Good News...sort of.

Today I went to meet with the Cancer Board at Kaiser in Los Angeles as a result of the tumor they removed last month. I met with 4 different cancer specialists to review my medical history and to discuss options for future treatments...let me tell you! It was a very sobering experience. There were 3 other patients there that had cancerous tumors removed from the same gland that I did and all 3 were bald, very sickly, pale looking and going through chemo. One of the doctors even made a comment about how healthy and glowy my skin and face looked after only 4 weeks since surgery. I realized then that the difference between me and the other 3 patients was that I had chosen to become vegan the day after my surgery and have been on a vegan diet for almost 4 weeks now. When they weighed me I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see that I weighed 24lbs less than the day I went in for my surgery. That's without exercising, so now that I have the ok to exercise I'm sure my weight loss will increase.

Now, after the doctors reviewed my case they confirmed that my tumor was caused by the radiation that I received when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Radiation therapy is a very common method used to kill off cancer cells in your body, but in my case the radiation therapy also caused the cancerous tumor to develop in my parotid gland, many many years after my diagnosis with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I did take this news a bit hard because I prefer radiation therapy over chemo, hands down. But now radiation will not be an option for me when fighting cancer. My doctors were very supportive of my decision to go vegan. They all agreed that even though my decision to go vegan may seem drastic to some, it's a small change compared to what drastic measures they would recommend to decrease my chances of getting a cancerous tumor again. Recommendations like a full hysterectomy at my age and since cancer runs in my family AND I have a long history of cancer myself my odds of developing breast cancer are sooo high they would recommend a full removal of both my breasts. One of my friends told me that she would rather be alive and not whole, then dead and whole but the thought of losing both my breasts scares the crap out of me.

I've been asked by Kaiser to be a part of a trial genetics study because my medical history is so unique. The study would monitor me once a month to note any changes in my body and be able to detect another cancerous tumor almost as soon as it develops. But I think that my choice to become vegan is going to save me from cancer. I am so committed to this to prove to everyone that a vegan, healthy, plant based diet is the fountain of youth and the best medicine againts cancer.

A picture just 2 days after surgery:













A picture 4 weeks after surgery:













Good health and love.

-V