Blessed With Cancer

We all know someone whose life has been affected by cancer: breast cancer, prostate cancer, brain cancer. At church groups, mothers' clubs or in our children’s schools, we hear about people who get sick. We don't know them well, but when we see these folks about town or at preschool pick-up, we just don’t know what to say.

This is exactly how I came to meet Natalie DiMarco, a parent at my daughter’s former preschool. One day my daughter’s teacher told me Natalie was battling Stage IV lung cancer. Upon hearing the news, I instantly thought, “How sad” and then began the head-trip of wanting to get to know her and not wanting to, all at the same time.

I know little to nothing about the stages of cancer but I knew enough to know that Stage IV was worse than Stage I. I would see Natalie from time to time and wonder if it was possible to get better, how she still had her hair after chemo treatments, and how she was managing to continue to show up to school functions and participate in class events so fully while battling cancer.

Then one day, I finally worked up the nerve to ask Natalie to tell me her story. Last March, a few short days after her daughter’s first birthday, after spending months wondering why she kept coughing and couldn’t breathe even when doing little things like walking up a flight of stairs, Natalie went to the doctor. They ran the battery of tests and handed her the diagnosis--lung cancer. Natalie was 31.

“My first thought after hearing the news, involved the idea of my children (who are now 4 and 2.5) growing up without a mother, but then my next thoughts were, “What do we do?” “What’s the plan?” said Natalie.

Armed with her own research team (her husband Jim, dad, uncle, mom, and others), Natalie flew all over the country visiting doctors and doing research about cancer. What she found was a great doctor at Boston's renowned Massachusetts General Hospital, who was able to help identify the specific mutation of Natalie’s lung cancer, a cancer, which incidentally, she had gotten as a non-smoker.

“I was blessed to go all over the county and learn about cancer. I’ve learned a lot. With regard to lung cancer, for one, people don’t want to talk about it because of the association with smoking. And two, people aren’t surviving because they don’t know how to treat it properly. It’s the number one cancer,” she said.

According to The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, lung cancer killed almost twice as many women as breast cancer in 2009.  Additionally, the overall survival rate for lung cancer is still 15.5 percent, the same as it was over 40 years ago, largely due to insufficient funding of the disease.

Natalie has been through 25 cycles of chemotherapy and has responded to it very well. She hasn’t lost her hair and had to postpone treatment due to a low white blood cell count only twice. It is now 18 months into a diagnosis that many don’t expect to live past a year with. Natalie’s cancer has been eradicated down to one spot left in her lung.

“Everyone has cancer cells in the body. Cancer mutations are being caused by the air, water, and deficiencies in the body. Staging doesn’t freak me out. It’s either you have cancer or you don’t. Your treatment doesn’t work or it does. I look at the whole thing. It’s not a negative thing, I’m not angry about it. I’m not sad about it. I see it more as a blessing. We’ve changed our whole lifestyle for the better,” said Natalie.

In addition to the traditional route of drugs and chemo, Natalie’s education in cancer research led her to begin Chinese medicine with her acupuncturist Dr. Angela Wu at Wu’s Healing Center in San Francisco, eliminating gluten and processed foods from her diet, using green cleaning products, eliminating toxic plastics and using glass containers, eating local organic milk and dairy, doing regular yoga, meditating and even eliminating reality TV.

While it may seem like a tall order, for Natalie the new lifestyle has helped her become more positive and not to focus on the cancer itself.

“How I feel about it isn’t about getting rid of the cancer...It’s not about beating this, it’s about figuring out how to balance my body and get it back to where it’s supposed to be. It’s about positive thinking. Negative energy attracts negative energy. It is a true story of belief. I recently went back to the school I used to work at and I met with the kids. I wanted them to see that I was okay and that people can be okay when they have cancer,” said Natalie.

When I asked Natalie if she considers herself a survivor, she paused for a long time before answering, “Survivor?....I’m Natalie. I have lung cancer. I have an illness that I am trying to help raise money for the awareness of. I’m interested in collaboration and coming up with a solution. If lung cancer had more money and more awareness, perhaps we could find a cure.”

As one of the most inspiring and healthiest sick people I have ever met, Natalie has joined many in the fight against lung cancer by participating in an annual walk/run benefiting the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation this Sunday, September 18th in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Registration starts at 2 pm and the walk begins at 4 pm. Please consider joining Natalie's team or going online to donate to Team Natalie. 

How has cancer impacted your life? Share your thoughts in the comments.