In Spring of 2006, my life was finally moving toward a path I felt passionate about. I had been working as a whole foods chef and owned and operated the area’s only whole foods organic based restaurant. The restaurant was the culmination of many years spent working in the health and wellness industry from health food stores to spas and fitness resorts. I had also owned a greenhouse growing healing herbs, and grew many of my own organic vegetables. After 3 years in the restaurant business, I had reached complete burnout, often working seventy to ninety hours per week. I decided to close the business and to take a much needed break to bring balance back into my life. One month following the closing of my restaurant, my father slipped on black ice and suffered a very severe traumatic brain injury. What would transpire over the course of the next two years would change my life. My father lingered near death many times and while western medicine could offer no options other than to suggest putting him in a nursing home and wait for him to die. From all of my years spent researching alternative medicine, I felt there still might be options western medicine was unaware of. I also felt I had nothing to lose so I began to bargain with his doctors to let me try to help him. I was met with much resistance but I would not back down. Theoretically I knew the healing power of whole food and alternative modalities but it was now time to put it to the test. I did, and to everyone’s amazement, my father’s condition improved dramatically.

I felt this new path was a gift from my father. My experience with him had given me the motivation I needed to find a program to continue my education so that I could move from cooking with whole foods to teach others the healing power of whole food. I found two programs, one in New York City and the other in northern California. I enrolled in both programs and had bought my plane tickets for California.

I had recently had a yearly exam and the doctor decided that a small lump she found, was probably benign and nothing, but should be given a closer look. Numerous tests were performed but I never gave it a second thought, feeling sure it was nothing. After all, I was the healthiest person I knew, being a vegetarian for thirty plus years, and very physically active.

Almost giddy with excitement over my adventures which lie ahead, I was sitting outside, basking up the sun on a beautiful spring day and feeling gratitude for all the goodness I had been blessed with. My phone rang and upon answering, the doctor on the other end stated “it’s cancer”.

I felt as though someone had just punched me in the solar plexus. “No, there must be a mix up” I said. “I am sure you have confused my labs with someone else”. There was no mix-up. Stunned I began going through the motions of what would come next. I cancelled my plane tickets, withdrew from schools, and started the barrage of doctors appointments. It was determined that I had a 2 MM, estrogen positive tumor. I agreed to have a lumpectomy and to have a sential node biopsy to see exactly what I was up against. It had been almost three months since finding the possibility of “probably nothing”. When first faced with that possibility, night and day, I began researching breast cancer and all of the implications and possibilities. I bought and read every book I could get my hands on, both traditional and alternative approaches. I began my own healing journey deciding that I would take the Chinese approach that tumors are stuck energy and can be eliminated. I did a raw foods cleanse with lots of juicing. I researched herbs, both western and Chinese and choose the ones that made sense to me. I did acupuncture, qi gong, medical qigong, meditation, visualization, and prayer. I prayed, prayed, prayed, night and day. I have always thought one should live ones life as a prayer and this belief never meant more to me.

Surgery was scheduled, and with trepidation and the support and love of family and friends, off to the hospital I went. I was surprised while in recovery, the surgeon appeared, smiling. “There was no tumor”, she said. “What”? “Are you sure you just did not miss it”? She said she was sure, and from the size of the chunk now missing from my left breast, I was hoping she was right. She continued to tell me that this never happens, that the tumor is there and then it just disappears. “I can explain” I said, with groggy glee. I am sure I sounded as though I was still in imaginary la la land from all the drugs in my system. In parting she left me with “we must have gotten it all in the biopsy”.

I am okay with however it happened, although I do feel that by addressing my health issue on many different levels, I not only eliminated the tumor, but a lot of other negative things from my life as well. I did not follow the doctors advice to have radiation, chemotherapy, enroll in drug trials, or have a double mastectomy. All seemed pretty dramatic treatment for not even being able to find a tumor. Living in a part of the country in which alternative medicine is still in its infancy, I felt and still feel that I have walked a path not chosen by many, with little support. But ultimately I continue to follow my heart and pay attention to my inner voice. And I was able to continue my education both in New York and in California, graduating with honors and becoming a board certified holistic health counselor. I am now working to educate other’s to the healing power of whole foods and am also planning on continuing my education working toward a master’s in whole foods nutrition. I live right now, as fully as I can, trying not to wonder or worry about what my future may or may not hold and still trying to live my life as a prayer.

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