When I went in for my appointment, I came prepared. I brought my favorite American herbal, Susun Weed's Menopausal Years, and my Chinese/English/Latin herbal, The Barefoot Doctor, which I had picked up at a Fundamentalist Church rummage sale for fifty cents. (I love rummage sales, garage sales, swap meets and all other forms of treasure hunting. You can get great pagan stuff at church fund-raisers really cheap.)

When I spoke to Dr. Lim, I spoke directly to him as a person reared in China who remembered his Grandmother's tonics and the local acupuncturist. When I showed him The Barefoot Doctor, and the herbs I had marked for use, I could feel him respond. He even looked different, somehow softer. Then he read the passages I had marked in Chinese, and told me he was very glad I was using this approach in addition to “modern” medicine. I knew I could work with him.

Dr. Lim felt that he would probably be performing a lumpectomy since the tumor appeared to be aggressive. However, he would not know exactly what he would do until he had a pathologist's report on the growth. This decision would take place during the surgery. I felt I had nothing to be gain by delay, and a lot to be lost, so I decided to do it to it. He scheduled me for surgery the following Wednesday, which happened to be the day the waning Moon entered Cancer.

This gave me five days to prepare myself on every level.