I Can, Can Cancer

By Tonika Todorova

A version of this article was first published on Tonika Todorova's Substack, Visceral Adventure

https://linktr.ee/VisceralAdventure

A Sudden Discovery at Home

A personal update Feb 13, 2024

Shortly before Christmas, whilst dancing in the living room braless in my PJs with my 4-year-old, I wiped some underboob sweat and I felt a rock-hard lump. I spent the holidays in anticipation, awaiting imaging appointments, although I was still determined to make Christmas Karaoke a good dang time, and then in the first week of January, the day before my twins turned 13, I got the “suspicious for cancer” diagnosis which was consequently confirmed by biopsies in my breast and lymph nodes as metastatic invasive ductal carcinoma. Turns out, unjabbed folks can still get good old-fashioned cancer.

Pressing Pause to Prioritize Health

I wanted to update everyone here as I had to put a hold on all my collaborations while I upended my life to deal with a demanding diet/supplementation/juicing/detox schedule. Last Friday I had a Zoom with my Aussie friend Isaac, getting back into the creative lane and it felt good and normal, so I imagine I’ll be spending the month touching base with my talented collaborators to reignite our projects. As much as I wanted to keep to my one-per-month video deadline, January took a lot out of me.

Choosing a Holistic Path

For those who know I’m a big ol’ hippie, it would come as no surprise that I’m trying to heal holistically. Not only do I not trust Big Pharma and their cytotoxic poisons, but ultimately, allopathic medicine tends to go at symptoms instead of root cause, rendering it the least efficacious for chronic illness.

Tears, Support, and Staying Upbeat

I don’t imagine this would be an easy and fast road (who knows how long I’ve hosted this cancer forged out of the stressful life I led for a few decades) but my spirits are pretty good and I have been moved to tears (literally, and I’m not a crier) by the outpouring of mental and emotional support, holistic and alternative treatment information, protocol suggestions, remote healings, and wholesome, healthy, and hearty laughter from friends online and in real life.

A Sign Arrives at the Radiologist’s Door

At first, I didn’t know how private to keep my diagnosis. God knows I’ve been an insufferable contrarian the last few years, and I have managed to piss a bunch of people off. Serendipitously, Dr. Monica Hughes (of Coley’s Toxins fame on Substack) texted me out of the blue while I was waiting for the radiologist to come tell me The News. We have randomly kept in touch through the last couple of years, but the fact that she reached out to me right as I was about to get my own cancer news felt like a sign.

The 21-Day Water-Only Fast

When I first found out about the cancer, I set off on a 21-day water-only fast. A friend fasted the first week along with me, and Monica fasted the last, making the whole experience a little less lonely. I had never fasted before any more than intermittently, so this was quite the shock to my system. I freakin’ love food. I’m sure I didn’t do it right – I didn’t take any vitamins or electrolytes and most likely didn’t drink enough water. But it wasn’t all that hard by day three.

The skin on my face became smooth as a baby’s rumpie, and I lost 30 lbs, 25 of which have stayed off. Most importantly, I was energized to do what I should have done a long time ago - get back to the proactive and physically fit state I used to be in before the birth of my last child and the immediately following plandemic, before the world glitched and I tumbled down all the rabbit holes.

I also wanted to send the universe a message: I’m down for this challenge and no matter what happens, I think (forgive me for saying this out loud, mom), it’ll be the gift that I and my household need. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from this through facing my own mortality and perhaps even finding a sense of humor in all of it. At 45 years of age, I cannot complain. I have had a wonderful life. Filled with love, adventure, and excitement. Not all that prone to self-pity, so I’ll skip ahead to only say that if I get to see my Crone years, I promise it’s gonna get eccentric af.

