Testimonials

Breast cancer metastasized to the bones healed thanks to macrobiotics

plus prayer, meditation, visualization, exercise and a positive attitude

Here, reported 16 years after terminal diagnosis "giving" the patient six months to live, is the story of a woman in her own words who, faced with a death sentence given by conventional doctors, turned her health around and helped many others to do the same.

In March 1982, I learned I had breast cancer. The protocol called for surgery, followed by radiation and chemotherapy treatments. While the chemotherapy was mild enough not to cause the usual hair loss, it was strong enough to cause permanent damage to the ovaries.

The idea behind the treatment was to eradicate any free-flowing cancer cells in the blood to prevent metastasis. The side effects were somewhat debilitating, but at 29 years of age, I weathered them fairly well, all things considered.

Five years later (in January 1987), a bone scan revealed the cancer had metastasized anyway — to three bones in my back, the most serious one in the rib next to my spine.^[1] The protocol now called for aggressive treatments.

I accepted radiation to alleviate the crippling, burning pain that radiated through the back and caused me to limp. But I refused the chemotherapy.

I cried all night when I received my diagnosis and prayed for God's guidance to find a natural approach to healing. I had a poor attitude about chemotherapy and knew I could not make it work for me.

The next morning, I recalled an article my sister had sent me four years earlier from Life Magazine about a doctor who healed his cancer through a radical change in diet. I became very excited about the possibility of natural healing.

I told my friend about the article I had read, and she asked her friend, a health food store proprietor if he knew what "diet" I was talking about. He gave her the book, "The Macrobiotic Way" by Michio Kushi and said, "Bring this to your friend. This is what she is looking for." I read the book, and I was started on my way to the macrobiotic way of life.

I attended a workshop held in Brookline, Massachusetts by the Kushi Institute and received a consultation where I was given a set of guidelines to follow and told about a cooking teacher who had just moved to my area.

I also attended a workshop with Dr. Bernie Siegel, who encouraged us to take charge of our illness and health, and to trust our spiritual faith and intuition.^[2] He was such a wonderful help to me because the doctors and nurses I worked with as a Social Worker in a local nursing home, along with my oncologist, thought that I had flipped.

The conventional wisdom of the day was, at best, to be able to stabilize bone cancer for a few years. "Curing" it wasn't even an option for the medical professionals I spoke with.

They were astounded when I told them I was going on a healing program, and that I actually believed I could do it! My oncologist asked to continue to follow me, I believe, out of sheer curiosity.

Their skepticism challenged my confidence and determination, and I prayed for guidance and strength. The answer that always came to me was to stay on the path I chose to follow.

I had made a commitment to God on the night I cried, that if I could find a natural way to heal my cancer, I would dedicate my life to sharing what I learned with others, to help alleviate their fears, pain and suffering such as I had experienced in the past.^[3] This commitment cemented my determination to meet my goals.

Within six months of starting the macrobiotic approach, which included diet, meditation, visualization, and exercise through walking and hiking in the woods, my first bone scan showed the tumors had diminished 25%.

My oncologist was somewhat amazed but felt the radiation was the reason. Radiation will burn a tumor and decrease the inflammation, which reduces or eliminates the pain — the only reason I agreed to radiation. But the effects are only temporary in usual cases. I was not the usual case, however, and everyone around me could not get over how "well" I looked and the energy I had.

I continued to work, maintain our home, take care of our 9-year-old son, work my garden and play outside. There were days of aggressive discharge when I stayed home to rest, only to bounce back in a day or two.

The hospital personnel, many of whom I knew through my work, and the nurses I worked with, became intrigued. My family was merely ecstatic.

Another year went by and the second bone scan revealed no tumors, just scar tissue was left. My oncologist's curiosity seemed to be changing to incredibility. The next year and my last bone scan revealed normal bone — no tumors, no scar tissue.

My oncologist began speaking the words, "spontaneous remission" for the first time. When I reminded him there was nothing "spontaneous" about this remission, that I had actively participated in my healing through the macrobiotic approach, including diet, prayer, and meditation, he acquiesced that the combination of radiation and the protocol I followed had worked.

... During times when I slipped out of balance and became too yang^[4] (after my father's death and the onset of my mother's terminal illness, along with the start of menopause in 2000), I made a few adjustments and got back in balance, alleviating the menopausal symptoms (made worse by the hysterectomy required because of the chemotherapy damage to the ovaries in 1982). The macrobiotic way of life never ceases to amaze me, even to this day!

