#11: Chapter 6B: What I did: Brain Metastases

Cancer is typed and treated by its origin, regardless of where it travels to. Western medicine’s ‘standard of care’ (SOC) is determined by that origin. In my case, primary breast cancer metastasized to bones, lungs, liver, lymph and eventually brain. My treatment plan reflected that and differed from someone whose cancer had begun in their lungs and traveled. So, one’s lung cancer brain metastases will be treated differently than another’s breast cancer brain metastases. That being said, there are some principles that apply in any case.

Brain metastases

One year after Stage IV diagnosis, I was walking (in spite of being told I would likely never walk again because of the tumors having split my sacro-iliac joint and crumbling 7 vertebrae), felt great, and felt I was going to live a long time, in spite of doctors’ prognoses. Then they discovered 9 brain tumors. Worse, it was leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, meaning the protective tissues surrounding the brain (blood-brain barrier) were involved. It is a fatal diagnosis, median survival is 2.8 months from diagnosis, and only rare reports of survival up to 20 months. I had just lost a mets sister 3 weeks after her diagnosis of leptomets. They said that’s about how long I’d have. Going on more than 6 years since diagnosis, I may have the world survival record and I’m NEAD!

3 weeks after I instituted a naturopathic protocol, 4 of the 9 brain tumors/mets were gone without a trace, including the largest. Doctors could not explain…