#325 | Breast Cancer While Pregnant: Leslie’s Story of Faith, Birth & Healing

In this extraordinary episode, Leslie shares her deeply personal story of discovering a lump in her breast at 34 weeks pregnant—an aggressive, triple-negative breast cancer. A wellness coach who hadn’t taken over-the-counter medication in five years, Leslie spent her adult life doing everything she could to prevent disease. As she prepared to welcome her second baby at home, she was forced to face a diagnosis that would alter her life on every level.

She confidently insisted on continuing with her home birth plans and delivered her son peacefully at 38 weeks, just weeks before starting intensive chemotherapy. Her story takes us through her heartbreaking decision to wean early, her rejection of radiation, and the support of her midwife, community, and unwavering faith in God.

Leslie is not only healing; she’s investigating the root causes of her illness—from parasites and heavy metals to infected root canals. Her message is clear: You must be your own advocate in your birth and healthcare.

This conversation is about more than cancer—it’s about bodily sovereignty, maternal instinct, and the strength of a mother determined to do right by her children, no matter the cost.

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi, I'm Leslie, and I'm 37 years old. I have two kids, a boy and a girl. My girl is my oldest. She's three and a half, and my son is 10 months. I live in Southern California with my husband, and we live in a wonderful little beach town called sank money. So my story is pretty unique. It began exactly a year ago. This month, I will be coming up on a one year sort of anniversary, and I was 34 weeks pregnant with a completely normal pregnancy, and I just so happened to I was in my kitchen and I felt lump on my breast, and I didn't even think anything of it at the time. To be honest with you, I thought maybe it could be a clogged milk duct. I was in my third trimester, and, you know, milk was starting to develop. I sort of wrote it off initially. To back up a little bit, I'm going to give you a little bit of a background of, sort of my lifestyle, because this does play a huge role in my story. I began my wellness journey about five years ago. I was struggling with some issues that anxiety, and I just really had a passion for leading a healthy lifestyle and sort of doing what we could in this crazy world full of all sorts of toxins and disease, and doing what I could to sort of keep my body healthy, prepare for, you know, keeping my family healthy. At this time, we hadn't had any children, but it was on my mind. So I was very, I've always been very health driven. I got really, actually fell in love with essential oils, essential initially, and that's sort of where I decided, wow, like, I don't need to take Xanax for this anxiety. I can do other things. And so I really started diving into the holistic and natural world. I hadn't taken an over the counter medication in five years, and I was using plants and herbs and nutrition food for medicine. Basically, I went to school for psychology, but I knew it wasn't something that I wanted to do. I ended up continuing my education. After receiving my bachelor's in psychology and got a certificate in nutrition, I was going to go down that route life happened. Ended up getting married and pregnant. Never really went into the dietitian field, but I still just kind of became a hobby, I guess. So I became a nutritionist, and then from there, a couple years later, I became a certified wellness coach, and helping people make healthy choices was my passion. So for me, the last thing on my mind was disease, because my biggest goal was to do everything I could to prevent disease. So back to finding the lump on my breast in my kitchen. I didn't really give it much thought that day, but I had an appointment with my midwife the next morning, and figured, I just bring it up to her see what she thought. So I had my appointment with my midwife, and brought it up to her, and she felt it, and she kind of thought, you know, Hm, that's weird, you know, I'm not quite sure what that could be, but I have means to do an ultrasound. Let's let's do it. Let's check it out. So she used her ultrasound on it, and we both just felt really weird about it. She didn't feel good about it at all. So she told me, go right away to this breast center that is in our area and just have them check it out. It's probably nothing, but have them check it out. So I went and had the ultrasound done there. And sort of the way that they, you know, they don't really give you any information. The ultrasound technician is probably, by law, not able to really tell you anything. So I'm now starting to get a little concerned. And she says, You know, I can't tell you what it is now, but you know, let's we're gonna have to biopsy it to see sort of what's going on. So they scheduled me for a biopsy, and about a week later, I went back and had the lump biopsy, biopsied, and then I had to wait about another week for my results. And. And the results came back that it was triple negative breast cancer.

