Below are the loans we donated to Kiva borrowers in 2017. As you can see, even though not much comes in via the Amazon Affiliate program to this site lately, funds still get dispersed to low income entrepreneurs in the developing world. This is because when borrowers pay back their loans I reissue the funds to other entrepreneur. To learn more about my Kiva fundraiser program click the Kiva Campaign tab at the top of this page.
I've decided to do all my annual Kiva loan updates at once. Something has changed with Amazon's affiliate program and I haven't figured out how to get the product links to register. Fortunately, funds that were brought in before the change are still in circulation. Here is what we did in 2016. Thanks for your help!
Phrases like that kept waking me from dead sleep throughout
the summer of 2013. By day I mocked it. Gee, I forgot I made that cancer
getting appointment. How inconvenient! By night I worried what cruel claim my
subconscious would submit next for my consideration. But mostly life went on as
normal, that is, until my next routine breast screening that
winter.
When my previous mammogram
returned clear the radiologist casually mentioned that I have dense breasts.
Having more fibrous than fatty breast tissue, mammograms sometimes miss
malignancies in women with this condition.
I became one of them.
Haunted by those dreams, but
under no medical suspicion of cancer, I requested an MRI that year since it
detects better through dense tissue than mammography. Between getting scanned
and receiving the results another ominous dream invaded my sleep. A woman in a
lab coat told me I had breast cancer. A week later her words were confirmed by
my real life doctor.
More shocking than being diagnosed with cancer in a dream was
learning that I am not alone.Around the
time of my diagnosis Dr. Larry Burk, M.D. was recruiting women who dreamed of
breast cancer before their actual diagnoses for a study.Larry is a former section head in
musculoskeletal radiology at Duke University and co-founder of the Duke Center
for Integrative Medicine in 1998. His inspiration for the breast cancer warning
dreams study were the precognitive dreams of a friend and those of two medical
community peers.
Warning Dreams Proceeding the
Diagnosis of Breast Cancer: A Survey of the Most Important Characteristics was
published in the May/June Issue of Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.
Post publication Dr. Burk introduced some of the women so we could compare
notes. The commonalities between our experiences are remarkable. Most, but not
all of us, had tumors missed by mammography. Our dreams motivated each of us to
get screened, and in some cases, to press for a second look. And, we all
believe responding to the urgency of these dreams saved our lives.
Paulette Wyssbrod Goltz was
told in her dream: “Your
mother has cancer, she has three months to live and you have a tumor in your
right breast.” Paulette dutifully got mammograms each year because of this
dream, which came back normal. The fifth year, having just passed another
mammogram, Goltz noticed a patch of orange flaky skin on her right breast and
insisted on a more in-depth screening. She was informed that her cancer had
been growing for about five years. And Paulette’s mother? She was diagnosed
with cancer shortly after the dream and passed away six months later.
Kathleen Kanavos had recurrent
dreams insisting she go back to the doctor despite her normal mammogram because
she had cancer. Her doctor refused to consider there could be a problem given
the unremarkable screening. Then Kat had another dream that shook her to the
core: “A guide took my hand, placed it on
my right breast and said, ‘You have cancer right here. Feel it? Go back to your
doctor tomorrow. Don’t wait for an appointment.’ I started to cry in my dream
and told him that the doctors wouldn’t listen to me now any more than before.”
The dream guide told Kat she needed exploratory surgery. Her doctor wasn’t
having it. He wanted to wait six months and re-screen. Yet, with amazing aplomb
Kanavos convinced him to order the surgery. Much to his surprise, a tumor,
right where Kat predicted. Waiting six months would have given Kat’s Stage 2
cancer more time to metastasize out of control.
