Sorry, maybe the paleo list does not allow attachments. Below is the content
of the email. It's not necessarily paleo.

Everyone,

Friday was 5 years post-cancer for me.  I wanted to share a few
understandings I've come to about nutrition and health from my
journey.  There are about a million OTHER things I learned from these
past 5 years, but I will hold back on those lest this become
book-length! ;-) Please keep in mind, your mileage may vary.

I was diagnosed with a rare, very aggressive cancer. The diagnosis
came after surgery for what was assumed to be a benign condition --
it was a big surprise.

Funny thing was that a week after surgery I felt like $10 million
bucks!  But I pretty much got the idea of how serious it could be
when the first oncologist I visited wept at our initial meeting.
There were no treatments to prevent recurrence, which was considered
inevitable and which would be immediate and soon fatal. I felt it
prudent to -- as they say -- "settle my affairs."

Fast-forward to 2004 -- If this cancer was going to recur, it would
have done so within the first year or so. It's 5 years in the past
now, and I am healthier than I've been most of my adult life.  I am a
rare (and very pleased!) survivor.

Four things I want to pass on here:

1. STATISTICS CAN BE MISLEADING. Always doing my best to help myself
was so important to me -- I think this hopeful message is vital to
tell others as often as possible. I did not take on the idea that
"the numbers are a death sentence" and just give up.  I kept active
at being well, including moving toward being at peace with a strong
possibility of dying. Statistics and survival rates are a good
description of what happens across a GROUP of people.  But they are
lousy predictors of what will happen to ANY ONE  PERSON...I am living
proof of that.

2. FRUITS & VEGGIES KICKED MY BUTT! While I am not saying intensive
use of fruits and veggies cured my cancer, they gave a HUGE boost to
my body to fight it off. Before we had any clue I had cancer, I felt
that I was dying -- and no one believed me or could tell me why. I
decided to start juicing, though I was hesitant to because I tolerate
sugar so very poorly. But fresh juice SIGNIFICANTLY started helping
my failing strength in LITERALLY A DAY when nothing else could! I
kept with it for several months after diagnosis.

3. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE PREVENTING. The good care we give
ourselves goes to wherever we need it the most, regardless of what
our conscious wishes are.  Committing LONG TERM to a healthy
lifestyle has benefits we may never fully understand. Before the
cancer diagnosis, I had taken REALLY good care of myself for many
years but was having a LOT of trouble recovering from an automobile
accident a few years prior. I think so much of my energy went into
fighting the cancer that it was difficult to otherwise heal.
Unbeknownst to me, my body had been doing an AMAZING job!

4. ACID-PRODUCING FOODS MAY FEED TUMORS. Can we ever eat enough
servings of fruits and veggies to offset high consumption of animal
foods? Six months before I started to feel that I was dying, I went
on a low-carb diet.  While I was eating LOTS of raw and cooked
veggies, I was also eating more animal protein than I was used to.
Within a month, I was experiencing rapidly-increasing health
problems, including feeling generally and seriously unwell. Plant
foods reduce intra-cellular acidity -- tumors thrive on acidity.
While I am certain this diet didn't CAUSE the cancer (it was there
already), the timing of events tells me it was a last straw and my
body could no longer keep the cancer in check.

I look forward to the next 5 (and 50!) years!

best,
Deborah 
Thank you all for your congratulations -- I am thrilled to be here to 
receive them! :-D

To answer various questions:

-- No, sadly I did not use coconut oil until these past few months -- 
I didn't know about it then.  I suspect it would have allowed 
antioxidants to have been used more efficiently, which certainly 
would have been a good thing!

-- Certainly, feel free to forward my message to anyone you think may 
benefit from it.  And not just people who are ill -- I think the 
ideas are important for people who are WELL and want to STAY THAT 
WAY!!!

-- Re: Fruits & protein. I ate some but not many fruits on the 
low-carb diet -- I already knew their sugar bothered me, even as 
whole fruit so I was hesitant about them. I did include some fruit 
juices when I was juicing. At that time, I used muscle testing each 
day to determine what I needed. At first, I was too weak to do 
juicing at home -- I couldn't even drive to the store myself that 
first week. And then I just couldn't bother with the mess of it! So I 
was limited by what was available fresh-squeezed from my local whole 
foods supermarket.

Mind you, if I had known what I was dealing with, any amount of mess 
would have been fine, but this is only in retrospect.

I'm think the insulin instability I am sure I experienced from the 
juicing represented its own cancer risks. But at that moment I 
believe my sharply correcting my pH and giving myself a large influx 
in phytonutrients completely trumped the insulin problems and turned 
me around.

I did continue to eat animal protein, but at a lower level, and in a 
lesser proportion to the produce I was consuming.

Juicing was a desperate, temporary move for me. On a longterm basis, 
I am quite concerned about the sugars in juice. I could limit myself 
to just lowest-carb veggies when juicing, but the benefits of a very 
broad spectrum of phytonutrients is extremely vital. Therefore, 
variety is king!

best,
Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: Paleolithic Eating Support List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Marilyn Harris
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 6:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Stage 4 Cancer

Hi Kristina:

I did not see the attachment on your post. Or maybe it is filed away in some

mysterious place on my hard drive (as computer are wont to do). :-)  I am 
leaving for a little trip today and will not be back until next week 
(Sunday). Thanks for your help.

Marilyn

> I don't know anything about the link below, but attached is a doc with an
> email I got from a woman who beat cancer. Maybe it will be helpful.
>
> Kristina>