Gera's story
I am 46 years old, a teacher, living in Braunschweig (Germany), married, two children (9 and 11 years). This is my story (sorry, this is my bad German English, but I hope you will understand what I mean):
It was January in 2002 when I decided to stop smoking and to live in a much healthier way than I ever did (I thought so). So I started with some sports (running), began to eat more fruit and vegetables and, of course, lots of dairy (as I was told in every book I read about nutrition), replaced even beer with kefir and, because my weight increased after having stopped smoking, I started a low-fat-cheese-sandwich-diet.
During the next years, something went wrong. While I was proud about my step into a better life, my menstruation went even stronger and more painful than it had been before the birth of my children, there was a special kind of headache when it stopped, my breasts became heavier and bigger (it was impossible to examine it for breast cancer prevention!) and did not soften any more during the cycle, and some fluid like milk came out:
It felt like beeing pregnant again. But of course I was not.
In Autumn 2005 I noticed somespecial kind of deep sadness spreading in my soul: I began to tidy up the house, even the loft, to be able to leave.
In December 2005 I went to my doctor because I had discovered a lump in my right breast: six days before christmas I got the message "breast cancer in an advanced state", and the day before christmas I got my first chemotherapy.
It is not necessary to talk about my feelings in that time: You know what it feels like when suddenly your future is cut off and you know that you are probably going to die, leaving behind two young children, while the others live their boring lives as usually and even don't think about ...
I lost a bit of my weight, all my hair and most of my hope, while an "inner voice" continued to tell me that I had to find out the difference between me and other women who were not suffering from breast cancer: I had to find it out at once, or there would be no chance for me to overcome this fight! Why was it me who got breast cancer? What was the reason?
I felt very sick and I had to get a "port" because the chemotherapy burnt my left arm.
Spring came, and there was only a small result from my chemotherapy and the doctors gently tried to make me accept the fact that my breast would have to be removed totally.
One day my husband gave to me a pink book which the wife of a collegue hat given to him (she, herselft, had not suffered any problems with breast cancer again since six years). I noticed that the theme would be some kind of a diet, and became angry: "No diet! This would kill me!" But I had a look, and I read a little bit, and then I continued to read during the whole night.
There are too many theories about cancer which seem to be completely rubbish. But this one was different, and even more:
There was it, the explanation why it had been me who got breast cancer:
I am a vegetarian, even a lacto-vegetarian, and have been that for about 25 years!
Jane Plant's theory is simple in a surprising way, logical, convincing, true. I decided to follow the Plant Programme immediately and to start to fight cancer not only with medical treatment but with my cooking-spoon.
The following weeks I did not think about death and dying any more, but about cooking and eating. It was great!
It was more than a diet: It gave me back hope and optimism, and suddenly I felt much less helpless and overwhelmed by sadness and sorrow. When fear returned, I just started to read "Your life in your hands" and felt better. Even in hospital I carried my "pink bible" in my handbag and started to read, whenever fear was going to strike me again.
It sounds like a fairy-tale and too wonderful to be true ( even today it is difficult for me to believe it), but everything went like Jane Plant described it:
It took about 8 days until the primary cancer, big as a walnut, suddenly began to break down. It took about 6 weeks til it was gone. I already got an appointed day for the operation (it should have been the 21.06.2006). But when the doctor examined me, he just started to laugh: There was no cancer any more.
The operation was cancelled and my doctor sent me to the university hospital in Hannover (MHH). There, my therapy was continued with anti-östrogenes (Femara, Zoladex), nothing else. They discovered that my breast was full of inflammation (MRT), which vanished, slowly but steadily, during the following 1 1/2 years.
There were also some rests of hard, strange tissue in my breast which continued to disappear, accompanied by a certain kind of pain that felt like stinging nettle.
The professor who continued my therapy explained the whole thing like this:
There are 80% of all breast cancers, which are hormone-dependent (oestrogene-dependent) like mine. I even would not have needed chemotherapy (but in Germany, every doctor has got to use it); it would just have been necessary to stop the oestrogene production in my body.
8% of those patients who get an anti-hormone-therapy will get a complete remission like me.
Knowing "Your life in your hands", I think that it really has been a very very good idea to avoid every sort of oestrogene that comes from nutrition to complete my cancer therapy: I would have made it worthless drinking milk and eating cheese as I did before, living as a lacto-vegetarian!
I never would have belonged to those lucky 8% who get their cancer into total remission without the Plant Programme; I'm afraid that I would have already died.
The whole discussion about IGF and EGF and progesterone aside (though it's obvious that the symptomes I noticed during the last years lead to progesterone): Simply the fact, that "industial milk", that means milk from pregnant cows contains oestrogenes, is reason enough to start the Plant Programme immediately.
I know that it has not only been "by chance" that my therapy worked.
Today its February the 6th in 2008, and tomorrow they will remove the "port" because there is no use for it any more. And it seems that cancer is no danger for me any more. Of course, I will go on with the Plant Programme: It made me feel much healthier, stronger and younger than ever.
Thank you, Jane: You saved my life.
See also some reviews of Jane Plant's books !