Like myself and Kathleen, Wanda
Burch had a series of dreams, each revealing more information. Fortunately,
Burch’s doctors took her dream data seriously. “He (the surgeon) asked if I
dreamed the location of the tumor. I had. He gave me a felt tip pen and asked
me to draw the location on my breast. The location was accurate and he passed
along information to my oncologist on the nature of my dreaming and asked him
to participate actively with me in the healing process. I had an aggressive
cancer that did not show up on a mammogram. One of my dreams warned me of this
and encouraged me to aggressively pursue the only information available on the
diagnosis – my dreams. I did. Dr. Barlyn shared later that had it not been for
my dreams, I would have been dead in a year with no symptoms.”
Seventeen women from the study
are in remission, some for many years. Only one is no longer with us: Dr.
Burk’s friend, Sonia Lee-Shield. Like the rest of us, Sonia dreamed she had
cancer. Unfortunately, her doctors did nothing. Lee-Shield's lump was dismissed
as normal breast tissue and a year later she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast
cancer that eventually metastasized, taking her life. “If there’s one thing I
could impart to everyone is that doctors and specialists make mistakes and when
an inner voice starts screaming or dreaming you should listen.”, wrote Sonia on
her blog in 2013.
There’s no common conception in
modern America for what happened to us. This sort of thing is typically
relegated to the don’t-look-at-it-don’t-even-think-about-it
woo bin. You can see a pin drop on my Facebook wall if I mention these scary
cancer dreams. Yet, the notion of predictive dreaming across history and
cultures isn't farfetched. Indigenous regions of the world consider such
nocturnal content rather ordinary. And, ancient Greeks traveled to special
temples to incubate healing dreams. Even notable 20th century psychiatrist Carl Jung believed dreams could
reveal useful information about the body.
I don’t write this article to
say, - look at us; we have this super power. I’d rather take a nap and I
wouldn’t expect that to interest anyone else either. But if we are right, that
heeding warning dreams of illness saved our lives, this may have relevance
beyond our own experiences. Sharing our stories might inspire others to pay
closer attention to their own health related dreams. It could encourage doctors
to listen carefully when such cases present, as did Wanda Burch’s surgeon.
Reality is, we need more tools for breast cancer screening. A recent Cochrane
review found that breast screening has no impact on mortality rates, resulting
in changes to longstanding recommendation guidelines. We're now told to begin
biennial mammography at age fifty rather than starting annually at forty as
before. Many women now worry if early detection is even likely under these new
guidelines.Can people be trained to
tune into their bodies to detect health problems early, as we in the study
appear to have done spontaneously? That potentially life-saving question is
worth asking and research is the most logical place to start. This article is a
call for such research and I’m grateful to Dr. Burk for taking pioneering first
steps in that direction.
Though distressing, I never
refer to my precognitive cancer dreams as nightmares. Not anymore. They were
gifts from my psyche. Had I not heeded their warning, by now I might be
planning my end of life care instead of my next vacation. As Wanda Burch says, “I
live because I dream.”
Phrases like that kept waking me from dead sleep throughout the summer of 2013. By day I mocked it. Gee, I forgot I made that cancer getting appointment. How inconvenient! By night I worried what cruel claim my subconscious would submit next for my consideration. But mostly life went on as normal, that is, until my next routine breast screening that winter.
When my previous mammogram returned clear the radiologist casually mentioned that I have dense breasts. Having more fibrous than fatty breast tissue, mammograms sometimes miss malignancies in women with this condition.
I became one of them.
Haunted by those dreams, but under no medical suspicion of cancer, I requested an MRI that year since it detects better through dense tissue than mammography. Between getting scanned and receiving the results another ominous dream invaded my sleep. A woman in a lab coat told me I had breast cancer. A week later her words were confirmed by my real life doctor.
More shocking than being diagnosed with cancer in a dream was learning that I am not alone.Around the time of my diagnosis Dr. Larry Burk, M.D. was recruiting women who dreamed of breast cancer before their actual diagnoses for a study.Larry is a former section head in musculoskeletal radiology at Duke University and co-founder of the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine in 1998. His inspiration for the breast cancer warning dreams study were the precognitive dreams of a friend and those of two medical community peers.
