[Update: I wrote this in October of 2014. It’s been 3 years, and I’m still doing great. Thanks to all of you who continue to check up on me and wish me well!]
It was February 5th, my mother’s birthday and a month before the 20th anniversary of my becoming vegan. I was sitting in a breast surgeon’s office in a paper gown, cradling my biopsied breast and waiting. After about an hour and a half, my surgeon finally appeared, apologizing for keeping me waiting because the results had only just come in. He took a deep breath and said, “You don’t have cancer.” I thought, “I didn’t think I did.” Unfortunately, as I would later find out, we both were wrong.
He went on to explain that the biopsy found abnormal cells, officially called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), but often referred to as Stage 0 or pre-cancer. While I was still reeling from the word “carcinoma,” he explained that these cells might become cancer, so they had to be treated like cancer. My options were a lumpectomy with radiation or a mastectomy. I asked whether there was any chance that the pathology report could be wrong, and my doctor said no.
I was stunned. I left in a daze and went over to my husband’s office nearby to give him the news.
Three months before, a routine mammogram had spotted a place that looked different from my last mammogram. I was sent to the Breast Health Center for another mam and then an ultrasound to get a closer look. The spot was so small and deep inside the breast that the ultrasound technician couldn’t find it at all, so I was given an appointment to return in three months. At that three month mammogram, the “spot” was clearly visible even to me as a glowing white circle in a sea of black and gray. A ultrasound-guided biopsy was scheduled for early the next week.
I’d had one of these biopsies four years ago, and that spot had turned out to be nothing but a harmless cyst, so I had been expecting the same results this time. Like most women, I didn’t think “The Big C” could happen to me. But because I was a vegan, I think I was even more positive that I couldn’t have cancer. After all, wasn’t I doing everything the vegan doctors tell us to do to protect ourselves from heart disease and cancer? Low-fat, lots of green and cruciferous vegetables and brightly colored fruit? No animal products? Moreover, no one in my family had ever had cancer. I naively thought I was immune.
So I didn’t really believe the pathology report, and I became even more skeptical when I read an article that said that DCIS is sometimes misdiagnosed. I decided to get a second opinion from one of the doctors mentioned in that article, a pathologist specializing in breast cancer in San Francisco. I had the hospital send him my biopsy slides, and a week later, I had a consultation with him on the phone. He was unable to confirm DCIS or rule out actual cancer because the radiologist who had performed the biopsy had noted that he had actually missed the “mass.” The biopsy needle had gone in front of the suspected tumor and gathered cells from there, just a few that looked abnormal. But until the actual mass was tested, the pathology specialist couldn’t rule out either DCIS or invasive cancer. He suggested I get another, more accurate, biopsy called a stereotactic biopsy, and I asked my doctor to schedule it.
I had high hopes that this second biopsy would show no DCIS and no cancer. Those hopes were shot down when my new medical oncologist called to give me the results: I had a small invasive cancer, Stage 1, that showed signs of being aggressive. She recommended surgery within the next 3-4 weeks. Just to be sure, I had the slides sent to the pathologist in San Francisco, who agreed with her diagnosis.
Snowball Fight with Daughter E at Oberlin College
So I did what any logical person would do: I took a vacation. It was Spring Break, and my husband and I had planned a 5-day trip to take our high school junior (now senior) to visit 6 colleges in the Midwest. We wanted to do it while we could because we knew that after the surgery, I would need 6 ½ weeks of daily radiation treatments and might not be able to get away during the summer. The trip was a great distraction, but as soon as we got home, I made an appointment with the surgeon and scheduled my lumpectomy for the following week.
The surgery went perfectly. The surgeon removed the tumor and the area around it, as well as three lymph nodes which tested negative: the cancer had not spread to them. A week later, I returned to the surgeon’s office for more good news: The final pathology report showed that the “margins” or edges of the material he had removed were clean, meaning that all of the targeted cancer cells had probably been removed. The only worrisome thing to my husband and me were some figures in the report that seemed a little scary, particularly a “grade” of 3, meaning the cancer was aggressive. My surgeon was unconcerned, and my oncologist said that she would order a genetic test called Oncotype DX to more conclusively determine my chances of having the cancer recur.
