Diagnosed in late September 2019, I have been diligently seeking treatment since.

Early 2020, post chemo & radiation, my symptoms began to re-emerge and the tumor was determined to be active still. The next line of defense according to my conventional oncology team was a surgery. They discovered two tumors and fully removed them. I did suffer from some severe nerve damage that required added effort for my recovery and kept me in the hospital for over a week. Before I could recover enough to jump into the preventative chemo and immunotherapy routine, my cancer aggressively spread to my liver making me a stage four patient. We started the chemo & immunotherapy immediately.

Around that time I had started to read HOW TO STARVE CANCER and was becoming very interested in the concept of Cancer as a metabolic disease.

Current conventional oncology treats Cancer as a genetic disease with toxic processes that take the body to the limit. A reliance on Clinical Trials that are sponsored by Big Pharma means that while the medical community is on the cusp of changing their approach to cancer treatment, conventional oncology is still reliant on FDA approved treatments that deal in percentages of chance for survival moreso than cure.

The metabolic approach to cancer offers an additional level of personalized care on top of my conventional treatments. It centers around lifestyle and total body health, addressing the issues within my immune system and microbiome that may have led me into this mess. Moving forward with the theory that I can build a body that is inhospitable to damaged cancer cells is a hopeful pursuit. For me, with a rare cancer that didn’t respond to first line of treatment, it has provided a sense of control in my outcome even when the prognosis was ‘on paper’ quite bleak.

I added an integrative oncologist to my team, and she immediately ordered up a bunch of blood tests, prescribed a ton of supplements, and confirmed all that I had learned from my reading to that point; that a LOW GLYCEMIC modified PALEO diet plus daily exercise, fermented foods, bone broth and tons of immune system gut work was on the docket.

She also suggested a few more books that I read, and I’ve listed them here, among others that I have consumed since my obsession with this approach to healing the body.

 I have to take a moment to thank my dear friend Patterson who has been willing to deep dive into this nutrition reading with me. Who else would share their time in this way? It is not lost on me, a fellow mama, how precious reading time and me time can be. It’s a testament to her personality that she has been willing to spend hers in a way that is supportive of me.

Her steadfast empathy for my situation and willingness to explore that and talk it through with me on a daily basis has been a crazy huge support for me through this journey.

Thank you Patterson, I love you.