No One Took My Chest and Shoulder Pain Seriously. But I Was Dying

Dr. Keith Brenner at Columbia Presbyterian looked directly at me instead of his computer and said: “You are too healthy to be this sick.”

After 14 months of being told I had bronchitis, mono, arthritis, and hysteria, no one took my chest and shoulder pain seriously.

A CT Scan showed a lemon-sized tumor in my left lung. Dr. Brenner thought it was a carcinoid, a tamer form of cancer, but after removing the lung, tests proved it was melanoma, one of the deadliest—I was stage 4.

I went to Memorial Sloan Kettering where Dr. Jedd Wolchok ordered an MRI of my brain and that’s when four more tumors were discovered. It quickly became a race for my life.

I was dying from skin cancer, and it was never found on my skin. It had metastasized before anyone discovered it.

I married for the first time at 49. On my second wedding anniversary, the tumor was found in my lung. My career was going full blast. It seemed just when life had gotten really good, I was about to lose it all.

Every doctor I met I looked in the eye and shook their hand firmly as my father taught me and said: “My name is Grace and I want to live.”

It was important to say out loud that my plan was to survive. If you believe you can, the mind and the body are capable of incredible things.

I said: “I am going to ride horses in Patagonia.” And I booked a trip for year-end. I thanked everyone, literally everyone, for helping me live. When you are in the margin between life and death, everything becomes stupendously delicious—I marveled at it all.

The doctors took care of the medicine. Dr. Kathryn Beal, at the time at Memorial Sloan Kettering and now at Weill Cornell Medicine, planned the radiosurgery for my brain. Dr. Wolchok ordered immunotherapy. Both were newly developed treatments putting me at the forefront of a medical frontier.

I believe patients can influence their own recovery. My responsibility was finding my best way to heal. I decided to be happy and enjoy myself, despite treatments, brain trauma, and knowing I had to transition out of my old life into a new one.

I made a conscious decision I would survive this.

I accepted that life brought me to this moment—this situation was beyond my control. At first, I thought I could “yoga and meditate my way” to a cure. After I collapsed on my living room floor, I laughed to myself that my ego thought I could conquer cancer.

I couldn’t. I had to welcome cancer as a kind of gift, as my teacher. I prayed to understand its lessons well. By not fighting, my body became more relaxed, giving me a better chance to heal.

My friend, American college Professor Four Arrows, recorded a meditation that gently reassured my body it would heal, that in me was an inherent wisdom, older and wiser than any medicine.

Death is part of nature, but survival is too. I listened and used my breath to cultivate a meditative state. After my lung surgery, Dr. Frank D’Ovidio remarked that although they had a transfusion ready, I only bled one teaspoon of blood, just enough to keep the surgical site moist and clean. I smiled. It had been part of the meditation.

I also had to embrace that these could be my last days. How was I living them? Was I afraid to die? I was at first and cried to my cousin who is in the U.S. special forces—he understood.

I remembered something Shawnee warrior Chief Tecumseh said: “When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

I prayed for the grace to accept the creator’s will and if I was going out, it was going to be with a song in my heart. I would die the heroine of my own story.

Seconds go by miserably or joyfully—which will I choose? I wore my best clothes for treatments. My husband drew cartoons where I was a healing superheroine accompanied by my pet box turtle Titan. He rubbed my feet and read books to me.

Friends took me to the salon to get my hair washed and set so no one knew how much hair I had lost. My nephew, Quaker, made sure I was never alone.

I learned I was loved more than I ever expected. I had no idea so many people cared about me. My friends showed me I had something to live for. It was like Christmas, Valentine’s Day and my birthday all rolled into one.

My bed became an oasis of healing. My husband advocated that rest means no screens and actually sleeping. I had always thought rest was just working in bed. There were years when I slept an average of 14 hours a day.

Girlfriends visited and lay next to me quietly sharing time. When I got married, I invested in a wonderful all-natural mattress, wool pillows, and fancy sheets. Good quality sleep is not a luxury, it’s fundamental.

There were the things they don’t tell you about cancer, including the long-term recovery, first from the trauma of diagnosis, surgery, and treatment, and then the side effects of cancer and radiation to the brain.

You grieve, not only the life you lost, but the body parts as well. I was exhausted, confused, and short-tempered, not dissimilar to Alzheimer’s or a traumatic brain injury. My brain was the one thing I was most proud of.

When you radiate the brain there will be side effects—swelling, bleeding, exhaustion, cognitive dysfunction, and dysregulation were mine. My body was present but what I knew as myself was absent.

I have come to understand that recognizing and engaging your most authentic self is fundamental to survival. I think of it as calling back my true self.

I did not know that my husband would be so gravely impacted by nearly losing his new wife. The focus was on me, but he needed healing as well. Cancer is a family disease, everyone is affected.

Recovery is the most challenging part of this journey. The science that saved me was so novel that an aftercare plan had not been developed. In fact, Dr. Wolchok told me that before the development of the treatment I received, fewer than 5 percent of people with metastatic melanoma survived longer than two years.

Now, about 50 percent survive for 6.5 years or longer. The statistics are more sobering if the cancer spreads to the brain. Wolchock admits: “There is still work to do.”

I am now advocating for the care of patients who will come after me. Neurocognitive rehabilitation is a daily practice. Healing is still my full-time job.

I spent years fighting my insurance provider who denied my claims of disability. My acceptance of cancer twisted into an acrid battle. The stress they caused me and the burden of proof on my doctors was counterproductive and costly.

Eventually, we came to an agreement, and I walked away with 20 percent of what I expected. These practices need to be reformed to protect the health and dignity of the sick and recovering and relieve the burden on the medical system.

My life was radically altered. I decided to do the things I wanted to do before I died so I spent my life savings buying an abandoned farm in Ireland and three horses.

I am rewilding that land which will stand long after I am gone. I lost the life I had but I believe a wonderful new life was waiting out there for me.

I traveled far away from the everyday and I am returning with new insights and look forward to sharing them.

Changes happen in a life. Cancer happens in all too many lives. We either bend or break. It has taken time. The past three years I have been bending to be close to the earth in cloud, rain, and mud.

But 2024 is the Chinese Year of the Dragon and I shall rise. I hope you will meet me there!

In January 2019, the month of her second wedding anniversary, doctors removed a 4 cm tumor from the middle of Grace Jeffers’ left lung. Grace Jeffers feels that if she had not pressed on, and sought the help of additional doctors, she would not be alive today.

All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

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