Please read the intimate and personal story that is my journey back from cancer…

Please read my intimate and personal story describing my journeyback from Cancer

My story is one of forgiveness, of hope and love. Of how taking charge of my own mental and physical health saved me and gave me the strength to stride forward and embrace life again. Having cancer has made me happier to be alive and taught me to cherish life, to love everyday as a gift, because tomorrow may well be the last.

I have always lived life to the full, in fact when I repeat my story to others, they tend to think it an exaggeration, but in truth I have always worked hard to be happy and fill my life with the things I love; like children, animals and nature.

Growing up in difficult circumstances I was blessed to learn some vital lessons early on in life and survival was one of them. My early life is a whole different story, but I was blessed with resolve in the face of diversity.

Life is a journey, but I shall start this one in the summer of 1999 when I was pulling myself together after an unimaginable family devastation. I was in the process of rebuilding my life. I lived in a beautiful farm-house in the English countryside, where I was lucky enough to be surrounded by 20 hectors of my own land that I also hobby farmed. I was in my early thirties and was also a mother to a grand total of twelve children, many of whom were legally adopted and I loved them just as much as my own. I actually went on to adopt another six, but that’s a later chapter for another time. I actually only had four of the children living with me at home, as the others were off making their own way in life, having found work, or gone on to University.

I also ran a successful full-time business, as well as taking on the farm and life from the outside looking in would have looked pretty good, with a big house, lots of land, successful business, children privately educated, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 hamsters, 3 horses, 3 pigs, cows, a vegetable garden, a huge amount of privacy and a family home being built in Cyprus. We holidayed regularly abroad and the children wanted for nothing, but imagine the reality as a single parent to twelve and what life was really like? How the inevitable stress can build and in retrospect I can now see that I was at full tilt, I was non stop. I slept four hours a night and I ran on autopilot. Always putting everyone else’s needs above mine.

All I really wanted was for everyone to be happy and free, yet life is never that easy and my beautiful, blonde, curly-haired, big blue-eyed little girl Emily was going through the usual teenage years and giving me a rough ride. I did not cope with it very well and I did not want her to grow up. I was no stranger to terrible teenage years with my elder daughters, so I was accustomed to the rage, the temporary hatred and the desire to push the boundaries. But this time it was different, it started younger. She had elder siblings to learn from and this made her wiser to torment somehow. Of course we are all older now and she has grown to be a wonderful caring woman that I am always proud of and will always adore, but the stress was perhaps too much to bear at this time. It was perhaps the last straw. And believe me I was used to straw.

I had been going to see my GP as I had been feeling unwell. There was no appointment service in the tiny nearby village. It was a somewhat typical small village, much like any other, where outsiders of any kind were not made to feel particularly welcome and were treated with much caution. People are born there and they die there and generally barely ventured more than 10 miles from their home. So I sat patiently a total of four times in the GP’s waiting room. Often waiting over four hours at a time before I could see the doctor.

When it was eventually my turn, the doctor would make me a cup of tea and discuss life in the village. He was well past retirement age and would happily sit and chat for at least 20 minutes at a time, before I would finally have to interrupt and politely inform him about the lump that has now set up home in my breast and is the reason I am in search of some answers. These visits spanned over a two-year period and each time he would inform me not to worry. He claimed the lumps were caused by my epilepsy, stating, rather firmly, that it was fatty tissue build up caused by my body “thrashing around” during seizures. I would state that I had not had a seizure for many years, fourteen years to be precise!

It is worth pointing out that I was not chemically medicated for my seizures, because when I had tried medication in the past I felt I was not quite with it, or competent and I always suffered severe side effects such as nausea and headaches, to name a few. Meanwhile I also discovered cannabis oil could stop seizures and therefore I was lucky enough to be able to stop taking the pharmaceutical medications that did me so much harm.