Oh, that's a very aggressive breast cancer.

Yeah, and I didn't know anything about cancer. My My father died of cancer, bladder cancer, but I wasn't really very close to him at that time, so cancer, to me, was just a completely foreign language. You know, what does this mean? It hadn't even hit me yet that this was also going on while I was pregnant, you know, I was sort of just completely stunned. So I was diagnosed at stage 2b It hadn't gone to the lymph nodes or anywhere else, which is wonderful. But then it occurred to me, once they started talking about treatment that, oh, like, Oh no, I'm, I'm pregnant. Like, what does that mean? I'm, I'm 34 weeks pregnant. I'm not I, you know, I still have some time. Am I? Am I going to wait? What are they going to want to do? So I ended up with choosing an oncologist who she's around my age. So she I would they, they recommended her because we could probably connect on, you know, some different some different levels, being around the same age, sort of being peers. And so she decided that it would be in everyone's best interest, of you know me and the baby to wait to start treatment until after I delivered. So I obviously agreed. I guess in some cases, if you do get diagnosed within your you know, second trimester usually is when they would recommend that you do chemotherapy while you're pregnant. And that to me, I just, I'm so happy I didn't have to face that decision, because I don't, I don't know. I wouldn't know what to do.

Were you? Were you advised to be induced early to try to give birth sooner?

Yeah. So as soon as I told them my plans for my birth, that I was planning on having a planned home birth with midwife, they definitely brushed that off. They didn't. They were going to reroute me right away. And they I met with one of my doctors who said, Well, you know, I know that you, your, your plan is to have a home birth, you know. And that sounds beautiful, but you know, we really need you to probably be induced early at 37 weeks at full term, which, to me, I don't, you know, I guess it's full term, but I'm, you know, my, my goal is 40 weeks plus,
yeah and 37 weeks is not term. 37 full weeks is term. 

But again, agreeing with you, 40 weeks is really term. 

Yeah, yeah. So I already was, was just, it was just, it was quite wild. So they wanted me to be induced early. They wanted me to deliver with a high risk OBGYN, and I just sort of politely declined, and said, Listen, you don't know my midwife. My midwife is an angel, and if she she, for one, is she's going to be the person who is going to deliver this baby? The best way that this baby's going to be delivered. We don't need to create a high risk situation out of a no risk situation. Right now, the issue is that there's a lump on my breast. There's no issue with my pregnancy. So I'm going to as long as everything continues this way, and I'm going to continue with my plans for home birth. You're not going to take that away from me. Was what was my thought? I didn't say that, but that was my thought. I'm really glad that you said that, and I'm impressed, because it sounds so normal to just say birth with a high risk doctor. But my first thought was, Come on, why like this? Obviously you're you were in a very high risk situation with your life, but it had nothing to do with your birth. So to put now an a high risk OB in front of you is just going to increase the likelihood of intervention, because that's how they work. Yeah, absolutely, and that is what that was actually more of my approach that I took with them, because I knew I couldn't really lead with emotion. So I led with more facts, and I explained that. I said, Listen, you know, the likelihood for a cesarean section is going to be increased if you try and induce me early, if you induce me early, I end up with a C section, then it's going to be a longer recovery time before I can start treatment. So I think that our goal here is for me to have a vaginal birth and have a shorter recovery time so that I could start treatment sooner.