Daily Practices and Gerson Therapy

So, what now? I’m doing what I can on my own while more testing gets done. Lots of meditations and visualizations and some remote healings. Trying to stay positive and not get crushed by the financial responsibilities that lie ahead. Writing daily in my manifestation journal. Yes, lots of woo-woo. Drinking Essiac tea. But also, I’m practicing the Gerson Therapy at home, and that requires a saltless organic-only vegan diet and a juice every hour of the day. Oh, and a coffee enema every four hours. TMI? 😂

I have a bit of IVM, and I did have some Fenben, but I gave it to a friend for now who is more in need of it. Anyway, lots of other things are contraindicated whilst on Gerson’s, and I figure I take it one protocol at a time. Being pescatarian for a decade hasn’t done me much favors as my blood work also came back as anemic, so who knows? Maybe what my body needs is some free-range family-owned organic meat. Willing to try.

Held by Family and Friends

My mother (who has lost everyone in her life to cancer) is by my side relentlessly. She cares for me and helps me with the children. She is an anchor in a foamy storm. My friends Diane and Gillian have tirelessly brought organic produce, mixed funny-sounding herbs, provided child care, and distracted me from all the stupid cancer thoughts occupying my brain vectors. I have had real-life help, and I couldn’t be more darn blown away if I were standing in the middle of a nuclear testing site. Bad radiation analogy? Moving on.

Bracing for Tests and Tough Choices

I’ve never been good at navigating well wishes, so forgive me if I crawl into a cocoon, but I will respond when I get done with this week of vigorous testing. I will most likely seek treatment at an alternative clinic, which is going to crush me not only because I would have to be away from my children for 5-8 weeks, but it will also cost more money than I have collectively made in the last three years.

Thank you for sticking around. May the universe bring you all good health and abundance.

Sincerely yours,

Tonika

I Can, Can Cancer - Part Deux

An update, treatment information, and cost breakdown Jun 28, 2024

Why I’m Sharing the Nuts and Bolts

Alright, Substackistan, I know you’re not used to getting posts from me this frequently, but I figured since this post gazes at the navel a bit more than usual, it’ll be skipped by most. This is mostly for all the folks who have contributed funds towards my healing. I wanted to provide full transparency as to where the money goes and what my plans are for the near future. This is also for those who are seeking alternative methods and interested in knowing what I’ve done. I am at, what I consider to be, the midpoint of my cancer journey.

“Spill the Tea” Version + Video

I’ve been asked to spill the tea about my holistic treatments so I figured I’ll give you the bullet point version and if you want further details, you can check out my video documenting my journey.

Medical Tourism—And Avoiding the Traps

Part of the reason I wanted to document my journey is because I ended up going to Mexico for alternative treatments and since lots of medical tourism takes place there, you can believe that there are many snake oil salesmen interested in those sweet American dollars. Playa de Tijuana is rife with cancer clinics that prey on desperate people only to send them home sicker than they arrived. I wanted to document where I was and what I was doing so people could assess on their own if my path was appealing to their sensibilities.

A “Custom-Made” Disease Needs a Custom Plan

It is important to remember that cancer is a custom-made disease that most probably results from cumulative factors and therefore, the treatment too ought to be cumulative. No one-size-fits-all blanket over here. Some of my treatments will sound familiar, some not so much so, and some would wade deep into woo-woo territory, but hey, remember that your mind plays a big role in propping up the results of that which you believe and pay attention to. Hence the placebo and nocebo effects.

Backstory: The Lead-Up to Diagnosis

First, the backstory, in a nutshell:I knew it was cancer before I got the official diagnosis in January because my lymph nodes had acted up about a month and a half before I discovered the lump in the breast. I cut off my sugar intake immediately and started researching cancer to better understand what I was dealing with.