A few weeks went by as I recovered from the surgery and waited for the results of the Oncotype test. I was expecting to start radiation soon when my medical oncologist called with the test results. They indicated that I was at a moderately high risk of recurrence. She was recommending that I have chemo.
This was the first time the other Big C word had been mentioned, and for some reason, “chemotherapy” scared me more than “cancer.” The oncologist explained that the type of chemo she was recommending was “well-tolerated” and without all of the serious long-term consequences of other treatments. I wasn’t convinced, and I began frantically researching the chemo itself and alternatives to it.
Walking and thinking in a cypress swamp
I was in a panic. On the one hand, I’ve always believed in fighting disease with nutrition and had always been opposed to taking any medication if it could be avoided. On the other hand, hadn’t I been doing just that for the past 20 years? My oncologist was telling me that chemo could reduce my risk of having the cancer recur and spread, that preventing it now would be much easier than trying to stop if it spread to my other organs. I went back and forth, one day deciding that chemo was just too dangerous and the next deciding that I didn’t want to take the risk of the cancer coming back. I was, frankly, a mess. I couldn’t sleep or eat for worrying about the chemo. I finally decided to get a second opinion from a highly recommended breast cancer oncologist at the University Medical Center.
My second opinion doctor came back with the same recommendation as the first: Have the chemo. She assured me that I was young (me!) and healthy and I could handle it. And it would cut my chance of recurrence in half.
My husband was very careful to stand back and let me make the decision for myself, but I knew that he hoped that I would have the chemo. And I was afraid that if I didn’t have it, I would be anxious for the rest of my life, afraid that I hadn’t done everything I possibly could to prevent a recurrence. I’d read the stories of people who had fought their cancer with diet and lifestyle choices, but those people weren’t already eating a whole foods, plant-based diet like I was.
So I decided to do the chemo, four rounds, three weeks apart. I read everything I could find about the treatments and armed myself with supplements that could help prevent side effects. And I found out my oncologist was right: the treatments, though no fun, we’re not as bad as I’d feared. My side effects were minimal, the most annoying being a bad taste in my mouth that would come and go and made it difficult to create new recipes.
Just after my initial diagnosis, I’d begun getting up at 5:30 every morning and walking with my husband and our dog. During chemo, and later radiation, I considered it a point of honor that I never missed a walk. On the weekends, my family and I tried to get out of the house and do a little hiking or local sightseeing so that I wouldn’t feel like the treatment was making me isolated. I ate lots of fruits and vegetables to support my immune system and was careful to avoid coming into contact with people who were sick, and I sailed through my summer of chemo without so much as a sniffle.
A Visit to “My” Lake at Montreat, NC
When chemo ended, I was determined to take a family vacation before I had to start radiation therapy, so at the beginning of August, we spent a week in the mountains of North Carolina and a few days in Nashville, seeing my newest niece for the first time (and, of course, my brother and sister-in-law).
I got back home and jumped right into daily radiation treatments–33 of them. Again, the treatments weren’t nearly as bad as I expected, but I was thrilled when they ended last week. I couldn’t wait to put all of this cancer stuff behind me.
I didn’t write about this while it was going on mainly because I was afraid that people would offer suggestions and criticisms of my decision to go through with chemo and radiation, and I just couldn’t risk the additional stress that would have put on me. So why am I telling you now? Even though this blog is recipe-oriented and not usually very personal, I wasn’t sure if I could go on writing it if I had to pretend like something this big hadn’t happened to me, something that has consumed the last eight months of my life and has changed the way I see myself and the way I think about diet, veganism, and health.
My first month post-diagnosis, before I had the specter of chemo to worry me, all I could think about was “why” and “how”: Why did I, a vegan who tries to eat healthy, get cancer when no one else in my Standard American Diet-eating family has ever had cancer? What had I done wrong? Had I eaten too few nuts? Too little cilantro? Not enough flax seeds? BPA? Soy?! I worried that I had caused my cancer by never being able to get to my goal weight and stay there, that I didn’t exercise consistently, that I had had only one child late in life and that I hadn’t breastfed her long enough.
