Cancer Consciousness

Clean water, wholesome food, fresh air – these are things we have long taken for granted in our modern world. Thankfully, most of the earth's citizens are waking up to the fact that these life-sustaining resources may not be available to us in infinite supply – especially if we abuse them to the point that they become either depleted or toxic.

I've been aware of the endangerment of our natural resources for a while now, but my mission to advocate a green and sustainable American lifestyle became highly personal in August, when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. As many cancer survivors know, such a diagnosis can turn a person's world upside down the moment that word – malignant – is uttered from a doctor's mouth.

The summer of 2009 began with a bang. "Green" was all the rage, and I felt that for the first time I had a captive audience willing to work toward the kind of community sustainability I had dreamed of for years. As such, I was inflamed with passion for the sustainability movement. I launched a handful of blogs and Facebook groups, helped to organize a much-needed local farmers market and even tried to start a little vermicomposting business on the side -- all this in addition to running an ambitious "urban homestead" on my 1/4 acre suburban lot.

This was the summer I turned 33, and in many ways, I felt like I had reached a summit of productivity. Never before had I felt quite so focused and in charge of my destiny.

Of course, God has a way of reminding us that we aren't really in charge of anything.

Despite the success of my many projects, I felt that something was wrong with my body. For starters, my hair was falling out. It wasn't coming out in clumps, but I was losing more strands in the brush and in the shower than seemed normal. I was also fatigued. I guzzled cup after cup of very strong coffee throughout the day. I thought this was normal -- I have three daughters under the age of 9. Balancing their lives against my own extremely full schedule often proves to be exhausting. Few thirtysomething women in my plight aren't addicted to caffeine.

Still, something felt wrong. There was something deeper – a fear of dying that penetrated my soul. I often felt that I was on the brink of death. The scripture "no greater love hath this: that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15: 13) came into my mind constantly. I think I felt, inexplicably at the time, that I was going to be called to lay down my own life for my loved ones, to teach them something, to help them to grow.

Of course, few people want to die, even if it means saving their loved ones. So almost as quickly as these grim thoughts entered my mind, I chalked them up to my hypochondriac tendencies and brushed them aside.

By July I noticed a very subtle swollen area on the lower right side of my neck. I had been told by doctors over the last few years that I was heading into hypothyroid territory, but my case was so mild they decided to wait on treatment. Because of this knowledge, thyroid issues were on my radar. Given my hair loss and fatigue (both symptoms of thyroid disease), I immediately called my doctor to look into the matter, figuring that I had finally become hypothyroid.

After examining me, my general practitioner ordered a thyroid sonogram in order to check out the lump in my neck. He called me the next morning, at about 7 a.m. "You have a small nodule on the right lobe of your thyroid," he said. "I'm sure it's nothing, but just to put you at ease I'm going to arrange for you to have a fine needle aspiration to biopsy the cells within the nodule."

The results of the FNA I had a week later revealed that the cells within the nodule were "suspicious". The recommendation: surgical removal of the nodule, along with half of my thyroid gland, so that a full biopsy could be conducted. My understanding was that this surgery would be a simple outpatient procedure and that within hours I'd be back to my normal self. The recovery was far worse than I expected: the pain and lack of mobility following surgery, along with the loss of my voice and the fear of the biopsy results I awaited, caused me to spiral into despair.

Those first few nights after surgery, my prayers were simple. "Please don't leave me God. Don't abandon me."

Thankfully, I felt God's presence throughout my recovery. And when I learned, four days after surgery, that the nodule contained malignant cells, and that the surgeon wanted me to return to surgery the next day to remove the rest of my thyroid as a precautionary measure, God did not abandon me. Rather, He granted me the strength to quickly get over the shock of knowing that I have the "C-word" and to endure the second surgery and the recovery that followed with strength I never knew I had. And He helped me to walk away from this experience with life lessons critical to spiritual growth. I was humbled. I was sobered. I learned not to take the gifts in my life for granted.

I may never know what caused malignant cells to grow in my relatively young body. I've had many theories, but as I shared on my blog in late August, "the truth is, it doesn't matter…We all have to suffer. There is no avoiding it. And if not us, it will be someone else who suffers. The good thing about suffering is that we can experience what so many others have experienced, and share in the trials that are a part of the human condition. And, God willing, when we suffer we are offered an opportunity grow in leaps and bounds. "

What does matter is that I now have an invigorated interest in holistic, sustainable living, one that is highly personal, rather than just theoretical. I now know how critical it is that all humans have access to unadulterated fruits of the earth for sustenance. I know how important it is for us to direct human ingenuity in the 21st century toward creating a clean, green earth that nourishes and sustains us.

Thankfully, after two surgeries, the doctor said my prognosis is excellent. But this is just the beginning of my journey. Now my challenge is to stay focused on treating my body as a temple for the Holy Spirit, and on treating my home as a sanctuary not to be filled with toxins, but rather, to be opened graciously to the neighbors who loved and supported me when I most needed them. It is also a challenge to go forth and share with others this good news: that it is not too late to become enlightened to the importance of protecting our earth's natural resources, given to us by our Creator. As long as we have breath each one of us can direct our energy toward creating clean, life sustaining communities centered on Love. With God, all things are possible.

Heather Zydek is a writer and urban homesteader in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. She is the author of the novel Basil's Search for Miracles and the editor of the books The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World and The Relevant Nation: 50 Activists, Artists and Innovators Who are Changing Their World Through Faith. Her new novel, Stranger Moon, is slated for release in 2010. Read Heather's blog at http://bluebungalowfarm.blogspot.com.