As a matter of fact, after the mammo (which I can’t believe I agreed to) and the ultrasound, the radiologist who had to come and deliver the bad news told me I took it really well since my reaction was nonchalant but I just already innately knew what it was and only needed the official paperwork. To put it all in perspective, my hapless GP had sent me to get a diagnostic mammogram (as opposed to a routine screening) and only placed the order for that instead of for both a mammo and an ultrasound in the event of a suspected cancer. So I sat in the waiting room for hours while no one could get a hold of her to push the order through and the radiologist ended up calling my insurance himself and convincing them to green-light the order. Of course, during that waiting period, is when my friend Monica randomly texted me and she is the one who makes the Coley’s Toxins (I’ll explain further below) so that felt like a sign from the universe and I was on my merry way to Alternative Cancer Land as you will find below.

Rejecting the “Standard of Care”

After I (and my lowest form of government insurance) got placed on the cancer conveyor belt, the oncologist, whose mask covered his entire face while he tried to sound empathetic behind it, blinked twice really slowly when I asked him if he offered any treatment that isn’t cytotoxic. It went literally like this: “Do you have any treatment recommendations that aren’t cytotoxic?” muffled, behind the large surgical mask “Cyto...toxic?” blink blink. His recommendations were the “standard of care” which consists of chemo, surgery, and radiation. That’s it. Then off to the surgeon consultation I went where I was told that any surgeon who performs breast surgery without chemotherapy first should be sued for malpractice and I thought, ‘damn, this guy’s a lawyer too?’ I never went back to those two. There was no way I was going to relinquish my agency to them.

Research Mode: Building the Trello of Hope

In the interim, I began compiling information. Many of you emailed me and left links in my comments and I watched videos and read books and I started building a Trello board with all the information and resources. I will share that publicly with the world once I’ve reached the coveted NED status, hopefully by my next and final update on this cancer journey. Since Isaac Middle did my astro chart which told me my SHTF phase would start in late 2023 and clean up by early 2025, I’m hoping that I’m handling my 2024 cancer journey as best as one can.

A More Open-Minded Medical Team

I changed teams and transferred to Northwestern where although the oncologist and surgeon also recommended the “standard of care,” they were both sympathetic to me trying out alternative methods first. Although the surgeon tried to leverage her years of experience to convince me to take her advice, she eventually backed down when I explained that every person in my family who has succumbed to cancer in a relatively short amount of time (and there have been a lot) had followed the well-intentioned advice of their super experienced cancer docs. I truly hope my pigheadedness doesn’t come to bite me in the ass.

Fundraising, Flight, and a Focus on Autonomy

I felt pretty strongly about keeping conventional methods way on the back burner as last-ditch efforts. Instead, after a fundraising campaign by my friends I headed out to Tijuana’s St. Andrew’s Clinic accompanied by my mom which you already know if you have been following my story.

Gratitude Roll Call + How I Covered Costs

This is the breakdown of treatments and their costs that I have undertaken that would not have been possible without the generosity of my real-life friends and those of you I’ve met through Substack and the conspiracy pits of the internet. I subsidized by selling stuff on Marketplace and selling Bitcoin (at quite a disadvantage, but you can only hodl when you’re not actively trying to save your life) and maxing out my credit cards (because fiat at this point is just monopoly money, right?) There were also a few people who offered very valuable in-kind support: Mebendazole by V.; organic produce by Paul and Diane; SoulFlo energy healing time by Tami, Diane, Stefan, and Sharon; Reiki and Reflexology by Northwestern Wellness; sauna and gym time by Marvin; Southwest miles by Judy; body vibe machine for lymph system therapy by Wendy; variety performances by various artists to raise funds for treatment; Amazon gift cards by Mathew; remote healings by a few whose names I cannot divulge; childcare and rides by my besties. Numerous words of wisdom and spirit uplifts by all too many of you. I will need several lifetimes to repay all this kindness. I hope the universe knows that I am the kind of person that were the situation reversed, I’d go the distance for a friend or a stranger.

What I Tried: A Chronological Snapshot

So, in somewhat chronological order, with inevitable overlap, these are the steps I took, when and where I took them, how much they cost, and their impact on my journey:

Fasting, Juicing, Meditating—The Daily Regimen

● 21-day water-only fast at the onset of diagnosis in Chicago. I found it to be a free and effective way to trip up my body’s system and prepare it for whatever I was going to throw at it next. I lost 30 lbs of postpartum baby weight so that was a nice side effect too.