That was a very intelligent thing to do. I mean, not every woman would think that way and be proactive enough to do that. And you're so right, and I'm sure that that the UN. Just was a little taken aback by that, like, oh, wait, you're right. What if we can't start treatment for two more weeks because of how you birthed, right? She, actually, she was very taken back, um, she and I think that I sort of gained a little bit more, I don't want to say respect, because I they were very respectful, but a little bit more like rapport with them after that, so they've listened to me a little bit more when I, you know, present different options. So with that, so, so after that, you know, the plan was in place. I'll start chemotherapy, which is the the standard protocol for the type of cancer that I was diagnosed with is chemotherapy surgery, whether it be a lumpectomy or mastectomy, and then followed by radiation. Coming from my background of being, you know, as I mentioned, I hadn't even taken an over counter or the counter medication in five years. The thought of chemotherapy just crushed me. It just crushed me. But I didn't see another way. It was highly aggressive. It's about as aggressive as it can get. It already was growing, just in the few weeks that I was making these decisions, and I needed to do what was going to be best for keeping me around, for my kids, my family, you know, so made the hardest decision of doing chemotherapy, and, you know, at least rather agreeing to that. So as I sat around and waited, which is the hardest part, not knowing really what's going on in your body, waiting for, you know, delivery and then, you know, starting treatment, I just read all the books that I could read. I just wanted to be an expert on my decisions.

I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you in those approaching 40 weeks, waiting every day. It's hard enough for a mom who's just waiting to give birth. Like, end of pregnancy is hard. You know, you know, you're just all like, Is that happening tomorrow? Please. Let's have this baby. It's hard to be patient, but in your mind, waiting every single day and wondering, Is my cancer growing one more day, two more days, three more days a week? What is that? What is that going to do to me overall? That must have been so challenging. It was. How did you manage that. It was so hard. I don't know how I managed it, because it was so hard not I mean, you know the emotions you already feel just being pregnant and in those last few weeks just wondering how your birth is going to go. Is baby going to be healthy? Am I going to run into any hiccups? Am I going is everything going to be okay? That is enough stress for anyone, and then I had all this on top of it. So I just tried to, I just had to take it one step at a time, one day at a time, and really put my trust and faith in God that this was happening during this time for a reason, and that everything was going to be okay. So my faith has been first and foremost in what has kept me going this entire journey. So I had a plan in place for treatment. I had my amazing midwife just by my side the entire time with her community of people. She told me, you know, so the other guess, the other heartbreaking part about this was that I was not going to be able to breastfeed. So they my oncologist said that, you know, I'm like, What can I breastfeed until I start treatment? At least for like, the month until I start treatment. And she said, she highly advised, do not breastfeed at all, like, not even once. You don't want your, you know, your milk to come in and your to get its own blood supply, it would just increase the vascularity of the tumor is what they were saying, I think so, yeah, she was recommending not even, even before starting treatment, no colostrum, no just immediately trying to shut down the pathway to milk production, yeah, which I later found out. My midwife said your milk is going to come in regardless, right, right. So, yeah, about that? Yeah. So, so, I guess I will fast forward a little bit until my, you know, when I went into labor, and kind of switch gears and talk about that happy, that happy part, because that really just was such a gift. With my first I went to 42 weeks, 42 and and zero days. So I was a little nervous now that shoot, I hope that you know, he doesn't decide to come at 42 weeks. You know, time is really at the essence right now. And I was having conversations with my wife about now. Trail induction with my midwife, about it, and we were kind of talking about it, but she said, Let's just sort of see what happens. Just try to relax and, you know, let's, let's see what happens. So at 38 weeks, and I wonder if this is maybe so the only thing that I could control, because I was seeing a functional doctor as well. So I was, I decided, I guess, I should include this. I decided that I was going to do both conventional and integrative. So I had a functional doctor, and then my medical oncologist with my functional doctor, she had me going on supplements. We were doing a bunch of blood work, trying to find, you know, different holes, I guess, in my nutrition, and then starting on some natural remedies for cancer treatment, especially during this time, while I was sort of in limbo, not able to start treatment. She wanted to start me on high dose vitamin C IVs and a couple other things, but I wasn't comfortable doing those while I was pregnant, so the only thing I really could do was my diet. So I changed my diet. I just completely went all in on my diet, you know, no sugar. The only carbohydrates I was eating was, you know, in vegetables and no processed foods, you know, all, all the things. So with that, I think that my baby decided that he wasn't really getting any fatter in there. So he decided to come two weeks early, which was such a blessing. I went into labor around midnight on July 28 and my my water broke, which was so interesting, so different from my first. My water didn't break until I was in transition with my first. So my daughter broke, and I it was a slow leak, and so I kind of brushed it off and thought, well, you know, let's, it's midnight, I'm tired, like I'm exhausted. Let's go to sleep and we'll, we'll, you know, see if it picks up tomorrow. I ended up having mild contractions throughout the night, which I was able to just breathe through I just laid in bed and breathe through them and really, really harvested the knowledge of my HypnoBirthing experience that I I learned with my first but didn't utilize it. So this time, I was determined to do it, and I was breathing through all my contractions super well. I decided to text my wife just to let her know that I you know what was going on. I texted my Doula as well, and I said, you know, I I'm able to talk through all this, and I don't think that it's, you know, I think we have time. About 30 minutes later, she goes, You know, I said, Should we get the the tub ready? And she goes, Why don't you get in the shower? But you probably have time, you know, your husband can get the pool ready. That's probably a good idea. So I got in the shower and was really breathing through the contractions, and it was just the best experience ever. It puts such a smile on my face, because it was just so rad. How I guess allowing the contractions, you know, working with them, instead of trying to work against them, like I did with my first so from the time my my water broke at midnight. To the time that I had my baby was about four and a half hours. So good thing. I had a home birth, the planned home birth. I mean, it would have been, I wouldn't have made it to the hospital. So did you ever make it in the tub? No, yeah, an ongoing joke my husband, my poor husband, is running around like a crazy person. My three year old, maybe three year old, wakes up at the time. So it's like, 334 o'clock in the morning. She wakes up. He puts on a movie for her. We're all in the living room. He's trying to figure out this tub. I'm on my birthing ball near the front door, and I'm like, fill up the tub. And he's like, I'm trying. And so my my Doula showed up first. I think I was in such a different state, but I think my Doula showed up first, and then my midwife shortly after, with her team. And I think I pushed twice while they were getting set up, and just gave her a little heads up, like he's he's coming right now. And yeah, they were there for about 15 minutes before he before he arrived. And so it was just the most beautiful, wonderful experience. It was such a gift from God that I had this beautiful, beautiful birth at home, just like I wanted, amongst all the chaos and all this sort of derailing, you know, of my health and early, and two weeks early, that was a gift.

