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Doctors Kept Telling Me I Was Going To Die

So far, I just keep proving them wrong

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readNov 4, 2022
Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash

So I was watching a Tedx Talks today on the placebo effect by a doctor. I agreed with a lot of what she was saying, but then she said the most important component of this effect is the positive attitude of the medical professional treating the patient.

I call bullsh*t on this.

Maybe it is true for some people, but it’s definitely not true in my case.

If anything, I have kept proving doctors wrong.

The first time I was diagnosed with cancer was in 2004. It was a very aggressive form of breast cancer — inflammatory breast disease. It was immediately categorized by my oncologist as type III cancer. It was very fast growing. My mammogram had been clear just a few months before I went to my doctor because my right breast had become red, inflamed, and pitted like an orange peel.

The first doctor I saw panicked. He immediately wanted to rush me into surgery, chemo, and radiation.

I told him to hold his horses. When he wouldn’t let me ask questions, my husband at the time stepped in and yelled at him to listen to me.

The oncologists told me I had 6 months to live. They were so sure I was going to die, that the nurse running the…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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