● P4 organic juice I ordered online upon a recommendation for its anti-cancer properties. It was about $600 for a month’s worth and although it was nice to break the fast with it and I felt some good energy from it, I ultimately found it too expensive to continue use.

● Daily meditation and visualization. It’s free and I think it has had a tremendous impact on the positivity of my spirit and my general approach to cancer. It can be done anywhere and it can be done with the help of sound healing, guided voiceovers, or just silence

● SoulFlo energy healing about once a month. A two-hour session is $120 although most of my sessions were covered by friends and once by the owner of the business. I love going there and if you’re into meditation, I think you would too.

● Daily writing into an 11:11 journal and a 3-6-9 journal. These are similar to meditation and visualization but if thoughts are powerful prayers, then writing should be doubly so! Again, it’s free and it has impacted my positivity greatly.

● A visit to the Naturopath who prescribed some supplements set me back $250 and although I liked her, it didn’t seem prudent to continue paying to see her just for the positive vibes.

● Energy healings from friends around the world at about 15 minutes every couple of weeks. These cost nothing and I find them as valuable as the meditations. You could say they’re like a group meditation. I would sometimes feel my body buzz extra hard for hours after these.

Gerson Therapy: Diet, Juicing, Enemas, Supplements

● Gerson Therapy which was very limiting for the first six weeks prior to my departure to Tijuana. But it has gotten easier since talking to the Gerson specialist and expanding some of the food choices. This treatment is multi-pronged so I broke it down into its parts, but I find it very effective. I have to assert here that I would have found this protocol next to impossible to execute if it wasn’t for my mum who did all of the grocery shopping, prep, cooking, and clean up of food and juicing while I did my regular parenting and work things. I lost another 20 lbs and counting, so that was another nice side benefit too:

○ Diet: organic vegan for the first 6 weeks. No salt, no sugar, no oils, no animal protein of any kind, no tofu, no seeds, no legumes, no nuts, no bread or pasta, no processed anything. After the initial six weeks, it expanded to include liver, eggs, butter, yogurt, and even some fish and chicken once or twice. Still no salt, which has been the hardest. Ever had a potato without salt? Flippin’ hard, fam, flippin’ hard. Post-Tijuana, I’ve been rotating between two weeks of an expanded Gerson diet, followed by three days of raw food, and three days of apples and potatoes only. The cost of the diet is about $150/week.

○ Juicing: the first 6 weeks demanded 13 juices a day. That’s about 20 lbs of produce in juice form. No wonder my energy was through the roof! Post-Tijuana, I average 8-10 juices/day: one orange, four green, two carrot and apple, and two carrot only. My skin looks and feels amazing and people have told me I look younger. The cost comes out to $100/week and I had to buy a special masticating juicer that was $200.

○ Coffee enemas: the first 6 weeks called for 5 enemas a day. I found it very difficult to hold the coffee in and it took me two weeks to get comfortable enough to be successful. Eventually, I began to really enjoy some solo time from my busy schedule and I could feel the health benefits too. Post-Tijuana, I am down to 3 enemas a day. The organic therapy coffee I order directly from the Mam website and it comes to $65 including shipping costs for a two-month supply.

○ Supplements: Here, I am not 100% true to the Gerson therapy as I don’t take the thyroid or liver pills and am now only doing half the potassium salts. But I do find the Pancreatic Enzymes important ($140/month), along with the Organic Lugol Iodine drops ($15/two months), the Niacin ($15/six months), and the Potassium Salts ($23/month)

Other Add-Ons and Why I Tried Them

● A one-time Vitamin C drip that ended up making my arm hurt for two days afterward and didn’t feel like benefited me greatly, cost me $200. I had multiple drips in Tijuana daily and I can’t even imagine what that would have amounted to if I had to do them in Chicago.