And she went two weeks early. Did you mean compared to when your daughter came at 42 weeks? Or do you mean two weeks before your due date? Did Did your did your son come at 38 weeks? He came at 38 weeks? Wow, yeah, yeah, very lucky. And he was six pounds, zero ounces, so he was little, but he was still good sized, so he was healthy. Everything was good, and I got to spend some time just one on one, you know, with him. Now I have this baby. We did it. I'm sort of straddling enjoying postpartum. Than also being scared of what's next. So that was probably the most difficult time, but I decided to shut everything out. I actually didn't even respond to my oncologist and my my like my conventional medical teams emails for a few days, because I needed that time with baby. I needed that time for hmm, for for me and for him, just to, you know, I knew what I was going to be robbed of, I guess. And I just said this, this can wait, you know, this is important. So I took about a week, week and a half, and then I kind of started, you know, getting back on the ball and responding to things. Because what people don't realize is, when you have a cancer, when you have a cancer diagnosis, is they keep you busy. Man, they I had appointments, like three to four appointments every day for weeks on ends, and granted, I took the approach where I was seeing a functional doctor too. So those were appointments. I mean, you're getting blood work, you're going in for consultations. You have to have to have a consultation with the surgeon and and this person. And it was so much. It was so much so I was about, you know, just a few days postpartum, going to an appointment with my oncologist. And the hardest part was, really, you know, you can't, they don't allow children. I had to be away from my brand new baby for all these appointments. And it was tough. It was really, really tough. The most heartbreaking part was was having to stop breastfeeding. So I decided against my oncologist wishes to breastfeed for at least two weeks, just two weeks until I absolutely had to start doing at least the holistic side, the IVs of vitamin C and the different sort of repurposed drugs that I was doing by with my functional doctor.

