Dear reader, Tina is my dear friend from CrossFit Postal. She and I immediately gravitated towards each other; we both felt it the first day I saw her at the gym. I just knew she had something to teach me in this lifetime, and as it turns out, it's not just one, but many things. Tina's perspective on health and healing is heavily influenced by her own healing journey. While I anticipate some M.D.'s reading might be wary of some of the perspectives in this interview, I invite you to sit in that discomfort, acknowledge it, take a deep breath to soften, and see if you can hold the same curiosity and openness that Tina has taught me to have. There is more than one right way to do everything (contrary to what algorithmic medicine will tell you). Ultimately, what matters most is that your patient feels seen, heard, and cared for - and that they are living, and healing, on terms they have determined (whether that is accepting your evidence-based treatment option, or not).
"Your body tells you what it needs. You just have to listen. Trust your gut feeling, and trust the decisions you’re making for your body based on that."
I hope you enjoy Tina's incredible story of healing from breast cancer, and her even more stunning journey of spiritual and energetic healing. She inspires me to tap into the deeper koshas of my own Self - to remember there is so much more than this physical body's symptoms.
A little detour from our story, on the koshas:
What are the koshas, you ask? This is the concept of physical and energetic sheaths of your being, from Ayurvedic medicine. I initially learned about these concepts through my yoga practice and teacher training. (Even though I am Indian, my Punjabi family pretty harshly rejects Ayurveda - I think because my dad became an M.D., and fiercely held to American medicine principles, our family holds a lot of judgment and fear towards integrative healing.) The outermost sheath that is also most accessible is annamaya kosha, your physical body. You heal this by treating your body well, with moderation of intake, regular movement, and rest. In Ayurvedic medicine, this is the most basic part, because it's the easy compared to all the rest. (I laugh to myself thinking of this; our entire western medical system is focused on this sheath alone, and despite knowing the very easy ways to heal the body, we have the worst burden of chronic disease in the world - because we focus our efforts on expensive pharmaceuticals instead of teaching patients to eat, and structuring our societies to permit adequate rest and the meeting of basic needs.) Accessing, and healing, the deeper koshas takes dedication, effort, quiet, and patience. You'll hear in Tina's story that she has accessed these deeper layers, and that her cancer was the catalyst for her to realize these spaces within herself and do that deeper healing work.
Tell me about your diagnosis.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer on April 29, 2014. I had a mammogram a week before that and they found something concerning, and wanted to do an ultrasound. Then I needed a biopsy.
I had an appointment with a surgeon made prior to the results, just in case, and he thought I had already known about my diagnosis. He greeted us by saying “I understand you have breast cancer.” My husband and I were both taken aback. The surgeon apologized - he didn’t realize we hadn’t known. He gave us space, and left the office. Jay and I cried together. We went home and scheduled the surgery.
I opted to have a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction one month later. This all happened in early June 2014. It was a heck of a surgery. Your chest is taken out - you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck. A month after that, I started chemo.
Where do you think your dis-ease came from?
Looking back, I know the reason I got cancer. I was an angry person. I was just angry - angry at everything - but I didn’t realize until after the cancer. Your body is like a trash can; it takes everything in, and if you don’t take it back out, it’s going to rot. Once you realize that, it changes your perspective of everything.
Tell me about what it felt like when you were at your sickest point.
Even though it was hard, while I was going through my treatments, I always walked in with a smile. The staff were very kind to me, and so supportive. I was so lucky. A lot of people asked me how I got through it all. What got me through was focusing on the end result. I didn’t focus on the treatment or what I was going through but rather that at the end I was going to be okay.
I started chemotherapy a month after surgery. I did 16 rounds of chemo, and the first four were the strongest. In the first 10 days I lost all my hair. I finished all my chemotherapy treatments around October. Then in early November we started radiation. I had a total of 36 radiation treatments, 5 days a week. And as I was going through my treatments, my father was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away three months later. That was really hard. But I never looked at his death like it was a prediction for me. I told myself I was going to survive, and I was going to be fine. That’s the power of belief. What you believe comes true.
But the hardest thing was losing my hair. I remember getting up to go to the bathroom and it looked like I left a bird’s nest behind. I took clippers and shaved the rest off. For a woman, losing your hair is a big business. But when I shaved it off, it was so liberating. In public, I’d wear my wigs. But at home, I’d take them off and walk around in my home that way.
When I had the cancer I was cautious, because your immune system suffers during chemo. I stayed away from crowded spaces, and thankfully I never got ill. Your energy levels are not great - it kicks your butt, as they say. But I didn’t focus on that. Once I had the surgery, I knew the cancer was out of me. After that surgery, they told me it was advanced - stage 2, bilateral cancer. Sixteen lymph nodes were removed, and six had cancer. It was advancing rapidly. I am very lucky. Ever since I was 36 I’ve had a mammogram every year.