I was blaming myself, and I had a lot of help from the Internet. I couldn’t visit Facebook without seeing posts about how eating X (broccoli, nuts, soy, orange) would help prevent cancer. Or people posting about their frustration that a friend or family member had breast cancer and refused to treat it by adopting a plant-based diet. If I, someone who had been eating all the right things (and not eating all the wrong ones), got the message that I was to blame for my cancer, how must other cancer patients feel, the ones who hadn’t been stuffing themselves with kale and mushrooms? Is there a way to promote a plant-based diet that doesn’t point the finger of blame, that doesn’t make grand promises of health, and that doesn’t make people like me feel so confident in the invincibility of our diets that we put off mammograms or other screening tests?
I don’t know. But for me, it’s been helpful to think of the vegan diet as promoting health, but not providing a “Get out of Disease Free” card. My friend Maria made me see that even if my diet didn’t prevent me from getting cancer, perhaps the cancer would have grown much more quickly if I hadn’t been vegan. Perhaps I wouldn’t have sailed through chemo without ever needing nausea meds if I hadn’t been nourishing my body with fruits and vegetables. Perhaps my immune system wouldn’t have stayed as strong as it did or my energy as high if I had been consuming animal products.
It’s also been helpful to me to remember my real reason for being vegan. Though I’ve followed a McDougall-type diet ever since I became vegan, my ultimate reason for becoming vegan was not to improve my own health but to decrease the suffering of animals. So if you’re reading this and worrying that I’m going to be another vegan blogger who goes back to eating animals for her own health, don’t. No diagnosis in the world could convince me to eat another animal or animal product.
As for my current health, I feel great, and I’m confident that I caught this cancer early and have done and am doing everything medically and nutritionally possible to make sure I never have to worry about it again. I’ve tweaked my diet to reduce or eliminate foods I don’t need (sugar, soy, wine, and coffee) and to increase those I wasn’t eating enough of before (broccoli sprouts, flax seeds, organics). I walk at least once and sometimes twice a day, and soon I’ll be starting a workout routine at the gym. I plan to lose the extra weight I’ve been carrying around, which is the biggest threat to my health.
I think the hardest struggle I’ve faced isn’t physical but emotional. My image of myself as a healthy person who never took pills and was confident her vegan diet would protect her from anything–that image took a pretty big hit. I’ve been worried about “coming out” as a vegan with cancer for fear that non-vegans would see it as proof that a vegan diet “doesn’t work” and that some vegans would skewer me for resorting to traditional medicine. In the end, I decided that I had to put my truth out there so that I can get past it and get back to blogging as usual. Next post, you can expect a recipe. Cancer isn’t on the menu.
Loki has become an excellent therapy cat–when he isn’t destroying the house.
Thank you to all my family, friends, and friends of friends who offered love and support. And to my church, the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Jackson, and my parents’ church, The First Presbyterian Church of Hammond, LA (love the shawl and cap, y’all!) And to Maria Maggi, Nava Atlas, Dreena Burton, and Stephanie Weaver–wise women all, whose words of advice and offers of support helped me more than they probably know.
Kathy Patslsky
Susan I just wanted to send you love and support and thanks for sharing your amazing story. Love to you and your family. And good job Loki!!
pgyx
Wonderful news from PCRM (no surprise, but perhaps will further boost your confidence in your remission)! I think your friend Maria is right:
Plant-Based Foods Increase Breast Cancer Survival
A new report on breast cancer survival favors plant-based eating, as presented by the World Cancer Research Fund International’s Continuous Update Project. A panel of independent scientists reviewed 85 studies with 164,416 participants diagnosed with breast cancer. They found that eating more high-fiber plant foods before and after diagnosis may reduce the risk of dying from breast cancer. Additionally, women who consume more soy after diagnosis have a lower risk of dying, while women who consumed more fat, especially saturated fat, before diagnosis had a higher risk of dying. Other factors that boost survival include regular exercise and maintaining a healthy body weight. The report’s findings support a growing body of evidence that good food choices can improve survival for women with breast cancer.
World Cancer Research Fund International. Continuous Update Project Report: Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Breast Cancer Survivors. 2014. Available at: http://www.wcrf.org/sites/default/files/Breast-Cancer-Survivors-2014-Report.pdf. Accessed October 16, 2014.
