I was looking for a notepad at work and flipped to this page a few days ago. This is what I wrote when I received “the call” on March 8, 2018 – 2 years ago. That last word METASTATIC is what did me in. Over the following week through testing I learned that my breast cancer had moved to my lymph nodes but not to any other organs so the word METASTATIC became less scary and lit a ? in me that I wouldn’t stop researching, I wouldn’t stop fighting and I would keep my head held high.

Even though this was 2 years ago and I am a ‘survivor’ – I am also a life long patient. Most of the things I do, take and eat are for a purpose- to keep my cells happy and healthy and to maintain homeostasis in my body so I don’t have to hear that word METASTATIC again.

Homeostasis is a word I’ve heard of in the past, but when I started my training a few weeks ago to become a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, I started to understand my body even more from the smallest chemical level to my body as a whole system. And how our bodies have the innate ability to heal – but we need to have homeostasis for our cells to do their jobs. I am in school with the Nutritional Therapy Association so I can learn how to keep my cells operating at their best, and so I can help others do the same. My goal is to volunteer as a “patient advocate” for those who are going through or have been through a cancer journey. During my own experience, I consulted with nutritionists, integrative medicine oncologists, health coaches and read a lot to understand how to optimize my body “holistically” and help my body bounce back from “conventional” treatment. I know not everyone will have the resources to do the same, so my goal is to be able to take my learning and hopefully help others.