● Tippens Protocol which I felt was helpful, at the very least, in maintaining an immune system boost and preventing the dissemination of the tumors. I was gifted some Mebendazole and Ivermectin by a reader (Thanks V!) and I bought some from the pet supply that the 2nd Smartest Guy in the World offers (scroll to the bottom of the post for his resource links.) I will continue with the protocol for at least six more months to try and offset any free radicals.

Here’s the breakdown:

○ Tocotrienol and Tocopherol forms (all 8) of Vitamin E (400-800mg per day, 7 days a week). I purchased Gamma E from Life Extension for $20 for a two-month supply.

○ Bio-Available Curcumin (600mg per day, 2 pills per day 7 days a week). I purchased it from Life Extension for $15 for a two-month supply.○ Vitamin D (62.5 mcg [2500 IU] seven days a week), purchased from Life Extension for $8/two-month supply

○ CBD oil (1-2 droppers full [equal to 167 to 334 mg per day] under the tongue, 7 days a week) - this puts me into a deep slumber. I purchase it from the local dispensary $30/month.

○ Fenbendazole (300mg, 6 days a week) and it runs about $240/two-month supply

○ Ivermectin (24mg, 7 days a week) and it runs about $210/two-month supply

Why St. Andrews in Tijuana

● Tijuana, of course, was the biggest expense. But it was also where I had the biggest impact on my treatment process. I went to St. Andrews because Monica put me in touch with Gar (Gerson specialist) and he was connected to Dr. Cedeño (Surgical oncologist) who is the head doctor at the clinic. In retrospect, I was quite lucky that I didn’t fall prey to the countless cancer clinic shams in Tijuana, the majority of which don’t even have an oncologist on site. The clinic is small and can only care for about 4 people at a time, but when I was there I had the royal treatment as I was luckily the only patient there in March/April. The clinic hosts the patient 6 days a week and Sundays are rest days, although you are sent to the hotel with meals. My medical tourism adventure ran about $35K for the 3 weeks I spent there. It is largely dependent on which treatment options are chosen so YMMV with results.

I will break it down further below.

○ Flight fare for two people (this was covered by a friend’s miles, but would otherwise be an expense to consider) $1,000.

○ Crossing the border with an authorized vehicle in and out of the United States is $120 each way, so it amounts to $240.

○ Hotel accommodations for three weeks that included two beds with a kitchen and a refrigerator $1,800.

○ A main port in my vein was installed for easier IV access. Cost: $650.○ Gerson diet, juicing, and cooking staff at the clinic and Coley’s Toxins (which was my main reason for going to Tijuana) cost $1,500/week for a total of $4,500. Coley’s is an injection that can be received subcutaneously, intravenously, intramuscularly, or intratumorally. We tried subQ initially, which didn’t yield any results, but straight into the IV did. Eventually though, after we were taught how to properly administer subcutaneously, we were sent home with two vials to continue treatment injecting Coley’s every three days. Needles cost $60 for a pack of a hundred. Once I get to a good place, I will only do this once a week. It is worth mentioning that the clinic feeds you and your caretaker (my mom in my case) the Gerson diet so we didn’t spend any money on outside food.

○ Insulin Potentiation Therapy with antineoplastic IV to help slow cancer spread. I opted for the treatment 4x at $1,300/drip for a total of $5,200.

○ Autologous treatment that includes Dendritic Cell and Lymphocytes Activated Killer Cell IVs at $2,400/treatment for a total of $7,200.