Peggy Bean
Thanks so much for sharing your diagnosis/recovery. Your friend is right – being a vegan sustained you. There are no guarantees that being a vegan will make us free of all disease forever, but it sure helps us beat the odds. I love and appreciate your honesty. Love and continue healing, Peggy
mimi
hi again from me,
I recommended Dr. Morse to you but at the time it didn’t occur to me to say that all the information from him and other practitioners of his method can get confusing and it can be hard to begin putting all of it into practice. fortunately, there’s a forum with so many great people that will gladly give you all the help and support you will ask for! I’m really happy I found this community and I invite you to join and reach out – here’s the link: http://www.moveyourlymph.com
again, I wish you all the best and I’m sending some good vibes your way!
L
This post was linked from “ChoosingRaw”- I’ve followed your blog off and on for a couple years and have considered you an unmet friend. After initial shock to learn of your cancer diagnosis, I must applaud your bravery and honesty and determination to keep living life in a way that feels right to you. I agree that we should be supportive and non-judgmental about people’s health or lack thereof when they’re doing the best they can. All the best to you and yours.
Angela
Susan,
I am really sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis. I’m sure it was, and still is, very scary. I will keep you in my prayers. Your blog is fabulous, your recipes terrific, and I don’t think less of you even one iota for going for more traditional cancer treatments. That is your decision along with your family and your doctor. Thank you for all you do to make vegan life so tasty!
Best to you!
Polly Realpozo
Susan, You are such an honest heroine. You’ve given so much of yourself to us. Be sure and take the time you need to recuperate. We wont’ starve 😉 We have plenty of your recipes. Please be gentle with yourself. You and your choices are respected. Blessings to you on your path.
Chris
Susan, I appreciate you being so candid in your blog. My first thought was “you of all people” but this is an amazingly important lesson to all of us. It shows us that there are numerous factors involved in many diseases, many of which may not even be known about yet. Diet is just one piece of the puzzle but I still believe a very important one. As vegans we can be guilty of being overly smug about health and you have made us sit up and think. I do strongly believe however that your diet has helped give you a strong immune system that has helped you cope with this event and your continued recovery.
You are always my first port of call when looking for recipes. Keep up the great blog especially your photography which I love and makes your site stand out from the rest. I talk about you so much that my wife has a name for you that I can’t even repeat here!!
Cesare di Angelo
You were right to shut off the internet where people judge you out of fear. Cancer has many causes. And if anyone knows how to appreciate being given the gift of confronting their own mortality and seeing their own life in high definition, I’ll place wagers on you.
Erica
Just want to send positive vibes your way. Thank you for your blog. 🙂
Carrie
Thanks for the brave post. You spoke your truth, and I really appreciate it. I’m happy to hear you’re well and continuing with the vegan blogging. This morning I’m going to try your pumpkin waffles and ponder your words…I’m definitely guilty of feeling that vegan invincibility…but we can only control so much in this mystery we call life! Happy Autumn to you and your family.
Gisela
Dear Susan, glad you shared this journey with the world, most of all I am glad you are doing better! I’ve been also following a plant based diet not as long as you , only a little over a year now and my # one reason is for the well being of our furry friends that share this beautiful planet with us. in second place is my own health. That said I have loved all the recipes of yours I have tried my all time favorite is you double layer pumpkin cheese cake <3. my real reason for commenting, and forgive me for being may be another one in a list of people I'm sure who have givin you their "opinions" on your diagnosis versus Veganism. Like you mentioned your friend pointing out that it could have all been worse had you not been living a plant based life style. I would like to ask if you may have read Louise Hay's book you can heal your life, I mention this only to further your thought process on this Cancer being emotional based in it's root reason for showing up. I am a firm believer that we are all energetic beings that manifest all of our experiences via thought due to the energetic universal law "like attracts like" all energy has a frequency, that is so with our thoughts and what we think about we bring about depending on the intensity of emotion attached to this thought. Now please do not take me saying you thought about being afraid of cancer and that is why or how you got it. NO! Not what I am saying. I merely want to point out your statement of it having an emotional base the reason why you got the big "C" is an aspect to check into. In any case for what it's worth I love what you do and represent in your blogs and hope one day I may also serve as inspiration for people as you do in some fashion. I'm also a Reiki Master and will put you on my Reiki Healing list from here on out. Love and Light to you 🙂 Gisela
jane
I have been following your blog since i went vegan in 2011. It is very inspiring. I thank u very much for this! You have a very heart-warming way to write, i love your recipes and the pics are great. 🙂
I know very well, that nutrition is not a cure or prevention for everything because there are many factors that add up to being sick. Some of them are not in our hands. I hope you are going to be really well soon! You have already done so much good for yourself and others.
