This post, by April Capil is the winner of our recent IOGEAR Laptop KVM Switch contest giveaway. Congratulations, April! Follow April on Twitter.
It was in my oncologist’s office that I realized the connection between breast cancer and sustainable enterprise. As an unemployed GreenMBA diagnosed with Stage III Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, I had understandably bigger fish to fry: my house was a month away from foreclosure; I had just gotten a $27,000 bill from the hospital that did my lumpectomy, and it had only been two weeks since I moved my life 3,000 miles back home to California. The truth is, it was a miracle that I’d even found an oncologist who took my insurance and was accepting new patients. I wasn’t exactly looking for life-changing truths.
“With triple negative cases like yours,” Dr. Kuan was saying, “I like to recommend clinical trials, because there isn’t a drug you can take after chemo and radiation….” I looked at her blankly. “To keep your cancer from coming back,” she clarified. To keep it from coming back? It had never even occurred to me that my cancer could come back. I’d had two surgeries to cut it out; I was dumping petrochemicals into my body (despite my green values) so that any remaining cells were destroyed. When chemo was over, I was shooting radioactive isotopes into my chest. Why on earth would my cancer come back? For the first time since my diagnosis, I realized I should be doing everything I possibly can to survive. If not, I was in danger of only surviving this round.