So to clarify, you did two weeks of exclusive breastfeeding before you decided to just wean. Yeah, amazing, yeah. So I did two for you and quitting was, I mean, that was probably the most. That was probably the hardest thing was quitting and breastfeeding.

So your life weren't on the line exactly. It had to be. It had to be a life is on the line. It just goes to show that that mother in you that just still did that, and you still followed that instinct. I mean, it's so sad that you had to stop, but it's such a success that you did it, even though they said not to I had that was a powerful move. Normally, women feel guilt when they stop, but in your case, with your life, in your hands, like that, I mean, what were you feeling when you stopped? Was it guilt, or was it some other emotion that you were feeling? It definitely wasn't guilt, because I knew that I need to be around for my kids. What was it? It was, it was more so a feeling of being robbed, yeah, yeah. So, sadness, sadness.

It's unfair. It just feels unfair. Yeah. Timing was extraordinary, after for a woman who took such good care of herself. On top of it, the whole thing is an unbelievable story.

The whole thing was just shocking. Every single day, every single day was just like, What is going on? Um, so I, I stopped breastfeeding. My amazing midwife and her large community, they all. She pulled together and said, Don't worry, we're going to have breast milk, donor breast milk for you for as long as we can. We're shooting for a year.

Wow.

Which man the milk started pouring in. I was so about a village, right? I mean, goose bumps me too. I just got full body. Chills me too.

Just complete strangers, just texting me non stop, what's your address I'm dropping off for you. What else can I bring? Can I bring a meal? So they would come with bags and bags of breast milk and a meal. And it was just, gosh, I just, I just can't believe it. Just was the most wonderful thing that I could have ever asked for.

Out of curiosity, this is an aside. Are you someone who basically spent most of your life giving? Because sometimes I feel like life can force us to receive, and I feel like your life forced you to receive. Is there an earlier part of your life story where you just basically were not much of a receiver and you were usually giving? Or would you would you say you were usually pretty balanced in that.

So it's funny that you say that, because that crossed my mind. It actually was a little bit different. So I grew up without anything. We grew up at a family of seven children, very poor, so I never felt that I had the ability to give anything to anybody. So I was always receiving, but I always, I never wanted to be the charity person. So that was something that I carried into my adulthood. I wouldn't accept help from anybody, and I wouldn't, I had a hard time accepting, you know, gifts or help or anything, because I never wanted to be, you know, a charity sort of. Person. And so that was something that I had to really change. I had to let people help me. And the whole time I was taking notes on, okay, I was never able to really help anyone, and, you know, and so I was taking notes on how, how to love people, how to give how to be there for people. So this really was a learning curve for me. And I was just taking notes, how to love people, how to give how to do this for someone else, like how to pass this along, how to be this person, this wonderful person for me to someone else. So that was that was huge. So I had about three weeks. Basically, we're waiting until the bleeding stopped, until I started chemotherapy, and I started I did five months of intense chemotherapy, lots of ups and downs. It ended up actually failing me twice, I think partially, because my body wasn't ready. You know, it was still recovering from giving birth, all of my my blood markers were were low from, you know, giving birth and then being postpartum and bleeding for about three weeks to a month. So I didn't really have the strongest leg to stand on starting chemotherapy. So I had one delay that caused the chemotherapy to stop responding. And then they moved me onto the second chemotherapy. They said, Well, this one's not working anymore, so let's just move to the second one, because it's, it's stronger, it's for sure going to take care of it's going to annihilate it. They, they promised me it was going to annihilate it, and it was going to, you know, take, basically, reduce the tumor to such a small size that it was going to be almost non existent. That didn't happen. I did one round of this chemotherapy, which is the strongest one they have for breast cancer, and I ended up in the hospital with hypercalcemia. Not quite sure what caused it, but this delay now in treatment caused it to be resistant to this one as well. I resumed the last three rounds of this chemotherapy, and before we realized it wasn't working as well. So I had a lumpectomy surgery, and by the time I went to surgery, it was actually bigger than it was before I started chemotherapy. 