seasideart
Susan, I am so glad you posted your experience. I got my breast cancer diagnosis in Feb. 2008 and my child was in high school also. My tumor was so large that chemo was recommend to reduce it’s size so that it’s removal (mastectomy) would have clear margins. I researched on the internet, what to eat during chemo and found a plant based diet recommended by several sources. I had also been urged in that direction for several years, by a close friend. So I started then and still adhere to a plant based diet. My friend recommended your website and I have loved your recipes all of these years. I always recommend your site to friends who are changing to plant based diets, because I know if there is something they are craving that is not typically vegan, that you have a vegan version of it.
So, I passed my five year cancer free anniversary and then in August of 2013, I found out my cancer had matastisized to my bones. My friends and family said how could that be, you are eating so healthy! I am on a different chemo this time, but still being a “fat free vegan”. It has been 15 months and I still believe that my survival has everything to do with what I eat. I would love to talk to you somehow and share our experiences.
Susan Voisin
I’m so sorry to hear your cancer metastasized. Feel free to get in touch through email. My email address is on my “About Me” page and I’d love to hear from you.
Linda P.
I have an auto-immune disorder. Since diagnosis, I have been told by well-meaning people that I got it because I’m too vegan, not vegan enough (huh?), didn’t adequately balance the acids and bases in my diet or didn’t eat enough fermented foods. I’ve been assured that if I just took this supplement or that supplement, I would be instantly cured, as was (insert some relative’s name). It does begin to feel a bit like blame the victim, doesn’t it? Actually, though, I think if others can assess the problem as something we’re doing and they’re not or vice versa, they feel safer from such an event in their own lives. Be well. Feel confident that you’re being kind to your body and that many are wishing you good health.
Susan Voisin
Thank you, Linda! I think you hit the nail on the head with this: “I think if others can assess the problem as something we’re doing and they’re not or vice versa, they feel safer from such an event in their own lives.” I think we all want to believe that it can’t happen to us.
Sarah
I’ve been a follower for years, and just wanted to say thank you for sharing. Veganism while wonderful doesn’t sadly give us super powers, but it does save lots of lives and prevent lots of suffering. I’m so glad you managed to get through that season of your life with lots of social support and wonderful fruit and veggies and are doing well now.
Look forward to many more reciepes to come 🙂
Ramona
Thank you Susan.
Thank you for your courage and your authenticity.
You are an inspiration to us all.
I’m so grateful you got your “taster” back so quickly…looking forward to many more new, wonderful recipes!
Thank you for what you do – for what you do makes a difference.
Celia
Susan,
I haven’t been on your site for a while, but I was looking for one of your recipes that my family loves. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your sharing your story. It sounds like you have remained strong and have a great support system. I look forward to continuing to read your blog and try your recipes. You are a huge help for people trying to eat vegan.
Carole Aldstadt
Thank you for your honesty, courage and insight! Many of us would love to believe that we have control over everything that happens to us, especially our health. We can improve our health through diet and exercise, but cannot escape, or deny, our DNA. I am happy to have discovered your site & can hardly wait to try some of these amazing recipes!
In gratitude, Carole
Vickie
Breast cancer brought me to a healthier lifestyle, and to your blog. Am a huge fan–have loved every recipe I’ve tried and recommended them to others.
Thank you for telling your story.
May God Bless and Keep You!
Anj
You are truly courageous. Keep loving your body. Keep nourishing it and your soul with love and beautiful food. Thank you for all that you share. You are an inspiration.
Love and light!
Deborah Hadden
Susan, I am deeply sorry about all that you have been through. I walked beside my friend, (not a vegan) who had stage 4 aggressive breast cancer, and I remember how hard it was for her.
Because of my own experienced in healing from other diseases it is easy for me to assume that you diet slowed the progression of your cancer and that it will slow an re-occurrence or completely prevent it.