Warning Dreams Proceeding the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer: A Survey of the Most Important Characteristics was published in the May/June Issue of Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing. Post publication Dr. Burk introduced some of the women so we could compare notes. The commonalities between our experiences are remarkable. Most, but not all of us, had tumors missed by mammography. Our dreams motivated each of us to get screened, and in some cases, to press for a second look. And, we all believe responding to the urgency of these dreams saved our lives.
Paulette Wyssbrod Goltz was told in her dream: “Your mother has cancer, she has three months to live and you have a tumor in your right breast.” Paulette dutifully got mammograms each year because of this dream, which came back normal. The fifth year, having just passed another mammogram, Goltz noticed a patch of orange flaky skin on her right breast and insisted on a more in-depth screening. She was informed that her cancer had been growing for about five years. And Paulette’s mother? She was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the dream and passed away six months later.
Kathleen Kanavos had recurrent dreams insisting she go back to the doctor despite her normal mammogram because she had cancer. Her doctor refused to consider there could be a problem given the unremarkable screening. Then Kat had another dream that shook her to the core: “A guide took my hand, placed it on my right breast and said, ‘You have cancer right here. Feel it? Go back to your doctor tomorrow. Don’t wait for an appointment.’ I started to cry in my dream and told him that the doctors wouldn’t listen to me now any more than before.” The dream guide told Kat she needed exploratory surgery. Her doctor wasn’t having it. He wanted to wait six months and re-screen. Yet, with amazing aplomb Kanavos convinced him to order the surgery. Much to his surprise, a tumor, right where Kat predicted. Waiting six months would have given Kat’s Stage 2 cancer more time to metastasize out of control.
Like myself and Kathleen, Wanda Burch had a series of dreams, each revealing more information. Fortunately, Burch’s doctors took her dream data seriously. “He (the surgeon) asked if I dreamed the location of the tumor. I had. He gave me a felt tip pen and asked me to draw the location on my breast. The location was accurate and he passed along information to my oncologist on the nature of my dreaming and asked him to participate actively with me in the healing process. I had an aggressive cancer that did not show up on a mammogram. One of my dreams warned me of this and encouraged me to aggressively pursue the only information available on the diagnosis – my dreams. I did. Dr. Barlyn shared later that had it not been for my dreams, I would have been dead in a year with no symptoms.”
Seventeen women from the study are in remission, some for many years. Only one is no longer with us: Dr. Burk’s friend, Sonia Lee-Shield. Like the rest of us, Sonia dreamed she had cancer. Unfortunately, her doctors did nothing. Lee-Shield's lump was dismissed as normal breast tissue and a year later she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer that eventually metastasized, taking her life. “If there’s one thing I could impart to everyone is that doctors and specialists make mistakes and when an inner voice starts screaming or dreaming you should listen.”, wrote Sonia on her blog in 2013.
There’s no common conception in modern America for what happened to us. This sort of thing is typically relegated to the don’t-look-at-it-don’t-even-think-about-it woo bin. You can see a pin drop on my Facebook wall if I mention these scary cancer dreams. Yet, the notion of predictive dreaming across history and cultures isn't farfetched. Indigenous regions of the world consider such nocturnal content rather ordinary. And, ancient Greeks traveled to special temples to incubate healing dreams. Even notable 20th century psychiatrist Carl Jung believed dreams could reveal useful information about the body.
I don’t write this article to say, - look at us; we have this super power. I’d rather take a nap and I wouldn’t expect that to interest anyone else either. But if we are right, that heeding warning dreams of illness saved our lives, this may have relevance beyond our own experiences. Sharing our stories might inspire others to pay closer attention to their own health related dreams. It could encourage doctors to listen carefully when such cases present, as did Wanda Burch’s surgeon. Reality is, we need more tools for breast cancer screening. A recent Cochrane review found that breast screening has no impact on mortality rates, resulting in changes to longstanding recommendation guidelines. We're now told to begin biennial mammography at age fifty rather than starting annually at forty as before. Many women now worry if early detection is even likely under these new guidelines.Can people be trained to tune into their bodies to detect health problems early, as we in the study appear to have done spontaneously? That potentially life-saving question is worth asking and research is the most logical place to start. This article is a call for such research and I’m grateful to Dr. Burk for taking pioneering first steps in that direction.