Oh, my God, we just need a minute here.

It was bigger, yeah, yeah.

It hadn't been working at all. How do you how do you I have theories in my mind that don't matter right now, but just how do you explain that? Because chemo, chemo is toxic, yeah. So that is the flip side of it. We're adding toxicity to a disease that thrives on toxicity, right, right. How do you explain the tumor getting bigger during your treatment? That this is unbelievable. I know. I know. How do you make sense of it? What would you say about why it got bigger? I think because of its aggressiveness, the delay in treatment that I had due to the medical issues, my blood work being too low and being hospitalized, I think that it just, it just sort of it became resistant to it. It was stronger than it. It gave it a a head start again, and it started it just it couldn't, I couldn't get back on track and get ahead of it again. We have to just realize you this just happened in your life. Your son is only 10 months old. Yeah, yeah. What? At what point was this that they said the tumor is bigger now? How old was he now? Like, two months or something.

So I had started the beginning of September. I started chemotherapy, so about two months later, yeah, okay, about two months later was the first delay, and I was scared, you know what? What's going to happen if chemotherapy? You know that chemotherapy was kind of my only, my last resort, sort of, which is why I did it. I didn't think that going full natural route was going to be enough for how aggressive my cancer was. So that's kind of why I made the decision to do both. Meanwhile, I'm doing a ton of other treatments with my functional doctor, which were really helping. Until I had that delay. It was shrinking. It was working. All everything I was doing was do was, was going great. Um, I they didn't want me to do all the integrative stuff that I was doing. When I when I say they, I mean my, my conventional doctors, I never do, yeah, but it was working, so I wasn't going to stop.

What were you doing, other than vitamin C, like I was doing. So I had a test done that they sent to Greece, and it basically is able to tell you what cancer cells, what they're most susceptible to what they respond to the best in terms of natural treatments and conventional treatments. So it had on there the chemotherapy agents that were going to be the best for treating my cancer and as well as natural agents, like mistletoe, was on there. But mine actually didn't show a good response to that. Mine was showing a great response to. Frankincense. So I was like, taking frankincense internally, basically drinking it. Frankincense artists, we're talking about essential oils, yeah, and treating cancer. Oh, yeah, there's powerful, yeah, there's actually, there's a little, there's places down in South America that do IVs of frankincense for cancer treatment. It's kind of interesting. So, like they do vitamin C. So I was doing all the natural remedies that were on this test. So we were very strategic about it. So I had surgery. The surgery was successful. Thank goodness I had clear margins. The lymph nodes were benign, which I forgot to mention during all this. They while I was waiting to start treatment after delivering my baby, they suspected that the lymph nodes were, in fact, involved.

Leslie, did your tumor have to be of a certain size before you could do surgery, or was it more about being a certain amount of time postpartum, post weaning, before you could do surgery? So that was something. It was. They wanted to shrink it. They wanted to shrink it, shrink it, shrink it as much as they can, so that there was minimal tissue taken out at time of surgery. If I could go back in time, I would have said, just remove it. I mean, so I really question that protocol a lot, is it just to squeeze in rounds of chemo first? I mean, right, obviously, remove it. I understand the hold up. Now, the only way that I would temper what I'm saying is, if you had taken out the lump right away, would they have still recommended the same amount of chemo.

Good question. Um, she did say that that's what they used to do years ago, and then it the way that she described it was that it didn't end up going so well, is what they were saying. Doesn't go so well. What does that mean? Right? So well, maybe, maybe so the clear margins. What were you saying about what happened? They got clear margins. That's great margins. Yeah, does that call a person cancer free?