I told the doctor I was more than happy to have the lump that had taken up residence in my breast removed once and for all, as it had grown harder and changed shape, with a nodule on the end. My breast even slightly changed to a different shape and after breast feeding four children longer than the recommended period, I was all droops and dangles and felt my breasts were no longer what they once were, so it was not a problem. But he refused everything from surgery, to referring me to a specialist, or any further testing. He even went on to say that I was bordering on hypochondria.

So after the doctors fourth refusal to do anything, I decided to telephone a friend, Judy who was once a cosmetic surgeon. I just wanted the lump out of my body and Judy agreed to see me later that same day. My two youngest children were one and two years old and I bundled them into the car. Judy examined my breast and explained that I must have a mammogram before any surgery. She was friends, as well as close work colleagues with the lady working in the department and I was ushered straight down for my first and last ever mammogram.

Have you have ever suffered the effects of a mammogram?  I thought this dinosaur of a machine would squash by breast like a ripe tomato. It felt like the lump would be squeezed through my nipple and pop right out, the pain was intense and the experience was horrific. Then as if that wasn’t bad enough, my other breast had to go through the same torture. I was left with with breasts that resembled nothing short of a pair of worn socks held up in the wind and with that I was sent back to see my friend Judy.

I waited 40 minutes before she returned. She was pale and flustered and not looking her best and I wondered at first if this was due to the volume of my screaming children that she had passed on the way through to her office where I was sitting, but she took my hand and started to explain that my breasts now needed removing! My head was in a spin and I first thought she was referring to a boob reconstruction, but she actually went on to explain that both breasts had cancer and it was very advanced in one side…

But wait, there must be a mistake. I had been reporting this lump to my doctor for over two-years, I did not feel sick, or unwell and surely I would have known if it were cancer! Yes, I had been feeling lethargic, but with my lifestyle surely that was normal.

She went on to say that two biopsies were required for “clarification.” Now, I have to admit that at this time I was much like many others, I was naive and somewhat indoctrinated. I was trusting of white coats and the medical profession in general and I was unaware at the time that puncturing holes in a tumour would actually make the cancer metastasize throughout my whole body. So it went ahead and with the results came the news that my cancer diagnosis was now established and so very soon I went on to have surgery. It was a double mastectomy and the surgery went OK.

During my recovery I was told that I had the UK’s best Oncologist on my team and that the team was confident the cancer would now be eradicated. It was good news at last and I could even look forward to some brand new replacement breasts in several months’ time. Suddenly, I was filled with confidence that life could now continue. With cancer gone along with my breasts, at least I could now look forward to the saggy remaining skin soon returning as voluptuous and perky fun bags. There’s always a bright side.

But I was soon to find out it was just the beginning and next came the dreaded chemotherapy. So (what I now know) to be mustard gas was injected into me on a weekly basis. It began to change me, I no longer looked or felt like myself. I was screaming on the inside from the torture. One infection after the other followed.

And then my hair started to fall out … It came out in great patches and I found it on my clothes. Wearing black was a clear no no as I started to wear my bleach blonde hair and look hairier than my dog. This blonde was no longer having much fun and it was time to prepare myself for the bumpiest ride of a life time.

I recall one day my 19-year-old younger brother came to visit. He always stayed with us during the summer holidays, but this time he had tears in his eyes when he looked at me with such pity. I will never forget that look, it was the same look I saw on everyone’s face. They were all saying their good byes while I was still alive and it was draining the confidence from my body. I had a football for a head, an unhappy emoji with the hairless body of a ten-year old. My brother gently shaved my head and took me shopping for a hat.

My body did not like chemotherapy one bit. As I got sicker they allowed it to be every two weeks instead of weekly, as I still had children to look after. And then the time for surgery returned for my new breasts. Finally, I had the new breasts I had coveted. They were my new toys; they sat up like rockets and I loved them. Probably not quite worth what I endured to get them, but I always see positives in everything and they brought some much needed humour to my ordeal.  I’d had an upgrade and who doesn’t want one of those once in a while.