Though distressing, I never refer to my precognitive cancer dreams as nightmares. Not anymore. They were gifts from my psyche. Had I not heeded their warning, by now I might be planning my end of life care instead of my next vacation. As Wanda Burch says, “I live because I dream.”
This interview with Rocio Aguirre and her mother, Amparo, is the last in my Breast Cancer Warning Dreams interview series. Myself and the others profiled in this series were part of a study featuring women who were diagnosed with breast cancer in dreams and then in real life. Amparo does not speak English so her daughter Rocio acts as translator. Some of Rocio's own dreams leading up to her mother's diagnosis are featured at the end.
M&E
Can you tell us about yourself? Your life now.
Rocio
My mom (her name is Amparo) lives in Ibague, Colombia where she has lived almost all her life. She has 2 daughters who live in a different city. She is a retired woman who spends most of her time doing exercise, reading and participating in social and family events. She is very interested in activities that nurture her physically, mentally and spirituality. She also loves to sing (she was a professional singer) and continues doing so for fun from time to time at social or family events.
M&E
Can you set the stage of your life at the time of this dream that suggested you had breast cancer? Were dreams about health issues common for you or did this come out of left field?
Rocio
She was going through grief. My dad had died in an accident 2 years ago which was very shocking for everyone since it was a sudden death. She was still very affected and had not fully recovered from this lost. We had moved her from her 35-year house where she lived with my father to a smaller but more comfortable apartment. At the same time, she was learning to be more independent and making her own decisions. She was going through the beginning of a totally new stage in her life.
My mom had always received information through dreams but this dream came out of left field. It was the first time she had a dream so shocking about what seemed something serious affecting her health. She had this dream about 3 months before the cancer diagnosis on June 1st, 2012.
“I am in my apartment lying down on my bed. Suddenly I notice that there is a lot of blood coming out of my breast (both) as if they were hurt. My breast is naked. I see the blood running down my skin. I feel anguish and concerned. I am so terrified that I awaken.”
Once awakened, she had the same feelings (fearful, anguish and concerned). She had a hunch that her oldest daughter (me) could be in danger because the doctors had discovered a cyst in her daughter's breast. She thought the dream was warning her about it. She never imagined it was about herself.
M&E
How did the dream unfold? Did it move you to seek screening right away or did you wait?
Rocio
My mom told me the dream and I encouraged her to go see the doctor ASAP. I had a hunch. She did not do the screening immediately but a couple of months later.
M&E
What was the outcome of your screening?
Rocio:
She had cancer in her left breast that could be treated with mastectomy alone and a drug for 5 years (to prevent further cancer diagnosis).
M&E
Did you tell your physician or his/her staff about the dream? If so, how did they respond?
Rocio
No, she did not. Generally, doctors are skeptics so she did not want to tell the dream.
M&E
Do you believe your dream and subsequent actions you took as a result saved your life? If so, how?
Rocio
Yes, for both of us because the cancer was discovered on time. She did not have to go through aggressive treatments. It was ok only with a mastectomy but she did not have to receive radiotherapy or chemotherapy for example.
M&E
How did you come to be included in Dr. Burk's study?
Rocio
I was participating in the PsyberDreaming Conference organized by the IASD (International Association for the Study of Dreams) in September or October 2013. Dr. Burk was a presenting about this topic and asked for volunteers for his research on warning dreams and breast cancer. I told my mom about it and she was interested to talk about her story. I translated the information.
M&E
Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers about your experience?
Rocio
Make of your dreams a valuable resource of inner wisdom. So, write them down, pay attention to them and learn to interpret the symbols that come through them. They are simply extraordinary to guide you in all areas of your life!