That was my that was my question too. I said, What are you guys telling me on cancer free? So they do say, I think that they sort of recognize that you're NAD, which is no evidence of disease. But when they took out the tumor, it was still an active tumor. So typically, when the chemotherapy works the way they want to, it kills all the cancer cells inside. So you just remove sort of dead cells and dead tissue. Mine was still active, so they didn't give me any, you know, relieving title or anything, unfortunately. So then they wanted me to start radiation right away. And I actually declined. So at that point I said, you know, I have circulating tumor cells in my body. I don't know why we're focusing on the chance that there might be one or two left after surgery, even though I got clear margins and clear pathways, why are we focusing just on the breast? Why not focus on the body? And at this point, I sort of just wised up and decided that that's enough. Enough is enough. Enough toxins, enough side effects, enough this. I've had enough. I put all my trust in the Lord and went decided to do all natural from here on out. And all my numbers have come down. They're all in normal ranges. Now I am showing no signs of active cancer. We continue, continually test for circulating tumor cells, and every six weeks or so, and so far, everything's come back negative. I am focusing on root causes, because the type of cancer that I was diagnosed with is not hormone not hormone driven, and I have no genetic at the end of my family history, I mentioned my my father died of bladder cancer, but that's not related, so everything is environmental, and I had some from my research I did while I was waiting, waiting around in my third trimester to have my baby. All the research that I did sort of led me to these possible root causes. Can you clarify that this had nothing to do with pregnancy? It wasn't driven by the pregnancy, because that it is typical in pregnancy, if you find a cancer, that it's usually aggressive because of the pregnancy, but you said it wasn't influenced by the hormones, or was there still some component of the pregnancy just because of blood flow, I think because of your immune system is compromised, that that might have had something to do with it. That's the only thing that I can think of, because otherwise, hormones wasn't a factor. I did sort of have some possible progesterone like, it's kind of, my understanding of it is a little quite understand it. Even though it's not hormone driven, there was a part of it that was progesterone possibly driven, but then they don't really, I don't really have a further explanation for that, so I think it was immune. System being compromised. So the first thing that we addressed was parasites. Parasites have there's a huge connection with parasites and cancer. It all sort of goes back to leaky gut, and I'm definitely not equipped to explain all this. But you know your our gut here has not it's not doing the same job that it used to, where, when parasites into your digestive system, the acid in your stomach will kill those parasites. So a lot of people are ending up with parasite problems, and here in the United States, we don't do parasite cleanses on the regular. So that was something that I did a lot of research on and we were started parasite cleansing. The second sort of root cause that we are addressing are my root canals. So root canals, there's a huge connection with infected root canals, and especially breast cancer. There are meridians in your body that go down from from your jaw into different areas of your body. And I'm actually having my root canal removed and doing an extraction today. This afternoon, I said, get it out right away. The biological dentist that I am seeing said that this, most likely is a huge contributor to your to your your cancer, to taking out a tooth instead, okay, yeah, removing a root canal. I'm doing that today, another thing. So we're also doing heavy metal testing. I had a some metal. I still have metal that he found in my mouth that the conventional dentist said was all gone. They removed metal fillings and a metal crown that I had, and he said, No, you still have mercury in your mouth. So as long as you still going to, you know, you're still going to be testing positive for heavy metals until we get this taken care of. So it's just been one thing after another. But at least I I'm at the point where I am healing physically from this. I am strength. I'm getting my strength back. I am my blood works looking good, and I'm addressing root causes.

Lastly, why is it so important to you to share your story? You're still in the thick of it. It's one thing when we have a hard life experience and we look back and we talk about it, but you're in the thick of it and you're already compelled. So what compels you to tell your story?

I think mainly because I experienced what it's like to get a diagnosis out of nowhere and realize that you have to be the expert at this, because you're your own advocate. I want everyone to know that. Follow your gut. If something feels wrong, then you need to explore it more. Do all the research. You can read all the books. Don't make a decision out of fear. Make a decision based off of evidence and surety that you know that you're doing the right thing for you and your body. You're not a generalization. Standard of care isn't tailored to you and your own specific needs and your own specific body. So the importance of talking about this with everybody, and letting everyone know that their their options is my goal, and prayer and prayer and lean into your faith, trust in God, trust in the Lord with all your heart, because he will not let you down. 

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