In September of 1855, Lucy Thurston — a 60-year-old missionary who had been living in Hawaii with her husband since 1820 — underwent a mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Incredibly, she somehow endured the operation wide-awake, without any form of anaesthetic. She wrote the following letter to her daughter a month later and described the unimaginably harrowing experience.
The procedure was a success. Lucy Thurston lived for another 21 years.
(Source: Life and Times of Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston; Image: Asa and Lucy Thurston, c.1848, via Wikimedia.)
