Did Alcohol Cause My Breast Cancer?
Image by Peter Boccia on Unsplash The year was 2011. I was 33 years old. I was also sober for one year. I heard the…
Author: Michele Seleno
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Image by Peter Boccia on Unsplash The year was 2011. I was 33 years old. I was also sober for one year. I heard the…
The year was 2011. I was 33 years old. I was also sober for one year.
I heard the word, “CARCINOMA”, and everything else went black.
Let’s rewind a little bit…
A friend of my mother’s was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and was starting chemotherapy. Not that I am thankful for her breast cancer, but this convinced me that I should do self breast exams.
At about 6 months sober, I actually felt a small lump. Due to my breasts being a whopping negative A cup, the self exam was pretty easy to do.
I made an appointment with my gynecologist, because I wasn’t really sure where I should go. What doctor? I had no clue.
He felt the lump also and gave orders for an ultrasound. Thankfully, this was just a small cyst and something that they would monitor. He wanted me to come back in 6 months to do another scan.
So, 6 months later, I am a year sober. I knew I needed to see the gynecologist again but I actually wanted to get a breast augmentation to reward myself for a year of sobriety. So, I found a reputable surgeon in the area and went for my consultation. They would need to examine my breasts anyway.
The surgeon describes the whole process for me, we go over the desired outcomes and come up with a plan. First, I need an MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging) to rule out cancer and other suspicious areas.
While in the long, cylindrical tube, my thoughts started racing and worrying. It’s hard to do anything else inside there, it is so loud and you can’t really relax. The process took about 45 minutes and I was thankful to be done.
A week later, I had an appointment with the breast surgeon. He came into the room with a look on his face that made me feel anxious. He stated that he saw “calcifications” on the MRI and that I would need to get a biopsy. This process was awful. If you’ve ever had one, you know! You basically lay face down on a table with your breast poking through a hole. Then, you CAN’T move or something might go wrong. I am a fidgety person so this was difficult!!
A week later, I am back at the breast surgeon’s office with my husband this time because I am completely losing my mind. The doctors had reminded me many times that calcifications are usually nothing and that I shouldn’t be worried. My mind didn’t respond without worry.
Honestly, I don’t remember much from this meeting in her office. It started something like, “Hi, how are you? Let’s sit down and go over the results.”
And, then…
“The results indicate that you have ductal carcinoma…”
I say out loud, “WHAT? What is that? Wait, carcinoma is cancer….”
Everything after that goes blurry and black. I hear nothing else past that sentence. Thank goodness my husband was there to remember all the information.
The cancer they found was “probably stage 1” and they would be able to get a clearer distinction after another MRI. So, we did the next indicated step and trudged forward.
At our next meeting with the doctor, I decided it would be best to have a double mastectomy. There were a few reasons that influenced my decision. Since I was so young, there was a 35% chance that I could get it again. Obviously, I didn’t want that to happen. Two, my breasts were so small, that to do a lumpectomy would be more noticeable and I was going to get an augmentation anyway.
I’m sure you can imagine the despair that I felt leading up to my surgeries. I was devastated that this happened to me. I was over a year sober and I thought I was extremely healthy, meaning I juiced, ate healthy and exercised.
Can you believe that alcohol never EVER crossed my mind as a culprit? Thinking of this now makes me shake my head in disgust at how oblivious I was.
So, what do you do when you have cancer, a looming surgery in a few weeks and a lot of downtime? You frantically research everything you can find on the internet. I’m sure I would have stayed up for days if this happened today with so many more resources.
My brain was flooded with a million reasons why this happened to me. I found studies and statistics about animal products causing cancer. You could switch to a vegan/plant based lifestyle and drink a ton of green juice and this would slow the cancer. Sugar feeds cancer. Don’t eat soy. Do this, do that. Can you agree that this sounds exhausting?
I’ve always had a thing with food and making sure that it’s healthy for me. If I don’t eat enough healthy food during the day, then I can’t have ice cream at night. So, after reading all the information linked to animal products and breast cancer, I quit. It was easy for me to do. That was not the case with alcohol.
I bought a juicer for daily juicing and continued going to yoga every day. Nothing was going to make this worse, if I had anything to do with it!
Fortunately, both of my surgeries were a success and they were able to get the margins needed. This meant that I wouldn’t have to do chemotherapy. It really ended up being true when they said, “You honestly got the best, easiest kind of cancer.” I was furious when they mentioned this a month prior.
After my full recovery, I was back at yoga and still eating healthy. But, the thought of drinking kept creeping back in my mind. If you understand the disease of addiction, it’s something you have a really hard time controlling. The relapse happens long before you actually relapse. Even before I had surgery, I was already thinking about drinking because, “Why did it matter? I was so healthy and look what happened to me?”
That thinking persisted until I convinced my husband that I should be able to have a drink after everything I just went through. Again, if you understand addiction, you know that it is never going to be just one drink. I went on drinking and quitting for the next 10 years. I would be sober for sometime after a horrific event, and quickly back to bartering with my husband.
Fast forward to today, I am 13 months sober but I’m confident that I developed breast cancer as a result of my drinking. The past year I have become a voracious reader and the information was astounding. Alcohol increases estrogen and hormone levels which can feed cancer. Even small amounts of alcohol can do this to your body. Alcohol damages DNA in a way that causes cancer. It is a class 1 carcinogen, just like cigarettes.
Shocked, confused and disturbed, I started to think about what kind of cancer I was going to end up with next. The past 10 years surely did some harm to my insides. But, I’m trying not to worry about it. Stress also causes cancer, so I’ll just keep eating healthy and exercising and living my life to the fullest.
Alcohol is ethanol. A chemical that is in the gas you put in your car. It is a toxic poison to your body. If you read this far and are intrigued, I encourage you to read a book by Annie Grace, called “This Naked Mind.” Most likely, you’ll never want to drink again.
Soon, alcohol will get its cigarette moment and the rates of breast cancer will drop. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.
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