Read Online Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World by Kathy Freston - Free Book Online
Authors: Kathy Freston
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medicine in 1982, when my husband Tom and I lived in Korea right after getting married. My Korean friends tried to impress upon me the need to take care of and protect my body with appropriate foods, but I was too blinded by my Western upbringing to embrace this message. After three years in Korea, we moved to Portland, Oregon. By that point I had been living with pain in the back of my knee for several years, but doctors always wrote it off as nothing to worry about and prescribed pain relievers. Over the next couple of years, the pain really started to bother and limit me. At age thirty-three, I was diagnosed with bone cancer that required me to have my left leg amputated above the knee.
We had just bought our first home in a great neighborhood. I was happily staying home to raise my kids. I had a four-year-old son whom I loved taking to the playground, and my new baby daughter woke up every morning with a big smile on her face. And then… BAM! The cancer came and my vibrantly colored world turned into one the color of a brown paper bag. Gone was the feeling that I wanted to ride with the car windows open and sing with the radio. “Devastated” doesn’t begin to cover what I felt.
After I lost my leg, I was drawn to the subject of food and health. I read books about how diet could be used to help eliminate cancer from the body, and I consulted a naturopathic doctor. The naturopath recommended dietary changes, including eliminating dairy. But still, the power of food was largely lost on me. I did add more whole grains and vegetables to our diet and cut back on sugar, but I continued eating meat, cheese, and ice cream. Soon after, I had more bowel problems. I figured my system couldn’t handle the extra grains and veggies, so I stopped eating them.
Once I had a reasonably comfortable prosthetic leg, I was ready to catch up on life, and my whole family got involved with skiing. It turned out we were all pretty good at it, including me! Still, though, sinus issues and headaches that I’d always chalked up to the damp Oregon weather remained. A specialist prescribed antibiotics—and that led to debilitating ulcerative colitis. To top it off, at various doctor appointments I’d ask about lumps I was feeling under my arms and in my breasts. Doctors called it fibrocystic breast disease, acted unconcerned, and advised annual mammograms.
By 1998, the lumps had become more numerous, and I again brought this to my doctor’s attention. Again, I was told not to worry.
Between the prescription drugs and my leg, I was often exhausted and depressed. And I had a growing fear about my breasts. I tried to let it go—until I discovered a protruding hard lump in my right breast. My doctor shrugged it off, attributing it to my crutches likely shifting a swollen lymph node. I sought a referral and, after testing, the specialist too told me not to worry.
We were just getting ready to move back to Maine, where my mother was very sick with colon cancer. I had so many other things to take care of. Besides, I told myself, lightning couldn’t strike twice, right? I mean, what were the chances that I’d have another cancer?
These thoughts kept me from freaking out, but as it turned out, the chances were really remarkable: We moved to Maine in June, my mother died in July, and in December, at age forty-one, I was diagnosed with stage 3B invasive breast cancer.
I had surgery in January 1999 to remove my right breast. It was painful, physically and especially emotionally. Tom and I already had weathered so much, and I worried about our ability to get through another huge thing and be happy again. I started my chemotherapy treatments with a heavy heart, knowing my doctors weren’t hopeful about a long-term remission. I worried about dying and leaving my children.
And then, between chemo sessions, I finally found some real hope. I visited another naturopath, and this time I was finally ready to heed her advice. She said that eating a
We had just bought our first home in a great neighborhood. I was happily staying home to raise my kids. I had a four-year-old son whom I loved taking to the playground, and my new baby daughter woke up every morning with a big smile on her face. And then… BAM! The cancer came and my vibrantly colored world turned into one the color of a brown paper bag. Gone was the feeling that I wanted to ride with the car windows open and sing with the radio. “Devastated” doesn’t begin to cover what I felt.
After I lost my leg, I was drawn to the subject of food and health. I read books about how diet could be used to help eliminate cancer from the body, and I consulted a naturopathic doctor. The naturopath recommended dietary changes, including eliminating dairy. But still, the power of food was largely lost on me. I did add more whole grains and vegetables to our diet and cut back on sugar, but I continued eating meat, cheese, and ice cream. Soon after, I had more bowel problems. I figured my system couldn’t handle the extra grains and veggies, so I stopped eating them.
Once I had a reasonably comfortable prosthetic leg, I was ready to catch up on life, and my whole family got involved with skiing. It turned out we were all pretty good at it, including me! Still, though, sinus issues and headaches that I’d always chalked up to the damp Oregon weather remained. A specialist prescribed antibiotics—and that led to debilitating ulcerative colitis. To top it off, at various doctor appointments I’d ask about lumps I was feeling under my arms and in my breasts. Doctors called it fibrocystic breast disease, acted unconcerned, and advised annual mammograms.
By 1998, the lumps had become more numerous, and I again brought this to my doctor’s attention. Again, I was told not to worry.
Between the prescription drugs and my leg, I was often exhausted and depressed. And I had a growing fear about my breasts. I tried to let it go—until I discovered a protruding hard lump in my right breast. My doctor shrugged it off, attributing it to my crutches likely shifting a swollen lymph node. I sought a referral and, after testing, the specialist too told me not to worry.
We were just getting ready to move back to Maine, where my mother was very sick with colon cancer. I had so many other things to take care of. Besides, I told myself, lightning couldn’t strike twice, right? I mean, what were the chances that I’d have another cancer?
These thoughts kept me from freaking out, but as it turned out, the chances were really remarkable: We moved to Maine in June, my mother died in July, and in December, at age forty-one, I was diagnosed with stage 3B invasive breast cancer.
I had surgery in January 1999 to remove my right breast. It was painful, physically and especially emotionally. Tom and I already had weathered so much, and I worried about our ability to get through another huge thing and be happy again. I started my chemotherapy treatments with a heavy heart, knowing my doctors weren’t hopeful about a long-term remission. I worried about dying and leaving my children.
And then, between chemo sessions, I finally found some real hope. I visited another naturopath, and this time I was finally ready to heed her advice. She said that eating a
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