I am the last person to say that I am cancer free or will always remain so. There are too many factors that affect us in this world. Some ideas that I have had after reading Dr. McDougall’s book, the McDougal Diet for Women, where he talks quite a bit about breast cancer, is that the mammograms could have been the cause. I’m not saying that to stop anyone from having them. It is a personal, and spiritual choice that one must make between themselves and God, and I will never judge anyone from having them.
Dr. McDougall explains the act of the squeezing may be a possible cause of the spread. The only reason why I say this is to give some consideration to you that your diet might have still be preventive and never the cause.
Again, I’m not telling any person here not to have one, and I’m not saying I never will have one. Whose to say that yours didn’t save your life? And like I said, it’s a spiritual choice.
I’m just trying to propose that the diet might not have been the cause at all. And you have also said that, and I think you could be right.
In addition, there are components of an fat free diet that allows vegetable fats that can be a cause possibly encourage cancer growth. I’m posting a link here from Dr. McDougall where he writes about the use of vegetable fats and the cooking of such as a contributor.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/health-science/featured-articles/articles/vegetable-fat-as-medicine/
Some studies that may be supportive of this is the levels of high HDL cholesterol being a contributor which some vegetable fats may raise. I know that sounds weird, but this information has just come out, and maybe this is something you could research.
You mentioned maybe it was the soy. Maybe it was or wasn’t, but there are tweeks that might be done in a plant based diet to add even more protection, in the form of eliminating the vegetable fats that are high in omega 6 and adding in a small bit of some that have omega 3’s. Since there are so many here reading that are currently experiencing cancer, maybe this could give them some more ideas on tweeks that could add more protection. This is all in the article above.
Another thing that Dr. McDougall teaches is that nuts and avocadoes are delicacies to be enjoyed for special occassions, so maybe if they are used more than when they are in season, they could be a problem, especially if allowed to go a little rancid.
I wish I had a sure knowledge. I have been chunky all of my life, and like you, never have reached my goal weight, but have never regained all of my weight either, so I know there are no guarantees for myself.
Another consideration of a cause could be an undiscovered autoimmune disease like celiac which has been proven to be a risk factor.
I am a personal friend of Dr. Esselstyn, (featured in his wife’s new book pate 7) who was once a breast cancer surgeon. I have been in his physical presence and heard many lectures from him where he recommends no oil, nuts, or seeds, avocados for those with heart disease, and he also recommends this for cancer too. This is definitely a tweek in the diet I have not mastered, but am trying harder and harder to achieve since my husband, had heart disease prior to following Esselstyn’s Diet. Yes, I said, had. He is now able to be off of all of his heart meds because his blood levels are fine and he no longer has symptoms.
I have also read that nutritional yeast may raise human growth hormone which feeds cancer, but I still use it. This might also be another topic beneficial to study for prevention.
Keep up your hope, and study, and thank you for sharing your recipes. I have enjoyed several of them, and some of them have become family favorites.
I hope I have not been hurtful and not made anyone feel judged. My hope is to give anyone reading this some hope with my comments.
I am certainly no expert, but having healed my Grave’s disease, healed from the damage of celiac disease, ulcerative colitis, and reversed my husband’s heart disease, I am a believer in the low-fat plant based diet…..ala Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. and John McDougall, M.D.
I am not doing it for the animals. I am doing it because my quality of life is better on the diet, even if I were to come down with cancer, and in the meantime, my heart has become more tender towards protecting animals.
Rachel
Hi Susan,
Love your fatfreevegan blog and thank you for sharing your story. My Mom had lung cancer and she responded positively to macrobiotic foods, I tell her story in my blog. I cured myself of a basal cell carcinoma, doing 3 things: remove environmental toxins, eat organic wholefoods that include macrobiotic foods and EFT: Emotional Freedom Technique (mental wellbeing). I also cooked for a woman who has 4th stage cancer and is in a trial study; she wanted a vegan cook with macrobiotic influences. She responded very well to the foods along with being in a Trial Study, her tumors are 50% less than they were and is going to be one of God’s miracles, as she puts it. Medical Science and nutrition can walk hand in hand. Look into Macrobiotic diet and incorporate their health promoting whole foods into your vegan diet.
