What happens when you're diagnosed with a serious chronic illness and you're also somebody's mom or dad?

It's one of those questions you don't contemplate until suddenly it belongs to you. Before illness, we parent assuming we’ll always be planning for another week, another summer, and all the milestones to come. We work on the assumption we'll be here to help our children navigate life's challenges. Then an unplanned diagnosis happens, throwing everything into question.

When I was diagnosed with stage IV inflammatory breast cancer, I was a wife and mom of two daughters aged two and seven. My diagnosis wasn't just mine; it belonged to all of us. The following year, I was diagnosed with a second rare, aggressive cancer. I underwent an exhausting period of treatments, surgeries, scans, that forced me to change how I viewed my future—especially how to be a mom in a compromised state.

Cancer is only one chronic illness that can change the way we parent. A parent living with multiple sclerosis may face fatigue, weakness or cognitive changes. Someone with lupus may move between feeling well and unpredictable flares of pain. Rheumatoid arthritis can make everyday activities painful. A parent with chronic fatigue syndrome might look perfectly healthy while having so little available energy that attending a school event today means spending several days recovering in bed.

These illnesses are medically different, but they leave parents asking similar questions: How do I remain present for my children when my body isn't cooperating? How much should I tell them? How do I help them feel secure when I don't know how I'll feel from day to day?

Flowers are often admired for their beauty, planted to brighten gardens, or arranged in vases, but rarely are they considered as food. Yet, for centuries, cultures across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe have recognized edible flowers not just for their aesthetic appeal but also for their healing properties. These delicate petals are nutrient-dense, whole foods that can help prevent chronic disease, boost immunity, reduce inflammation, and add vibrant color to your plate and your health. 

One of the biggest myths I hear is, "I can't afford to eat healthy." And I understand why so many people feel that way. Grocery prices continue to rise, and when life is busy or stressful, it often seems easier to grab cheap convenience foods. But here’s what I’ve learned over the last two decades through my own healing journey and through helping others - healing foods don’t have to be complicated or expensive.

Have you ever noticed that your body sometimes knows what it needs before your mind does?

Racing thoughts. Tight shoulders. Knots in your stomach. Exhaustion you can’t explain. We’re all pretty good at pushing through these signals instead of listening to them. That’s one of the reasons I continue to come back to Reiki. When we’re healing, we’re calming the nervous system, reconnecting with ourselves, and creating the internal conditions that allow the body to do what it was designed to do. Reiki expedites the process.

Eat healthy and exercise. That’s the key to staying well. Have you heard this before? These words are ubiquitous, and yet it’s not the whole story. According to the World Health Organization, 60% of people will face at least one chronic illness in their lifetime—and 40% will face more than one. Diseases like heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, depression, anxiety, and even cancer have become part of modern life. I know this firsthand: I’m more than 20 years past two rare, aggressive and late-stage cancers. What I learned along the way changed everything I thought I knew about healing. Recovering from chronic disease isn’t about following the latest health influencer or sticking to a strict protocol. It’s about tapping your intuition and healing your mind, body, and spirit together—the science on this is real.

Multiple studies link bean-rich diets to lower risks of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and even cancer. In short, beans help defend against disease, keep you feeling full and energized, and help you live a long and healthy life.

A cancer diagnosis almost universally results in panic, anxiety and a sense of chaos as we reel from the fear of what we could lose. But what if just for a minute we employed a simple mindfulness practice?

Have you ever contemplated the connection between tuberculosis and cancer? Of course, you haven’t. Why would you? Well, as it turns out the discovery of an ancient forest treatment to boost immune function was used successfully to treat tuberculosis and has now been discovered to be a powerful tool in eradicating cancer and other chronic diseases. 

What if you eat a carrot raw or roasted, an onion raw or sautéed, a tomato raw or stewed? Well, it turns out that when your using food as medicine, how you prepare your food makes a huge difference in which nutrients your body absorbs. 

The 2019 book award season has concluded and I'm so proud to have received four top honors. E.A.T. An Unconventional Decade In The Life Of A Cancer Patient is a four-time award-winning, best-selling journal-type narrative written from the 18 journals I kept during my battle with inflammatory breast cancer and a high-grade head and neck cancer. Despite taking advantage of everything my hospital had offered, My body was failing, leaving me to live each day half dead. As I tallied the limitations of conventional medical protocols, I embraced the challenge cancer had offered me and discovered I had exactly what it took to change my life and thrive cancer free. This is a manual of hope for anyone confronting serious illness or simply looking for a more proactive approach to wellness.

Supplements tend to be the first thing we run to, believing they can provide us with the nutrients our bodies need. In fact, one of the first questions most new clients ask me is generally presented in the form of a box or bag filled with bottles of "nutritional supplements" they paid a lot of money for. That got me thinking. Maybe the following article will be of deep interest to you and help address your questions in a comprehensive way.

Let's start with the difference between broth and stock. Although they're both made by using meat, skin, and bones, stock uses a higher proportion of roasted bones to meat. More importantly, a typical chicken broth takes 45 minutes to 2 hours of boiling, while stock can take as long as 24 hours to give the collagen time to break down, producing a gelatinous broth when cooled - the trademark of a stock rich with amino acids.

If Goliath were cancer, then David would have to be the tiny black raspberry that rose to fame as the deep purple superstar of the berry world when Ohio State University (OSU) scientists discovered its powerful abilities to fight cancer. Dr. Gary D. Stoner, one of the world’s leading researchers of berries, and his team were studying the impact of ellagic acid on esophageal tumors and found that black raspberries carried higher levels than the other berry varieties they tested. They also identified anthocyanins, responsible for the berry’s dark color. 

Perhaps you’re already familiar with a healthy body’s key nutrient – vitamin D3. It’s arguably the most important essential nutrient, working to keep your bones strong and inflammation in check while reducing your risk of developing chronic disease or improving disease outcomes. Vitamin D3 tends to be the one supplement doctors strongly suggest their patients take. In fact, most oncologists will tell you they take it as part of their own cancer prevention strategy, and while there are a variety of ways to obtain this essential hormone, the most simply effective way is free for the taking – the sun. 

NEER will not only give credibility to patients like Glenn and myself who have attacked cancer in an unconventional way, it will give doctors a better informed and more effective way to answer questions about taking a less toxic and more integrative approach to beating cancer. Ask your doctors if they’re familiar with NEER and the National Institutes of Health Integrative Health Program. If they’re not, light a fire under them to become more curious and better health care practitioners by being better informed.

Oral cancer has been on my mind lately with the recent national attention given to an increased risk of cancer and respiratory disease for teens and young adults who vape along with adults who use tobacco or drink a lot of alcohol. Each year, rates of oral cancers continue to increase, so when I read an article from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) on oral cancer prevention and care during treatment, I thought you might find it as interesting as I did for turning these trends around.