I cry for various reasons. I cry when I've been at a wonderful ritual retreat in the mountains, and a hundred women are chanting the closing of the circle. I cry when someone dies on one of my beloved soap operas; I cry when I'm very tired, or in major physical pain (like most women I have a fairly high pain threshold). When I'm scared, I never cry -- I make jokes. When my feelings are hurt, I don't cry -- I withdraw and put a pearl around the grain of sand. Mostly, I cry when I'm angry. The angrier I am, the harder I cry.

Men don't understand this. I usually have to explain through my sobs (and by then I'm sobbing), that this is not weakness, intimidation, fear, or anything other than fury.

I was absolutely furious that the doctor had taken it upon himself to make the decision to change the course of treatment without consulting me first. My husband started telling him how upset I was, that I was crying. I interrupted to say that I would take no course of action without thinking long and hard about it first.

I asked the doctor what “weakly positive” meant. He said that that, along with the tumor being larger than he first thought, (1 centimeter), put me into “Stage 2." I replied that I was under the impression that anything under 2 centimeters and hormone positive was still Stage 1. I realized he was lying to me.

At that point, I stopped hearing him. I can't remember what he said, because the Goddess was yelling in my ear -- “NO!”. I told him I would get back to him and let him know my decision after I had time to think about it. I made it very clear to the doctor that it was indeed my decision. I also decided against taking the estrogen inhibiting drug after additional research on its side effects.