On August 30th, Michel (a pas­sio­nate copyw­ri­ter) used his blog to tell the world about our con­di­tion. His post spoke elo­quently and ele­gantly of what we are going through, at a time when I would not have been able to put this into words.

I have always admi­red his abi­lity to write from the heart. It’s what makes him such an ama­zing copyw­ri­ter, and it is one of the very first things I knew about him that made me fall in love with him.

I also knew that he nee­ded to do this. He nee­ded to express him­self the one way he knew how. He nee­ded to pour out his tears in words, and tears of my own fell while I read it. I’m cer­tain many others cried when rea­ding it as well.

And as the com­ments began to come in, I was utterly ama­zed at how many peo­ple were lis­te­ning and cared about us.

I’ve never seen such an out­pou­ring of well wishes and pra­yers for a swift reco­very. It was won­der­ful, and in the days after the ini­tial post, as com­ments kept pou­ring in, I cried more than I thought I was capa­ble fo crying. But these weren’t tears of sad­ness or fear. These were tears that came from being overwhel­med by the love that was being sent our way.

Here are just a few that touched me so deeply…(there are hun­dreds, and I wish I could print them all here)

“Pra­yers of hea­ling, strength and bound­less joy are coming your way.”

“Syl­vie and Michael — you guys are an amzing cou­ple. I have no doubt that Syl­vie will be fine and you both will have many, many years together.”

“What can I say, but you are both very cou­ra­geous. I was deeply touched by your con­ve­yance of what many would be trea­ting as a tra­gedy filled with why-me’s.”

“Please be assu­red that this fight will not be fought alone, as loved ones will undoub­tedly inter­cede on your behalf, as will, I assure you, some of us who’s only to link to you is cyber in nature.”

“This is just a little bump in the road of life. I know you guys can leap small hurd­les in a sin­gle bound. You are my heroes!”

“I know you both have the faith, the strength, the resolve and the inhe­rent good­ness to turn this tem­po­rary upset around.”

“I am ins­pi­red by your ama­zing upbeat and posi­tive out­look. I shall keep your exam­ple in my mind as a way to handle life’s curveballs”

“God bless you both! Syl­vie is lucky to have someone who belie­ves in her and her reco­ver as much as you do. WIth the faith and love that you share, I have no doubts at all that this hurdle will be over­come, and you’ll enjoy the rest of your lives together!”

“Michel, what a warm and extraor­di­na­rily loving hus­band you are — you are both bles­sed to have one another.”

“How bles­sed you both are to have found each other! Every life jour­ney has a few bumps in the road — it’s all in how you handle them.”

“Stay posi­tive and kick this things butt!”

“Syl­vie I will defi­ni­tely be pra­ying for com­plete hea­ling on Earth and I know God will give you the strength to get through this. Yes, you are one ama­zing lady and I look up to you tremendously.”

“The two of you are always in my thoughts and pra­yers — and I’m here for you 24/​7 — always.”

I was lite­rally blown away by all of it. As the hours tic­ked by after the announ­ce­ment, and the well wishes just didn’t seem to stop, there were moments I just sat there rea­ding them with a baf­fled expres­sion on my face. Peo­ple who have never met me before were genui­nely con­cer­ned about me and pra­ying for my reco­very. I just couldn’t believe that so many peo­ple genui­nely cared about us.

Ama­zing isn’t it? It’s ama­zing how much love there is in the world!

And there were also some com­ments I didn’t expect at all. Please unders­tand that I was very gra­te­ful for all the com­ments from peo­ple who sug­ges­ted a variety of hea­ling reme­dies to help me in my research. I used that infor­ma­tion and spent many hours searching for pos­si­ble solu­tions and chec­king medi­cal research to see what I can do to help the hea­ling pro­cess after the mas­tec­tomy. Until now, I had no idea there were so many dif­fe­rent ways of dea­ling with this type of can­cer. And Michel and I are wor­king on a plan to use natu­ral reme­dies to com­ple­ment the work the doc­tors will be doing for me.
But some made me sad, and I’ll explain why…

In times like these, one can expect that some peo­ple are going to be abso­lu­tely con­vin­ced that medi­cal doc­tors have it all wrong. And for the most part, I do agree that doc­tors don’t know everything. It wasn’t that long ago that the medi­cal pro­fes­sion didn’t “believe” in germs and the cure-​​all of the day was leeches and bloodletting.

Howe­ver, medi­cal science has come a long way since then, and I am so gra­te­ful that it has. Even 20 years ago, a woman diag­no­sed with breast can­cer didn’t have the advan­ta­ges we have today and sur­vi­val rates were much lower.

So when I read the advice of some of the well-​​meaning advice givers who sug­ges­ted that I refuse the mas­tec­tomy and opt for other alter­na­tive treat­ments, or just leave it to God who would heal me ins­tantly, it made me sad. It made me sad because there are women out there who would choose that advice without con­sul­ting their doc­tor, and die need­lessly, pri­ma­rily because they would rather not face the truth about their illness.

Thank­fully, I am of the belief that God works through doc­tors just as much as wor­king directly with my body to heal it.

This remin­ded me of a joke I heard, and I want to share it with you all…

———-
A woman with breast can­cer returns to reli­gion with fer­vor. She knows that God will help her get better.

Early in her sick­ness, a sur­geon pro­po­ses surgery.

“No”, she says, “I don’t want to get muti­la­ted and suf­fer pain. It’s not neces­sary, God will help me”.

A while later, she sees a radio­lo­gist and he pro­po­ses radia­tion to treat the tumor, which by now is uncom­for­tably large. “No”, she says, “I don’t want radia­tion burns inside and out. It’s not neces­sary. God will help me.”

A year later, the can­cer has metas­ta­si­zed. It’s pain­ful and she is refe­rred to an onco­lo­gist. Che­mothe­rapy is advi­sed. “No”, she says, “I don’t want to be sick all the time and lose my hair as well. It’s not neces­sary. God will help me”.

Soon after, she dies. She goes to Hea­ven and demands an audience with God. “Why didn’t you help me?,” she whines.

“What do you mean? I sent you help three times: a sur­geon, a radio­lo­gist and an onco­lo­gist. What more did you want?”

———-

The best advice I heard, about what type of treat­ment I should choose, touched me very deeply. I felt it was the best way to sum up how I felt about the pro­cess of deter­mi­ning exactly how we were going to tra­vel down the hea­ling path.

“As you get all kinds of well-​​meaning advice sent with heart-​​felt love and con­cern from near and far, we pray that The Lord would give you wis­dom and direc­tion to follow what is the best route for Syl­vie at this time.”

Thank you Kay and Dave! Thank you for having faith. Faith in me and faith in God to tell me what was right for me.

And thank you to all the heroes out there who are hel­ping me fight this every step of the way.