I have been very left brain so connecting with my intuition in waking state was difficult. It started with my dreams when my conscious mind could not filter the information. As I learned to trust, I could get a huge support from that inner guidance. I believe that we need to become acquainted with different ways of knowing and being in the world and dreams are a great way to do it. We need an approach that embraces diversity and an integrative thinking that encourages us to change our fragmented worldview for a wider perspective. We are part of a bigger, more interrelated whole.
Returning to my dreams and my mom. My dreams started more than a year before my mom was diagnosed with cancer (same happened with my father's death: I began dreaming about his death more than a year before he had the accident).
Rocio's Dreams
Feb 16, 2011 - Is my mom sick?
I'm in an unknown place with many people. Some people are sitting while others are lying on the floor. Somebody is sick…I think is my mom. I see hospital stuff, devices. Someone is giving orders.
Feb 21, 2011 – Exposed breast
I’m getting in line at a hotel counter. I see my friend Adri who is next to me. She is wearing a black transparent and short dress. Suddenly I realize I’m staring at her breast. She notices it. I feel embarrassed and try to explain that what I’m looking at is that she didn’t put on a bras and everything is exposed.
Sep 1, 2011 – The bag with medical stuff
I’m in a house with several rooms. I’m in one of the rooms. My auntie Orlanda is there with me and gives me a bag with medical stuff (shots and rubber bands) that my cousin (who is a doctor) sent to me. I know I don’t need it now but I should keep it for a future use.
During the same night I had another dream: someone very close to me is sick but I can’t remember who she is.
Sep 14, 2011 – The intubation
I’m in a house. I think I had been at the hospital. I feel something on my back. I pull it…It’s a long and thin tube coming out of my back. I’m scared! What’s that? Now I notice all the tubes that come out of my body and I know I was intubated …for oxygen? My parents are with me. I should call the health insurance to ask them to remove those tubes from my body. Would that be painful? I wonder. My doctor cousin is by my side but she can’t do it. I go to a room where the procedure can be done…I ring a bell. A doctor assistant appears and takes me to a little room to change my clothes. I see 2 doctors relaxing on a table.
This reminds me of the drainage tubes my mom had when she had the mastectomy in August 2012. Two medical specialists took care of the surgery: an oncologist and a plastic surgeon.
Oct 11, 2011 – The stain of blood
There is a blood stain on a body’s woman. It seems it’s coming out of her breast. About Rocio:
"I have been working in the corporate world within the learning industry for more than 20 years. Some years ago I felt a strong calling to serve others and so, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery and healing that led me to pursue a new career that brought more meaning to my life. Today I am a certified professional coach, have an M.A. in transpersonal Psychology and have studied a variety of healing modalities such as mindfulness, art therapy, EFT, and Dreamwork. My new career is related to help people who don’t have clarity of their path and talents and feel lost or stuck, to be the leaders of their lives, access their inner wisdom to tap into their greatness, be aware of their deepest desires, have full, authentic and meaningful lives and so recover a sense of balance and wholeness while sharing confidently their gifts with the world. In short, I support people in living purposeful and fulfilled lives."
This interview with Kathleen O'keefe Kanavos is part six of my Breast Cancer Warning Dreams Series. The women in these interviews and myself were part of a study that profiled women who were diagnosed with breast cancer in dreams and then in real life.
M&E
Can you set the stage of your life at the time of this dream that suggested you had breast cancer? Were dreams about health issues common for you or did this come out of left field?
Kathleen O'keefe Kanovos
This was definitely out of left field. According to my yearly check –up I was the picture of perfect health. All my mammograms, blood tests and physical exams “proved” to the medical community that my cancer concerns were unwarranted. However, my recurrent precognitive dreams would not be ignored and hounded my every sleeping and waking hour. Nightmares often accompany health related dreams.
