My Journey From Being Well To Cancer And Back

By Randi B., Ocean NJ

Growing up I did not understand health.  I had no idea that what I ate, drank, what medications I took or that the little sleep I got had any effect on my body.  I was raised believing that your health is out of your control and that if ailments should find you, it is the luck of the draw.  Five years ago my health was in a bad state.  At the age of 32 I was taking hormone medications that a doctor prescribed because he believed my body was sensitive to testosterone.  This doctor also had me on heavy antibiotics for a course of over a year to treat acne from which I had been suffering.   My estrogen levels were sky high because of the hormone medication and my gut was destroyed from the antibiotics.  I was very thin, pale and my hair was falling out.  I started developing benign masses in my breasts and precancerous conditions on my cervix.    It was at this point that I found a chiropractor and he introduced me to the world of health.  He taught me about my metabolic type and what foods I should be eating.  I learned about medications and what they did to my whole system.   My world had completely shifted and I had a new way of looking at my body and my health. 

I realized that the medications I was taking for the previous two years were destroying my health.  I set out to learn as much as I could and to try to reverse any damage that I had already done. I started to do research regularly and reading articles about health became an obsession.  I changed what I ate and how I ate.  I stopped using microwaves and started drinking alkaline water.  I stopped taking any type of pharmaceuticals, including over the counter medications.  I tried to deal with my health on a natural level and be as clean as possible.  I shared what I learned with family, friends and co-workers.  I tried to influence them so that they could lead healthier lives as well.  I became the “go-to” person for questions on healthy eating and natural healing even though some people thought I was partly crazy for having these beliefs.  Although I wasn’t a professional, I enjoyed having these conversations with people and giving advice.

During this time I found out I was pregnant and although my body was not in the best state for it I was extremely happy.  I maintained a healthy lifestyle during my pregnancy and when it came time to deliver, I did it naturally with a midwife.  I chose to breastfeed my daughter and not to vaccinate her.  Today she is a very healthy, happy and bright 3 years old.  

Even with all this change toward health, my body was still ravaged by my years of taking hormone medications.  When my daughter was 8 months old I discovered a lump in my breast while breastfeeding her.  Thinking it was again one of those benign lumps, I ignored it.  This time the lump grew and deep down I knew it was something more.  When my daughter was 13 months, I was diagnosed with stage 2, triple negative breast cancer.  (The lump I felt was actually one of the smallest of 3 tumors and I am very lucky that I was able to feel it because I would have never detected the larger ones otherwise.) My right breast was being taken over by cancerous tumors and I was told it had to be removed.  I was thrust back into the world of conventional medicine with the doctors all suggesting surgery, reconstruction and then the dreaded chemotherapy.  I fought my diagnosis with everything I had. I just could not believe I had come that far to go back to conventional ways again. Although it was not an easy decision, in the end I chose to put everything I had learned aside and submit to conventional treatment.

This brings me to today, 2 years after my diagnosis and chemotherapy treatments.  I am still in the process of trying to heal myself from all of those years of taking medications as well as the added taxation from the chemo.  My hope is that from this point on I will no longer have to submit to conventional ways and I can continue on naturally.  Although my doctors tell me that it is a gene that caused my cancer and not my previous indiscretions, I do not give into the belief that my health is out of my control.  I am determined to get my health back, maintain it and help others do likewise. 

Making the decision to study homeopathy was not one made in haste.   Choosing the right path that would enable me to help others has been a progression over the past 5 years.  It started when I first found out about health, out of a love for nutrition and sharing what I knew.  It then developed into the desire to help people on a deeper level.   After battling my own health issues I felt the need to assist and relieve people of their ailments, the things that were not so easily healed with just nutritional advice.  

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