In this interview, Rebeccah Silence recounts a profound spiritual breakthrough that occurred two months before she was diagnosed with an aggressive malignant melanoma while pregnant. She describes her background as a former domestic‑violence survivor, single mother, and radio host who felt she had overcome her past, only to discover a rapidly spreading skin cancer on her arm after a plastic surgeon’s wife noticed a suspicious mole. Because she was pregnant, doctors could not stage the cancer with radioactive dye until after delivery, leading to a series of extensive surgeries—including amputation‑level removal of the arm tissue, lymph‑node dissections (totaling 21 operations), and chemotherapy. Chemo caused severe peripheral neuropathy resulting in drop foot, which she eventually overcame by trusting her spiritual guidance. Rebeccah frames the entire ordeal as a "seminar" that deepened her relationship with God, shifted her from "high‑functioning unhappiness" to a state of continuous spiritual alignment, and reinforced her belief that accessing one’s own spirit eliminates the need to constantly figure things out. She emphasizes that while she does not advise quitting chemo, her story illustrates the power of surrender, divine guidance, and personal transformation through extreme adversity.
Chapters
So for me, I had God with me, and I was a good little Catholic girl, literally an altar girl, literally carrying a candle as big as I was, you know, down, you know, up, up to the altar. Every single Sunday, carrying the light, carrying the torch, good little girl. But I didn't have my own personal relationship with God and Source really until it started with this breakthrough. Wait a minute, God's always been with me and my body's been with me and my body is my access point to God. That's what I got. Didn't know that really before this breakthrough moment, which was 2 months before I got diagnosed with cancer and given a 5% chance to live while I was pregnant. And thank freaking God, literally and metaphorically, for that breakthrough right before the diagnosis, because cancer became my ultimate seminar where I got to meet myself, surrender, and become someone who had access to God only 24/7, and my life has become a co-creation with God ever since. I only had a 5% chance to live, and here I am.
Okay, I, I mean, you rarely hear of people who discover they have cancer while they are pregnant. How did you even figure out that you had cancer?
Yeah, well, and that is quite a conversation because I had no symptoms and my life was like my dream come true. So I had gotten out of the domestic violence marriage, became a single mother that figured it out with a 2-year-old, working 3 jobs, going bankrupt, foreclosing on the house. I mean, I knew if I left my husband, I was going to be on my own. And, and I was. He signed his rights away and it was just me and this beautiful little girl. And I did not know I could do it, but I was unwilling not to figure it out. Right. So by the time I got diagnosed with cancer, I thought I had beat my past because I got married again. I had a thriving business. You know, I was on the radio talking to hundreds of thousands of people every single week. 14 years later, I'm still on the radio in New York doing this. Right. But cancer just felt so mean because I felt fine. And I really thought all this achievement meant I had outwit— outplayed, you know, beat my past. And then I get diagnosed. And the reason I found out was because I was coaching a plastic surgeon and his wife, and they were like, Rebeccah, you saved our marriage, you're saving our family, we're so grateful for you, we know we're here for you to help us, but this thing on your arm doesn't look right. Come into the office at 7 a.m. tomorrow and let us take it off. So I go into the office at 7 a.m. the next day. They take this thing and I know nothing about skin cancer. There's no— I was 34 years old. There's no family history of cancer. There's no symptoms going on in me. There is this little mole on my arm that I had already asked my primary doctor to refer me to a dermatologist about, and he said, no, we'd watch and wait. While I was pregnant, it changed. It grew. I didn't know malignant melanoma is like cells that are— it's like a glacier, you know, like you only see above the surface and then there's all this. So long story short, it had already spread. It was in my lymph nodes. It was the most aggressive melanoma that you could have. But they couldn't stage me officially until the baby was out. And it was a ride. But that's how I found out.
Oh my God. So they, they couldn't tell you what stage you were until the baby was out. Now, why is that?
Because they inject radioactive dye into your system to stage you. So they can't do that while there's a baby and they can't do the scans. And to your point, they don't really know what to do with a young, seemingly healthy woman who's pregnant when it comes to cancer, you know. So I had this major surgery. The cancer was on my arm here, so they cut from my elbow, you know, all the way up to my shoulder, down to the bone, took all these margins, and then took the baby out when I was 38 weeks pregnant. And 3 weeks later did the staging of testing my lymph nodes, found cancer immediately. 2 weeks later took all my lymph nodes. I've had 21 surgeries and it was a ride, and my body never had time to heal from one surgery to the next. Then we started chemo, um, which— that's a whole other Oprah, because the chemo— thank God for my ability to have a healed relationship with my body so I could access divine guidance, because without that, I ended up quitting chemo all against medical advice because I ended up with drop foot. All the nerves were dying down my right leg, and I literally couldn't use my leg, and I lost the arch in my foot. My toes were pointed like a ballerina with no arch. You couldn't move my foot. The first physical therapist that I saw said, you're like a kid with cerebral palsy, you're never going to be able to walk again. So I fired her. Um, but, you know, and I would never suggest to anybody listening, quit chemo if you have cancer. But what I want you to hear from my story is, A, High-functioning unhappiness is not meant to be your life. You silent is not meant to be your life. And your ability to access your own spirit and the highest version of you and Source, whatever that is for you, means you never have to figure anything out ever again. You never have to feel stress or pressure ever again. And you can trust yourself when you're connected to your own spirit and divine guidance and I trusted myself and I followed the guidance, and I really wasn't experiencing trauma while I went through cancer because the healed me was in charge of the mission called my life by the time I got diagnosed with cancer. Um, and, and I would have never graduated myself from alignment not mattering, achievement mattering if I hadn't gone through it. And so I—