My daily routine was to get up-whenever I felt like it- pick out a tennis outfit, join my team for an inter country-club match, decide where to go for lunch, go out with friends for dinner. Go to bed, get up, and repeat. My life was very different from the life I lead in-service today.
It all began one stormy night when my husband and I were in the bathtub together looking up through the skylight at the full Halloween moon when I remembered a recurrent dream that kept telling me to go back to the doctor despite my healthy mammogram because I had breast cancer. That was the beginning of the end of my old care-free life.
Fortunately, I had a husband who supported me in my old life, and still does today, in my new one.
Sometimes you don’t know what you are made of until you start to fall apart and your best parts pop out and hold you together. We are made up of so much more than id, ego and super ego. Often, bad things happen to good people. That’s life. But, you don’t have to be a victim of circumstances. Listening to our dreams can save us from being a victim at all.
M&E How did the dream unfold? Did it move you to seek screening right away or did you wait?
Kathleen O'Keefe Kanavos
Three days after my memory of the dream in the bathtub, I had an appointment with my gynecologist, Dr. Wagner, whom I also used as my general practitioner. “I can’t feel anything on or around your breast, Kathy.”
“Perhaps it’s easier to feel during my menstrual cycle,” I replied from a contorted pretzel position with my arm held over my head. He shook his head as he manipulated the area again. I’m torn between relief and concern. Is nothing really there? Did he miss it, or were the voices of alarm in my head just residual anxiety from Mom’s recent death from colon cancer. But, Peter had felt it, too.
“You had a blood test and mammogram less than six months ago and everything was fine,” Dr. Wagner said. He helped me up and showed me a copy of the report. “I think what you felt was just a fibrous tumor that is sensitive to your menstrual cycle. Let’s just keep an eye on it. Come back in six months and we’ll check it again,” he concluded with a reassuring smile, and snapped my chart shut.
That night’s strange dream sent me scurrying back to Dr. Wagner. I had been enjoying my dream when suddenly it froze, much like the screen on a computer freezes, and a pop-up window appeared, also like one on a computer. My Spiritual Guide/Guardian Angel dressed like a monk in a brown hooded robe belted with a knotted rope and leather sandals stepped through the window and said, “Come with me. We have something to tell you.” I obediently followed him into a room I call the room between realms; a place that is neither of the earth nor the dead, yet the dead can visit to share information. It is a parallel universe of consciousness. A guide took my hand, placed it on my right breast and said, “You have cancer right here. Feel it? Go back to your doctor tomorrow. Don’t wait for an appointment.” I started to cry in my dream and told him that the doctors wouldn’t listen to me now any more than before. “They just keep giving me the same tests over and over. You help me.” My guide reached into the pocket of his robe and handed me a tiny white feather no bigger than a feather that escapes a pillow and glides to the bedroom floor. “Use this feather as a sword to fence with in your verbal battles with the doctors and you will win against scientific facts. You need exploratory surgery. If you present your case to the doctors as though you were an attorney standing before an incredulous judge that dislikes you, you will win,” he said, then turned and walked out of my dream. I was outside the room between realms as the window disappeared. My previous dream started up again right where it had left off. Time had stood still.
“You want an exploratory surgery! I can’t take something out that isn’t there. An operation is a serious decision, and in your case unfounded and unnecessary.” My doctor is upset. So am I, but for a different reason. His concern is that I’ve overreacted to an “invisible spot.” Mine is that I haven’t reacted enough to this damned spot.
As a doctor, his war chest is armed with indisputable medical evidence, three mammograms, blood tests and physical exams that all point to perfect health. In mine I have an angel feather from a dream. I dug into my mental chest, pulled out the tiny feather and imagined pointing it him. His defense is logically indisputable. Yet, I pleaded my case like a lawyer to convince him to do what I want and not what he wanted –play the “wait and see” game. Six months from now may be too late. But, since I am the patient and he the doctor, I am at his mercy. I’m taking a giant leap of faith here, so “voices,” don’t let me down! I silently prayed while mentally pinching my feather between my fingers. Then I turned to face my medical opponent, who I must win over to become an ally to live.
