even though I was such a dead weight to move around. At other times I cried uncontrollably. I remember feeling sorry for myself and angry about my fate.

On a Monday morning at 5 am, after a very disturbed night, I had a vision of myself at the very bottom of a large black hole. There was no further down that I could go. As I looked up I could see some light in the distance; I could see some hands stretched out towards me, but they could not reach. I knew then that I had to make a move. Inside my head I heard the words, "don't say I can't do this" just say, "I'll try".

It was true that physically I could not do the most ordinary things like sitting up, standing, brushing my teeth. When the occupational therapist came in that day and suggested, rather tentatively, that I do certain things I surprised her by saying "I'll try" instead of my usual "I can't".

Over the next two weeks I improved so dramatically that I was able to go home to my sister Joan's care. My wonderful occupational therapist had prepared my home for me with ramps and rails and wheelchair and walker and even a Jason type chair which could lift me up and throw me out! I still had physical wounds that were slow to heal and I had a colostomy and a urine bag. Physically I was exhausted, but mentally I had become a survivor rather than a victim.

The change was not accomplished by mental gymnastics but by a change in attitude - from the despair and defeat of the victim to the recovery and repair of the grateful one. I was grateful for being alive; especially grateful to all those doctors those who worked so hard to get me back from that yellow door (especially my anaesthetists!). In my heart I could thank those who visited me, washed my hair, and massaged me even though I did not know at the time that they were there!

It has been said; "Love is the way I walk in gratitude". That love has always been there for me - so many cards and flowers were sent to the hospital. At times I could not see them but later, when I could see them, even seeing was not always accompanied by believing. I was slow to let in the love and caring. But now, having learnt to let in the love, I can understand what Sophocles meant when he wrote, so long ago, "One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life... and that word is love."

I am not claiming that my change in attitude cured my cancer. That was cured by the surgery. In fact one day my remarkable surgeon came in to see me (as he did every day of my hospital stay) and told me that he had good news, "The pathology report shows that your cancer is cured". As I was feeling at my worst at this stage I was not totally impressed or even very grateful!

So the recent news that a change in attitude is not scientifically proven to improve the outcome for cancer does not deter me from claiming that a change in attitude, while it may not prolong life, certainly improves the quality of that life.

I am back at work again, part-time and I am now back where I began in private practice - at the rooms next door to my home. It certainly feels like a coming home, but more importantly I have been taught through all these trials to 'come home' emotionally. To quote again from the chapter, 'A Walk in the Desert', in our book; "One day a hot and arid wind blasts through our lush gardens. The meaning we attach to the ensuing chaos and how we label this part of our story will determine how we spend our later years."

This can be thrashing around in fear, resentment and loneliness or we can be warmly connected to friends and family and invest our energy in putting back into and giving to the general community. Of course in the search for inner peace happiness and wholeness there is not just one way to find it. There is only your own way.

My way has been to say, "I'll try" rather than "I can't" and to give thanks for what I do have rather than to regret what I have lost. As well as a change of mindset or attitude I acknowledge that a change of heart has been needed. I had to learn to let in the love.

In my work with women around menopause I have seen many women change direction and move on. I have also seen some women lost in the desert, the spiritual dryness of midlife. HRT can help the acute symptoms of oestrogen deficiency but cannot treat depression or anxiety especially if these precede menopause.

The headline news that the dangers of HRT are possibly greater than the benefits has caused many women to cease taking it. Many have had a recurrence of hot flushes and disturbed sleep. I have gone back on HRT because of these symptoms, at a time when so many women have come off it …but that will need to be a separate story!

Back to Top