💔 She Deserved More Time: Kim’s Story

This is my beautiful friend Kim. She passed away a little over three years ago after breast cancer treatments took a devastating toll on her. 

I’ve wanted to share her story for a long time, but out of love and respect for her family and our close friends, I’ve held back. With her husband’s blessing, I’m sharing it now because I hope it might help someone else.

Kim was fit, health-conscious, full of life, and a group fitness instructor. Truly a beautiful person inside and out. She had asked me years ago what she could do to help prevent cancer because it ran in her family. Not long after, she found a small lump in her breast.

What followed was nearly 2 years of chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, severe pain, and complications that devastated her quality of life. She was terrified by her diagnosis and frightened into treatment without feeling she had the time to fully explore her options. She trusted the medical experts telling her what she needed to do. Every time it seemed like she was making progress, something else happened. It was a heartbreaking cycle of two steps forward and five steps back. 

A cancer diagnosis is terrifying. When you're constantly living in fear, anxiety, and stress, your body feels that burden. Chronic stress can disrupt sleep, affect immune function, and interfere with the body's ability to recover and cope. Yet so often, patients are left feeling terrified, overwhelmed, and powerless while trying to navigate treatment.  Kim lived this every day her last two years of life.

I begged her to consider an integrative approach every step of the way. Eventually, she did see an integrative oncologist and had just begun incorporating some of his recommendations when she learned she had been accepted into a new immunotherapy clinical trial she’d been hoping for.  She decided to put many of those protocols on hold while pursuing that opportunity. Heartbreakingly, she began the trial but was never able to complete it before her passing.

After another round of chemotherapy, fluid built up in her lungs, which had already been affected by drainage complications following her mastectomy, subsequent skin grafting surgery, and resulting lymphodema. She underwent surgery to drain the fluid, but her body couldn’t recover. We ultimately lost her as she struggled to breathe.

The financial toll on her family was devastating, too. Her medical bills eventually reached hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even years later, her husband was still receiving bills related to her care. The impact of what she went through didn’t end when her treatments ended, it continued to affect the family she left behind.

Kim was fit, healthy, full of life, and had a small lump in her breast. How did we get from that to a woman who endured so many surgeries, was left with a body ravaged by treatment, had so little quality of life, and ultimately lost her life?

How did this become her story?

I still struggle to wrap my head around it, and I’m still left asking conventional medicine: Is this really the best we can do?

I watched someone I loved go from planning a future in Hawaii with her family to fighting for her life.

We need to do more than treat disease after it appears. We need to take prevention seriously, investigate root causes, look at the whole person, and give people the opportunity to explore evidence-based integrative approaches to cancer care.

The CDC’s own research acknowledges the connection between parasites and cancer, and there’s research exploring antiparasitic medications impant against various types of cancer. There are other approaches like high-dose intravenous vitamin C and turmeric that have also shown promise in cancer reversal and deserve more mainstream attention.

I could go on and on about the many things we can do to reverse cancer and improve health outcomes that only have benefits without the devastating consequences of surgeries, chemo and radiation (read my cancer blog, where I’ve compiled tons of research on natural approaches to cancer). While there may be times where those protocols are necessary, there's usually so much more that can be done before you get to that place.

If you or someone you love receives a cancer diagnosis, please ask questions, seek a second opinion, and consider consulting a qualified integrative oncologist. You deserve to understand your options and make informed decisions without fear being the only voice in the room.

This is what breast cancer awareness means to me. 💗

It means more than wearing pink, raising money for pharma, and reminding women to get screened. It means asking harder questions, taking prevention seriously, advocating for better options, and making sure people facing a diagnosis have access to the information and support they deserve.

It means making sure Kim's story, and stories like hers, aren't forgotten.

I’m sharing Kim’s story because I love her, I miss her, and I know she would want others to have the information, options, and opportunities she deserved.

I called her my Sweet Pea. She deserved so much more time. 

#breastcancerawarenessmonth #breastcancerawareness #breastcancer