M&E What was the outcome of your screening?
Kathleen O'Keefe Kanavos
The first warning bell tolled in my brain when my doctor pulled the privacy curtain behind him in the little recovery cubical. The second one gonged when he took my hand. “Pathology didn’t like what they saw when they cut the tumor open,” he said. That shocked the s*#t out of me and my nausea was momentarily replaced by panic.
“Is it cancer?” I held fast to the side of the gurney and braced myself for the answer I already suspected.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll get your husband and also refer you to a specialist now.”
The specialist I requested in your office when you told me I was too young for cancer? I thought.
So my dreams had been right, the doctors and tests wrong. With my surgeon’s words, the first shot of my ensuing battle had been fired and it is not a warning shot across my bow. It is point-blank into my breast. I glance down at my painful wound and weep.
PATHOLOGY HAD JUST CoNFIRMED MY WORST NIGHTMARE.
This uphill march began my Alice in Cancerland descent down the dark rabbit hole of crisis. The corner has been turned. There is no going back to my previous life. Like Alice, I was falling, falling with no bottom in sight and little hope of a soft landing.
M&E
Did you tell your physician or his/her staff about the dream? If so, how did they respond?
Kathleen O'Keefe Kanavos
Yes and no. Five years later two of my New York doctors walked into the examining room with a look of concern on their faces and asked, “Are you psychic?” It turned out that a dream I had had concerning my treatment had been right again. I finally told them the whole story. They told me to write a book ad that they planned to tell the story at every cocktail party they attended. “Your dream story will be the talk of the town.” I sent my Boston doctors an autographed book.
M&E Do you believe your dream and subsequent actions you took as a result saved your life? If so, how?
Kathleen O'keefe Kanavos
Absolutely! If I had followed my doctors suggestion the first time and waited six months for a second set of tests my stage 2 aggressive cancer that was also in a lymph node would have had time to grow and spread out of control. Six months would have been too late. If I had listened the second time when my doctors told me was too healthy to qualify for an MRI, my recurrent stage 4, 9x11 cm lobular cancerous area would not have been found in time. I was on the edge of doom.
M&E How did you come to be included in Dr. Burk's study?
Kathleen O'keefe Kanavos
A friend of a friend of a friend contacted us and we then met by email and later by phone. Kelly Sullivan Walden was one of those friends, and I credit her with Dr. Larry Burk and I meeting for the first time. We then met in person at IASD; the International Association for the Study of Dreams, where we later did presentations together.
M&E Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
Kathleen O'keefe Kanavos
What is truly amazing Suzanne is that we all spend one-third to almost half of our lives sleeping. Whether we remember them or not, we dream...every night, and even during the day with Daydreams. Yet, for many people, dreams remain an "X" file because in our Western culture they are looked upon as useless, nonsensical, random firings of an over-active, over-stimulated brain. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Your dreams can save your health, wealth, relationships and love-life. We often forget that we go to bed each night with the smartest person in this world? YOU! And, the only person who can answer all your questions and in some ways, save your life.
Here are my 4 tips on how to live a fulfilled and happy life:
Don’t take no for an answer. “No!” means start again at the next level up. Think YES!Don’t be dismissed. Stand in your power and speak your truth. Be the squeaky wheel until you are heard. Learn to dance in the rain, sing in the wind, and make lemonade out of a storm.
M&E Tell us about your life now. Kathleen O'Keefe Kanavos After surviving breast cancer three times that was missed by the medical community and the tests on which they relied, but uncovered in my dreams, I spend much of my time in the service of others, helping women, and men, learn how to believe in themselves and their dreams, so they can stand in their power and speak their truth when facing adversity. My missed recurrence was stage four, considered terminal, yet here I still am, sharing my experience in your interview.