How did you heal, after radiation, chemotherapy, and tamoxifen? How do you feel about Western medicine now?
After the radiation I wanted to cleanse my body of the things that had been used to get rid of the cancer. I realized that pretty much everything you can buy at a pharmacy was poison - everything over the counter. I started looking for natural remedies for things like headaches, and any other aches and pains. Slowly throughout the years I’ve been able to expand on that. I don’t take any pharmaceutical products. Everything is natural from the Earth. God gave it to us for a reason.
I found a lot of resources from the place I was getting my raw dog food for my dogs. I met the owner around then, and I walked into his store and we talked for over three hours. He explained to me a lot of ways to go natural and get away from pharmaceuticals and conventional medicine. I came away from that conversation realizing that conventional medicine offers one prescription and then another one to go with the first one for the side effects. An example of this is tamoxifen, which gave me blood clots, and then I had to start taking blood thinners.
On the internet I learned a lot about cancer. I realized later that Tamoxifen was a poison for my body, and after two years I stopped taking it completely. I brought all of my documentation to my oncologist, who wasn’t happy about it. But she did say “You’re a big girl, you can make your own decisions.” She knew it was my choice. I’m happy I took that decision. Her response also told me that I wasn’t the first patient to make this choice. It took a long time for the Tamoxifen to leave my system. I just finished my 10th year appointment this past March. I’m done seeing an oncologist now. My cancer is gone, and I’ve been clear every time I went in for an appointment.
In regards to Western medicine, you need it for certain situations. If I need an antibiotic, I’ll take an antibiotic. If I see the natural way isn’t working, why put your body through suffering when it can be healed with the conventional? However, I always go through the natural way first. If after a couple of days it’s not working, I’ll go the conventional route.
Tina, what is your self care routine now?
Sleep. It’s so important for the body to restore and recirculate at night.
As far as day to day: in the morning, I have a protein shake with lots of natural products, like moringa and ashwaganda. I don’t eat anything heavy in the morning if I know I’m going to the gym. I do CrossFit 5 days a week, but I listen to my body - if my body is tired, I rest. That’s one thing I also learned from cancer and from my spiritual healing. I’ve gotten hurt since cancer at the gym, like hurting my back and other muscle and joint pains and injuries. Once I realized what I was doing, I started listening to my body.
Listening to the body also means doing something before it becomes a problem, when you first notice it's "off". One of the issues I’m dealing with right now is really tight hips, which I believe comes from the Tamoxifen. For the past 6-7 months I’ve been seeing a manual physical therapist in Florida and a chiropractor here in Boone to help me. I realized I can’t do it myself, and I needed help from the conventional healers. Your body tells you what it needs. You just have to listen. Trust your gut feeling, and trust the decisions you’re making for your body based on that.
What advice do you have for aspiring doctors?
Listen to the patient. Too many doctors don’t listen to us. They’re so set in their ways that they don’t listen to us. You need to understand that there is a lot of benefit in the holistic world that can work WITH conventional. Doctors don’t like to hear that, and I wish they would, because if it’s been around over 3000 years, there’s a reason. Inquire and research about the holistic.
Something I wish was different about medicine is the non approval of certain doctors when I talk to them about holistic approaches. I get this not only with human doctors but also with animal doctors for my dogs. I do a lot of holistic care with my dogs, and it’s helped dramatically for their lifespan and quality of life - just like it has with me.
Listen to the patient. Too many doctors don’t listen to us. They’re so set in their ways that they don’t listen to us.
Tina, how is your life different now, after cancer?
I’m not the same person. People who knew me before ask me “What did you do? You radiate. You glow.” They tell me I have gotten younger, that I look younger. I don’t carry grudges. I release it. I’m more kind, more attentive to others, more positive. Don’t get me wrong, I still get angry once in a while, but I catch it now. I ask God and the Holy Spirit to take that from me. As soon as I ask Them to do that, it’s gone. It just goes away.
How has healing from cancer changed the way you see the world, and others?
It's made me see everyone, and everything, in a kinder way. I don’t judge. I listen. If someone’s in front of me, telling me their story, I’ll listen. And then I drop a seed. You can only help others through your own experiences. Not only have I gone through the cancer and healed from that, but I’ve gone through spiritual healing. I’ve been able to diagnose my experiences, my childhood, and realize what made me angry.
I peeled back the onion layer by layer and found the cause of it in my childhood. Some parents just don’t know how to raise their children; they raise them the way that they were raised. I don’t blame my parents - they did the best they could. I was raised with three brothers, in a Latina Cuban community, and the focus was on them, because they were athletic and more powerful. Even though I was a girl, I was always an athlete, a tomboy. I didn’t fit the expectation of being a ballerina, a dancer, the things girls are supposed to do. This created a lot of pain for me. But I don't hold it against my parents - they did the best they could. I have healed from it now.
