My Cancer Diagnosis Story

In this blog post, I’ll tell you my basic story so you will know a little background and then, post by post, I’ll fill in the details of how I regained my health and maintained it the past 21 years. I’ll try to keep each post about one specific subject so you can pick and choose what to read about. Because your time is valuable, I’ll also try to keep each post short and to the point. This first post will probably be the longest.

Also, please let me know of any health topics you are interested in and I’ll do my best to cover them!

Here’s my story:

Twenty-one years ago, at the age of 38, I found myself facing my greatest fear: breast cancer. My husband, Russ, and I were very busy raising our eight children on a small farm northeast of the city of Detroit. We had been homeschooling since our oldest was of school age and had been struggling to take care of our oldest daughter, Debbie, who had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor the year before. Debbie had had major brain surgery and was at home recovering, learning how to eat, talk, use the bathroom, etc. all over again. I’ll write more about Debbie’s cancer battle in another post. Prior to Debbie’s diagnosis, our family had very little health problems. There’s no good time to be diagnosed with cancer, but this time in our lives seemed to be the worst of all possible times. I was still breastfeeding our youngest and was instructed to wean her within a week, which I did, but not without tears.

I went in first for a lumpectomy, which showed that the cancer was more widespread than just contained in the lump. I then went in for a second surgery to have my right breast removed, along with nine lymph nodes. Of the nine nodes, three tested positive for cancer. An oncologist was assigned to me and chemotherapy was recommended to begin as soon as my surgical site had healed. I returned to the hospital once again several weeks later to have a mediport put in so as to receive chemo.

My first chemo appointment was scheduled for a Friday morning. As my husband and I faced this new challenge, we spent a lot of time searching and praying for the right treatment. I felt so uneasy about my chemo appointment, that I called and postponed it for a week. I did this two more times. I don’t think I was simply scared of the effects that chemo would have on me, but felt a warning deep inside that I couldn’t shake. I scheduled an appointment at the Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit to get a second opinion. They offered three different chemotherapy trials that I could be a part of. I questioned the doctor over and over about each one. He finally put down his papers, looked me in the eye and said, “I’ll level with you.  We can kill every cancer cell in your body, but we would also kill you. Our goal is to take you as close to death’s door as possible in order to kill as many cancer cells as possible, and then hope your immune system can rebound.” I declined to sign up for one of the trials.

This was in 1996, so the internet and personal computers were not what they are today where so much information is only a click away, making research about all possible options a bit more difficult. We received a letter from a very dear friend that contained information about a doctor in New York City who was doing an alternative cancer treatment, which looked promising. I could go to NYC for three days, do some blood work, and be set up with a program to follow at home. I would need to return every three months for follow up. There was also a chiropractor in Chicago who was doing a similar therapy which didn’t require that I come personally, but could have me use a local lab and conduct phone consultations to explain all I would need to do. This Chicago doctor wasn’t as expensive either.

Our biggest concerns were that we might be getting taken in by a fraud and not have good results, as well as being out a lot of money. My husband was employed by the school district and had outstanding insurance, which had covered 100% of our daughter’s brain surgery and radiation treatments, and would cover all of my expenses should I choose traditional medical treatment, but would cover none of the therapies we were considering. The Chicago doctor would cost approximately $800 per month for supplements and support. This was a huge obstacle for us and one we spent a lot of time considering.

We were able to talk to the Chicago doctor, the late Dr. Jack O. Taylor, as well as an organization called People Against Cancer to check out his treatment plan. He was not able to say a word to us about curing cancer, for if he made any claims regarding cancer, he would quickly be put out of business by the FDA. He would only say that he would help me become as healthy as possible, which wasn’t as much as I wanted to hear! He also highly recommended reading the book, “Questioning Chemotherapy” by Dr. Ralph Moss. Since I still had the mediport and wasn’t sure yet what to do, I did read this book. It is still available and covers all types of cancer (by chapter) and chronicles each cancer from the first chemo trial to the present, not stating opinions but only the facts of how successful each trial was. The facts show that very few cancers respond well to chemotherapy in the long term. Some cancers in the blood seem to respond better, but after reading it, I was more convinced that chemotherapy wasn’t the answer for breast cancer.

We signed up for Dr. Taylor’s help and I started his treatment protocol in the fall of 1996. I was tested every three months to see how my body was responding. The first three-month test showed no change. The second three-month test showed a large drop in the number of cancer cells circulating in my body – well within normal ranges! The plan had worked and I had never felt better! I had the energy of a kid and would rather exercise or go for a walk in the afternoon than take a nap! We were so thankful!

Our beautiful daughter, Debbie, lost her cancer battle several years later. She has been missed every day since then.  I’ll explain more about her cancer and treatment in a later post.

In the following posts, I will explain exactly what the alternative cancer therapy I did looked like. Whether you have cancer or not, there are some things included that you can start doing today that will improve your health.  There are also several easy to implement foods that can make a huge difference in whether you will ever be diagnosed with cancer.

Obviously, we will all die at some point.  Why I survived and our daughter didn’t is a mystery that I don’t expect to understand on this earth but I do believe we have an obligation to seek out the best things to eat and lifestyle choices to make that will give us the best, healthiest life possible!

Thanks for reading!