Next came the smear. I was determined to not show the doctor my lace underwear, I went out and bought the biggest pair of granny pants I could find. After running for the bus I arrived at the hospital. The doctor took one look at the now even saggier knickers and stated to the nurses and students gathered round that he had seen thousands of pairs of knickers in his time but these he would never forget. No! That was not my intention, my intention was to go almost unnoticed and to be instantly forgettable. Not the other way around.

So with my dignity now entirely eradicated, the doctor was called away mid examination and I was left with my legs splayed, the huge lamp that was already too close for comfort was now literally burning my delicate feminine parts. I couldn’t take it anymore, with the smell of burning flesh, I accidentally smashed the lamp in my panic to get away. The doctor and students all came rushing back in and my burned private parts were no longer private. I was left with a raisin for a vagina and after more prodding and probing came the news that (thanks to the biopsy) the cancer had now spread to my ovaries and cervix, so the next instalment to my journey was their removal.

I had little to no support network at that time. Having such a busy life meant I had no time for the friends that tried to help and my children were my life. Six hours after the surgery I discharged myself in order to collect my older children from school, I had no choice but to continue with life without any rest, they needed me and that was all I could consider. After all the hospital food was not worth staying for and I felt the stale air was suffocating me! So I battled my way out of there and went home to make tea.

Again more chemo and radiotherapy were to follow and my quality of life was deteriorating fast. Every hair on my body was gone. I felt the chill cold of the English weather like never before. Weighing in at a meagre 44kg my Oncologist was now convinced that the cancer was gone and again we celebrated the end of my freedom from cancer.

However, within just a couple of months I was pooping blood and back at the hospital I was offered a colostomy. But I was still a young woman and was not sure if dancing around a poop bag was the best look on the night club dance floor. Or how sipping a cocktail on a beach, whilst wearing a sexy little twin set bikini with a poop bag accessory was the look I truly desired. I wondered what temperatures the colostomy bag would take before exploding in the sun. So I declined with gratitude.

Through my contacts I then found a surgeon that offered to experiment on me using a pig colon! And so alongside so many other body parts my colon was the next instalment to leave me for the after life. The surgery was a success and with my new Pig colon in place, farting was like an orchestra and there was not one poop bag in sight. Life was good again. I informed the children that any snoring they heard was due to the pig in my colon, not me.

In Summary: two breasts, one cervix, two ovaries, one colon, hair, all dignity and quality of life had all been taken away and sent to the next life in instalments, as if I were to be sent piece by piece to meet my maker. Within months I was 31kg, unable to walk with no energy. I resembled someone from a concentration camp when I was then told the cancer had still spread and I only had a couple of months left! OMG! My oncologist or the medical association was unable to offer anything more!!!!!! I was told that all they could do now was to give me morphine to keep me pain-free until I passed away. I was enraged, after everything they had put me through. How dare they.

Telling my family was the hardest thing I have ever done, it was more painful than any of the physical pain I had endured. As I write this, tears run down my face as I recall that day and is still many years on difficult and emotional for me to return to those dark days. I planned my Fun-Er-All.  I was not going to have a sad departure in the form of a funeral, my life before the big C was a full and a happy one. It was worth celebrating! So I panned a big party instead. I went for cremation, deciding that I would have one last chance at a hot smoking body!

It was actually here, so close to the end that my cancer research truly began. I spent every spare moment on the internet searching for answers, concocting potions. I changed my diet to nothing but good (and nasty tasting at times) food, drank horrid teas and vial juices. I made cannabis tea and even drank Sodium Chlorite (MMS) way before Jim Humble found it helped cancer, I ate bitter apricot kernels and a whole array of other nasty stuff! My children fed me like a little bird. I have to say that at the time I did not believe in these concoctions, but it was now about the living and they had seemed to work for some, so I was willing to try anything.

No more hospitals for me, not that I could have even made the journey had I wanted to. But somehow after 3 months I was still here and despite the constant fear of death and I lived beyond the doctors predicted date of departure I started to gain weight and feel tiny amounts of energy returning. And then I managed to stand up out of bed and walk again. Several more months passed and I was able to start living life in some form again. Two years later and I was up to 52kg and I felt fantastic.