Wishing you the very best health and well being on all levels,
Rachel
Shari
I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story. We live in a culture where well-meaning people think nothing of saying gosh, she got x (whatever illness) because she did Y – weight, diet or exercise habits. You prove an important point – people get sick, sometimes even those with the best health habits. Advocating for yourself is the best defense and you are a great example of how important that is. Wishing you continued good health and thanks for the wonderful recipes!!
shirley
so glad to hear that you are doing so well hope it continues for a long long time
Lenore
Well said! I hope your health continues to improve and that you are enjoying each and every day.
Annie
You are simply the best, Susan. I am so happy you beat your cancer, and feel very lucky to be able to learn from your example. For me, it’s been too easy to ride the whole-food-plant-based-I’m-invincible train since I cleaned up my diet, and I really needed this reminder that everything is more complicated than we think. It’s actually been really unpleasant to feel that I know the key to health and my family and friends would be perfectly healthy if only they followed my example. It sounds so ignorant and self-righteous, but that’s what I felt, and without the dose of humility I got from this post, I’d still be feeling that way.
Because of you, I’m scheduling a checkup for myself–you know, that one I’ve skipped for the last two years because I’m “doing all the right things.” Yikes.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Loraine
Dear Susan,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I want you to know how much of a positive difference towards health you’ve made in the lives of so many, including me. I wish peace to you and your family.
Theresa Hyndman
Thank you for your honesty. I, too, am guilty of believing my plant based diet will protect me from cancer and other illnesses in my family. I have always tended to put off my mammograms having only 2 since I turned 40. Now I will certainly be more regular with them.
EVA
On that last paragraph: You ARE the healthy person who’s vegan diet can withstand everything. Just think of what the breast cancer would have been like had you not been following the fat-free vegan lifestyle. I don’t even want to think about that.
I’m so glad you put this story out there. First time commenter but longtime admirer, it makes me do a big, teeth smile that you were able to beat this cancer in the least painful way possible. Breast cancer runs in my family, and while I am a wee 19 year old, I do worry about the possibility later in life. You just NEVER know. Cancer will pick out anybody it wants- and nobody deserves it. Although cancer is a time of suffering no matter how tame, it seems as though you handled it well and I can’t give you enough claps for the daily walks you took each day. I know you know that that is the best medicine: enjoying the world in the simplest of methods. Keep on cookin’, we all missed you!
Allou
For all you have given us, we send our prayers and best wishes for a full recovery.
Kristin
Dear Susan, Thank you for a beautifully written account of such a personal struggle. Sometimes life throws things at us for no reason other than lessons learned, mortality felt and life once again feels more beautiful. Stay well. Thank you for sharing yourself (and fabulous recipes) with us. xo
Katie
All positive thoughts your way. I admire how you’ve handled this.. and thank you for sharing your story!
Amy
Thanks Susan for your openness about your cancer treatments and how you originally thought vegan diet would prevent you from getting diseases that so many are plagued with. After reading that, I too, realized I had that concept and I realized that the only One I can lean on is God. I think I was leaning on myself by thinking my diet would protect me. Thank you for helping me see that. I wish you the best and am thankful you came through this experience with an even stronger hope. Thank you so much for all your work in creating yummy recipes. Your website is my go to for most of my cooking. – Amy
Jen
Susan, I can’t even imagine the stress of this whole experience. It must have been truly overwhelming. I’m so happy you are on the other side of it now and I’m grateful for you sharing your story. You are an inspiration!
Martin Tornberg
Susan, thank you for sharing this! I was wondering if you included any fermented foods or any mushrooms (especially the medicinal mushrooms) in your vegan diet prior to your diagnosis and, or so, how often you ate those? I wonder if maybe we need those on a vegan diet in order to stimulate the immune system? I wonder if eating a diet that is too “clean” – too low in bacteria – might inadvertently increase our cancer risk by weakening the immune system over time, lulling the immune system to sleep, so to speak, by letting it rest too much for too long? If one never exercise, then one’s muscles would get weaker over time, so I wonder if the same might be true for the immune system if one never eats bacteria (in the form of fermented foods or animal foods) or fungi (in the form of mushrooms)?