In 1990, it was time to honor my commitment. So I quit my job, went to the Kushi Institute, now in Becket, Massachusetts, and furthered my studies, especially in cooking. I worked for a short time in a macrobiotic restaurant in 1991, and started to cook privately for others in 1992.

I have been cooking ever since and deliver meals three times a week, cater once a month, and equally as important, I help develop programs for the Preventive Medicine Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Our programs have grown to a 14-week series and now include 4 cooking teachers, including myself, 2 macrobiotic counselors, lectures, an affiliation with West Hartford Yoga, and a continuing agenda of growth.

The Preventive Medicine Center is non-profit, and we provide free services to those who cannot afford them. Our goal is to teach anyone who wants to learn how to eat and live as healthfully as possible, to give everyone the opportunity to see their own role in their health and illnesses and how to make needed changes.

It is very rewarding work and adds tremendously to my personal happiness. I feel the joy of everyone who has reversed a condition, and I am happy to be a resource and a source of support to the many people who have called me from all over our country and others around the world.

Often I am asked what advice I would give to someone starting the macrobiotic approach. My advice is relatively simple. No matter what one's religion is, ask God to help you, to give you guidance, strength, perseverance and patience.

Draw upon your faith and your love for God, yourself, your family and friends. Know that your healing is not just for yourself, but for many others of various illnesses who will find comfort and encouragement in your success.

Lose the fear — it already served its purpose in motivating you to make the changes in whatever choices of lifestyle that helped create your condition. Make sure you have a good doctor who will partner with you in your healing approach.

Sometimes, certain advanced conditions call for temporary conventional intervention. But before you start any treatments, see a good, qualified macrobiotic counselor, and start on the healing diet that will begin the discharge process. If you are willing to follow the strict protocol, often less intervention may be required than first thought.

If at first you don't like the taste of the food, be patient. In time, your taste buds will change and the food becomes delicious to taste — including miso and sea vegetables. When I tasted my first meal, I actually gagged and said to my friend, "You know, cancer is one thing, but starvation is a hell of a way to go."

My cooking teacher taught me to be patient and with every meal, to express gratitude to God for the wonderful, healing food he made available to me. This was a big help, and soon, because my body was absorbing all the nutrients, I actually began to crave eating it — much to my amazement.

Last, but certainly not least, have fun! It is fun to cook healthfully for others and ourselves. There's no guilt, and it's a great feeling to know you can take charge of your well-being. Go outside to play — it is part of our overall balance and as necessary as everything else we need to do. Exercise stimulates the organs, blood circulation and discharge. It also strengthens the muscles and bones.

I prefer tennis, ping-pong, walking and cross-country skiing, just because they are fun to do. There are many other things I like to do too — work in my garden and ocean swimming in the summer are among them. Whatever you like to do, do it and just have fun.

And if during your illness, you've lost your sense of humor, well, find it, embrace it and laugh. Healing is serious business, but that doesn't mean you have to be serious all the time. I remember when one of the nurses' aides asked me early in my healing process, "... you look so great, how are you doing?" I replied, to my own surprise, "Well, all I can say is, if this is dying, I highly recommend it." She looked at me, and we both laughed until tears came down.

Death is not failure; it is the completion of this life on earth. We will all pass on to eternity at some point, and feeling inner peace can make the process smoother and happier. I saw that in my parents and oldest sister — they were truly at peace and felt very complete in their lives, even though we felt that we would have liked them with us longer.

So as long as we are here, we should play — whether at work, in the kitchen, or outside in the sun. I don't know anyone, who at the time of their completion, ever said, "Gee, I shouldn't have had so much great, healthy fun in my life." Do you?

Thanks to my new lifestyle I feel clearer, happier and healthier than I ever could have imagined.

The above breast cancer healing account was found (among many others) on a site devoted to macrobiotics that went offline in mid–2007.

Footnotes

1 One of the perhaps least-known "side effects" of chemo or radiation is the fact that they themselves can cause cancer, see Potential Serious Side Effects of Conventional Cancer Treatment.

2 Surgeon Bernie S. Siegel is the author of "Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients", see Books on Mind Power, Cancer, Illness & Healing.

3 I would not underestimate the importance of this commitment to helping others in her eventual healing. Edgar Cayce, the famous American psychic and healer, said "... as the body may dedicate its life and its abilities to a definite service, to the Creative Forces, or God, there will be healing forces brought to the body." (more at Inspirational Quotes)

4 The concept of balancing "yin" and "yang" is foundational in macrobiotics.

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Testimonials

Breast cancer metastasized to the bones healed thanks to macrobiotics

plus prayer, meditation, visualization, exercise and a positive attitude

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