It brought a whole new chapter in my life and a wonderful new relationship with now my ex husband. He came with a further 5 children and 4 of them were very young, with the youngest being 4 years old. My family had grown in size again and he was a wonderful support. He became a good father to my children and we decided to leave the UK and head for the mountains in Bulgaria for a new start in life.

Just as we were about to leave our home, our old water pipes were being replaced. To my horror I discovered that we had actually been drinking water through asbestos piping! Could this have assisted my cancer? I did not challenge this at the time as we were in the middle of moving, but it made me very curious and fed my desire to find out more.

Bulgaria and our new life: I studied the human body, botany, nutrition, coronary and cancer and the more I learned, so I prayed for more time to study. I even prayed that I might lay in bed and study more! And so my wish was granted as I suffered a horrific accident on a zip wire on what was supposed to be a fun day out in the Bulgarian mountains.

The wire snapped and I hit a rock at 120km an hour. Just in case you are wondering, no the rock did not suffer any log lasting damage. It was filmed at the time and can be seen on the following link, please understand that the budget for this shoot was quite low and there will be no second take, but is now part of my show reel for my stunt woman auditions and I await a telephone call from the Production team of the new James Bond movie at any moment!

It all happened in a split second and I remember thinking that my children were watching and I knew I was going to die. I spun around mid flight in order that my face be recognized by my children looking on. I suddenly remembered a story of a baby that had fallen from a 10 story building without breaking a bone, so I relaxed just before hitting the rock. I know this sounds cliché but on impact I saw a bright light. The light felt soothing and I saw my body below as I felt a rising sensation. This was a feeling of pure relaxation and beauty I had never experienced before. There were no pearly gates. No Granny. No wings, nothing but bright beautiful light. Not a tunnel, just light.

I went into a coma for 3 days suffering broken legs, feet and spine, with serious damage to my neck. I was placed in traction at home and can remember very little of the following 6 months.

I continued to see the light for several months and it was whenever I had morphine, but itt I was scared to sleep.. As if luck would have it a work colleague whom was a neurosurgeon came to my aid almost daily and helped care for me. The pain I was suffering was just too much to bear. Being told I would never walk again made me consider euthanasia. There were dark days. I had wished for time in bed and now I had it…  Just be careful what you wish for!

To make matters worse my epileptic seizures now returned with a vengeance. Imagine seizures when placed in traction? The pain was too much to bear. But my morphine was removed and replaced with cannabis oil and I was now pain-free and taking “illegal drugs” but the Cannabis oil soon stopped the seizures.

As I started to recover my children found my wheel chair great fun. They would take it for their own pleasure to play with in the street below. This happened on many occasion and left me stranded in my room unable to move. Doug would do wheelies with me as I started to get stronger for his pleasure and amusement, not mine.

It was a painful experience, but the cannabis gave me strength to sit and walk again and the time I spent in bed gave me the time I needed to really study cancer! After a long period in a wheel chair and now years later I can walk, run, jump, ski, do yoga and really enjoy most activities. My bones were healed by a wonderful team using an amazing technique they do not wish to be mentioned for the work they do, they are very humble.

I was given another chance, a third chance if you like and have since joined forces and learned from so many wonderful people around the world. I opened a successful centre to help those suffering from cancer and I am now a fully fledged cancer teacher and researcher, helping others restore their own health. Everything happens for a reason!

Only once since this time have I seen a “medical” Dr. I know my body is cancer free as I did take a private Nagalase test. I lost all faith in the so-called “professionals”. I felt that cancer came for a reason and that was to educate others which now I do after taking many courses, working in Cancer centers around the world and researching almost 20 decades of cures and trials. I still work in the holistic field will continue to dedicate all my waking hours to awakening others. Any negative can be turned into a positive. When asked if my cup is half full or half empty, I reply “my Cupeth runneth over”

This is my journey back from Naivety and cancer!

A special thank you to my family.