Martin Tornberg
I hope we can all find something to learn from your experience and I want to clarify that my comment / question above about eating mushrooms or fermented foods was not meant to be critical in any way, only an attempt to find out as much as possible about your situation in order to see if there is something we can learn from your experience.
Susan Voisin
Martin, I eat tons of mushrooms and I do eat fermented foods, though not religiously. I think we’re all individuals, even people with cancer, and cancers themselves are so individual, so it doesn’t come down to one food or type of food that causes or prevents it. I think we feel more comfortable when we can point to a “reason why” someone else got cancer so that we can assure ourselves that it can’t happen to us. Just my opinion.
Martin Tornberg
OK, thanks Susan….you are right, we do feel more comfortable when we can point to a “reason why” people contract diseases (whether it be cancer or anything else), so that we can seek to reduce / mitigate / avoid those same reasons ourselves….thus my curiosity about your situation and my desire to see if anything can be learned from it….so I hope you don’t mind my questions and don’t take them the wrong way….were you taking medicinal types of mushrooms (ie maitake, shiitake, chaga, etc) or just generic store-bought ones? Did you have a lot of stress and/or exposure to EMF (electro-magnetic radation) or mold over the past 20 years? Was your diet mostly organic or non-organic? Are there any other factors that you feel might have contributed to your getting cancer despite being on a presumably healthy low-fat vegan diet? Feel free to not answer (and to delete this post) if you feel this is too personal, I am only asking because I feel it might be educational and helpful for me & others to know the answers to these questions; I am sorry if I am prying.
Margaret
Hi Susan,
I was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer (large, negative receptor tumour that had spread to the lymph nodes) almost 30 years ago now. My youngest child was only 4, so I knew I had to do everything possible to live.
After much library research ( the days before internet!) I discovered that the countries with the highest red meat and diary intake also had the highest cancer rates. As well, I found out that many of the ingredients in personal care and household products are carcinogenic. AND pesticides are toxic too! So much to change!
I became very strict about not eating any animal products, choosing organic fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts when possible, using green/organic personal care products and making DIY household products (baking soda and vinegar became my best friends).
I’ve not had a single recurrence all these years later and really do feel my lifestyle is a major factor in that outcome.
Best of luck to you, Susan, you are a tremendous role model for all who follow your very helpful blog.
Lesli
Susan:
Thank you for sharing your story and journey. I would hope that in this day, no one would ever think that a vegan diet is THE magic bullet. It is the right way to bring health to you and avoid all the ills that come with the Standard American Diet to be sure, yet we know that there are things that are in our genetic makeup that we cannot fully avoid.
Thinking of this as a glass half full event is the way to go as you did. Your vegan diet likely protected you from a more aggressive presentation, and the ability to go through adjunct treatments with few negative side effects. It also may have helped to keep the cancer localized. Obviously, the most important thing is that you are cancer free.
Medical science is imperfect. Studies can be skewed. No one has really done a complete work on Veganism and health on a longitudinal basis, so we only know what we know….not much!! Continue to follow the vegan diet, and your work on fat free recipes, which, by the way, are my favorites!!
Sending much love and good thoughts, and thanks for your courage.
Lesli
Bridget
Thank you for this post Susan. I have been reading your blog for several years (and making your wonderful recipes.) I was so shocked when I read this. I also have felt Invincible to such diseases as cancer due to my vegan, whole foods diet and lifestyle. Sadly, I guess none of us is immune. It really is a wake up call reading your story.
I am so happy you are well now and have an excellent prognosis. I wish you good health, happiness and courage to keep living life in a loving and compassionate way.
Thank you for your blog and inspiring recipes. I really enjoy it and appreciate the hard work you put into it!
Evan
There are pros AND cons of mammograms. See Dr. Gilbert Welch’s discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Poy19UPKM
VeganOre
Thank you for the very personal story about your journey with cancer. I know you made the absolute right decisions – because they were right for you. 🙂 As a two time cancer survivor/thriver I wholeheartedly endorse your view that veganism is “right” not only for my health but for the planet and animals. I didn’t get a get out disease free card either – but I’m convinced that not matter how many days I have on this earth – I live them knowing that I gave it my all. Thank you for your recipes – they are really wonderful and I refer to the site often.