A 撸奶社区woman whose writings have helped countless others cope with the scourge of cancer this week faced the grim prospect that she may well succumb to the disease.
Michelle Pammenter Young, who in 2013 published The Year I Died and The Cancer Warrior Handbook in response to her ordeal with inflammatory breast cancer, on Monday (March 17) was scheduled to undergo surgery to remove a large tumour in her brain. In a blog post on Wednesday (March 19), she wrote that the surgery went well.
In an interview on Friday (March 14), Pammenter Young said that while she remained hopeful, she had started to get her affairs in order in the event she doesn't survive the ordeal.
"I want people to know it can happen to anybody. I want people to know to have their ducks in a row," said the mother of two teenaged children.
Pammenter Young, who was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in June 2012, underwent almost a year's worth of chemotherapy and radiation treatments that were at times uncomfortable and at times downright painful. Last spring, she underwent surgery to remove tissue in her breast area and right arm.
At the time, she described it as "the hardest stage I've had to go through so far."
Her doctors, though, declared her cancer-free last September and for five months, she was supposedly "cancer free."
"I felt like I had pulled out of it," said Pammenter Young, who in addition to her "Cancer Warrior" blog also maintains a regular travel blog. "I still had my cancer blog but my 'Beaches and Bubbles' blog has had more traffic lately. A lot of my subscribers had moved over there."
Then, around Feb. 20, she began to experience headaches that rapidly increased in intensity.
"At first I didn't think much of it, but they always started at night," she said, adding that she began taking ibuprofen and a morphine-based prescription medication for the pain.
At a recent appointment for a CT scan of her torso at the Whistler Health Care Centre, because of the headaches, she asked that the scans also include her brain. On March 8, Dr. David Bohn gave her the bad news: She had brain cancer.
"I started to cry," she said.
Subsequent scans have shown two separate tumours, including a large one at the back of her brain. The largest was to be removed surgically this week. Doctors at the B.C. Cancer Agency planned to attack the other tumour with laser/radiation treatments during the next couple of weeks, she said.
If she survives the ordeal, she'll have to go in for testing every few weeks to see whether the cancer has returned. While she admitted, "I feel like I'm dying," she said she hasn't give up hope.
"If I get off the operating table and still have all my faculties, I'm going to soldier on," she said. "I don't believe in giving up on life. I've only got one life."
Pammenter Young said she's extremely grateful for the help of family and close friends, who have stepped up to look after things at home when needed.
For updates, or to purchase either of her books, visit www.pammenteryoung.com and follow the links.