This interview with Paulette Wyssbrod Goltz is the 5th in my Breast Cancer Warning Dreams series. The women featured in this series and myself were in a study profiling women diagnosed with breast cancer in dreams and then in real life. The study, authored by Dr. Larry Burk M.D., was published in the May/June issue of Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.
M&E
Can you tell us about yourself?
Paulette Wyssbrod Goltz:
I live in a small town on
the Texas coast. I moved here when I went on permanent disability from cancer
treatment. I also went back to school at that time and finished a BS in
Psychology. Currently I am a freelance
writer. I write for three online platforms. I have a pen name I use to
self-publish on Amazon, and I have written two novels (fiction) that have been
sent to publishers. Basically, I am a writer/author!
M&E:
Can you set the stage of your life at the time of this dream that suggested you
had breast cancer?
Paulette:
I was working as a manager for a large multi-family housing
company. It was a high stress job because it was a rather new concept called
LIHTC and there was so much more to the job than normal management. I called it
working for Corporate America. I was single. I just moved back to Houston,
Texas from southern California. I was making good money. Basically it was a
time in my life when everything was going my way and I had the freedom to do
whatever I wanted with friends, etc.
M&E:
Were dreams about health issues common for you or did this
come out of left field? Paulette: This dream came out of left field.I have always had
message dreams but never about health. In the dream a voice said to me “your
mother has cancer, she has three months to live and you have a tumor in your
right breast.” I remember waking up, turning on my bedside lamp, looking around
my bedroom to see if anyone was there, and then at the clock. It was just after
2: a.m. I told my sister about the dream the next day.
M&E
How did the dream unfold?
Paulette:
A couple weeks later my mother did have cancer and
was given three months to live. She actually lived six months though.
M&E
Did
it move you to seek screening right away or did you wait? Paulette: I got regular
mammograms. I did the yearly thing without fail because two of my older sisters
had breast cancer.
M&E
What was the outcome of your screening?
Paulette:
All of my mammograms for the next
five years were supposedly OK. I found the cancer. I was getting dressed one
morning and noticed a patch of skin on my right breast that looked like an
orange peel. It was the size of a silver dollar. The minute I saw it I knew. I
went directly to my regular doctor and she said “it’s probably nothing” she did
a breast exam. Also I had just had my annual mammogram and it came back OK. I
told the doctor “I need to get another mammogram, I know what this is, I don’t
care what the last mammogram said. I dreamt about this five years ago.” She
kept trying to push the mammogram came back clean thing and she could not feel
anything during the breast exam but she finally relinquished. So, she referred
me to a hospital clinic, and they did a different type of mammogram where they
put sticky things around the area of the orange peel skin. I waited for the
results, and when they sent me in for an ultra-sound and tissue removal I knew
I had breast cancer. Three days later it was confirmed. Cancer in my right
breast.
M&E:
Did you tell your physician or his/her staff about the dream? If so, how did they respond?
Paulette:
Both my
regular doctor and my oncologist did not respond to the dream when I told them
about it. I saw the same oncologist my
mother had and I did tell her about the dream. She was a feisty old doctor and
she listened but did not say anything. But, after the surgery, it turned out
that the tumor had been growing for about five years, was grade 2, stage 2, and
in three lymph nodes. The dream was in the late summer of 1998 and the
diagnosis was November 2003. So the dream was correct. They only listened but did not respond.
M&E:
Do you believe your dream and subsequent actions you took as a result saved your
life?
Paulette:
It would have been nice had it been discovered earlier because my
treatment plan would have not been so aggressive. I took the right actions by
following through with mammograms yearly and doing breast exams but none of
that helped in finding the cancer. I have often thought that perhaps I should
have told my doctor about the dream but then I seriously wonder what her
response would have been since the mammograms came back clean.
M&E:
How did you come to be included in Dr. Burk's study?
Paulette:
I saw a CTA on Dr.
Northrop’s FB page about being told about breast cancer in a dream.
M&E
Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers about your experience?
Paulette:
If you have a dream that warns you about a health condition, push it until
someone listens to you. Regardless of their response.