○ Daily clinic stay was $4,700/week which for three weeks came out to $14,100 and

included weekly blood work and ultrasounds and daily:

■ consultation

■ on-site doctor and nurse at all times

■ lymph node vibe machine

■ infrared ozone sauna

■ localized shortwave diathermy

■ infrared lamp hyperthermia

■ Vitamin B17 (Laetrile) IV drip

■ Chelation with high dose Vitamin C IV

■ Hydrogen Peroxide and DMSO IV

Before/After Imaging

Holistic healing might be slow but it usually gets to the root of the problem instead of taking care of the symptoms only and exacerbating the root in the interim. Below are my before and after ultrasounds of the breast tumor taken in Tijuana:

And my before and after ultrasounds of my lymph nodes, one from Tijuana and the other from Chicago:

Missing My Kids, Holding the Line

Throughout my almost month-long stay in Tijuana, even with the beautiful weather, the kind treatment from the staff in the clinic, the Sunday walks and hangs at the beach with my mom, I still missed my kids something fierce. I left them back home with their dad who had to continue working so would often leave the twins to feed the little one dinner, bathe him, read him bedtime stories, and stay with him until he drifted to sleep. Everyone had to insta-grow up and even though we talked every morning and every evening via the most torturous shabby internet-driven FaceTime, my heart ached to hold them and be with them. My last day in Tijuana was April 12th. As only serendipity would have it, the twins were on tour with their choir Uniting Voices Chicago and they were to perform at Disneyland that same evening. Well, Anaheim, the home to Disneyland is a two-hour drive from the San Diego airport from which we were to fly out in the afternoon of the 13th. And because I had maxed out all my credit cards to pay for treatment, I had an abundance of points that I put towards getting a free car rental and a free hotel (the type that had to exhibit “no prostitution” and “no guns allowed” signs, but I will not digress into the particulars because they are irrelevant to the thrill of my happy ending.)

A Reunion for the Ages

My mom and I found our seats and waited with my heart thumping in my ears. I was going to see my kids. In the flesh. And they, after three and a half weeks of missing their sick mom, were going to see me. The choir director told me after the show that they had spotted me from backstage and had begun openly crying. She told me that the rest of the choir had huddled around them in support. That the crying became contagious and other kids were weeping in solidarity. But sitting in the audience with the butterflies dancing in my stomach, my heart leaped to my throat when they came out on stage. I spotted Calvin and Jaxon and the emotions were visible on their beautiful tender faces as they donned their smiles and sang and danced their souls out to “Got a Good Feeling” while some tears uncontrollably would roll down their cheeks.

Choosing Surgery—With Eyes Wide Open

The reunion was something out of a movie. Even though the choir director had informed me when I inquired about surprising the kids via email that they would not be able to come to me after the performance, my boys burst through the crowd of choir kids, through the fence, and in my arms where they no longer held back the sounds and optics of their emotions. If this was a movie, the crescendo of the symphony would hit here as our bodies embraced and the ‘I love you’s and the ‘I missed you’s were the only things we could say to each other for that moment of eternity. It was the perfect climax of my healing adventure. It was equally healing as all my shots, drips, therapies, and saltless potatoes combined. It was a slice of bespoken cure.

So what now? Well, my tumors enjoyed significant enough shrinkage to be eligible for surgery. I have my hippie reservations about surgery, but I am also fully aware of how energetically and financially straining my cancer has been on my family. Holistic healing is a very slow process and as much as I want to continue chipping away at getting healthier the right way, I’m inclined to release some of the burden by expediting the process via surgery. I texted Monica and told her my trepidations, that I felt like I was sending my body the wrong message that it wasn’t doing its job properly; that sometimes surgery can help disseminate cancer; that maybe I’m just simply buying myself time and not properly curing if I cut the clumps of cancer out. She responded by saying to a.) not have false hopes that surgery will magically fix most of my problems, b.) getting most of the clustered cancer cells out will help my immune system not feel overwhelmed, and c.) under the wounding/danger model, having surgery will further wake up some LAK killer cells to come clean up after the party. I resonated with that so surgery it is.

Why Mexico (Again) for Surgery

Now, although my shitty government insurance would cover most of the operational procedures, I am not inclined to do the surgery in America. Firstly, I had to talk the docs into considering lumpectomy only (just removing the tumor and surrounding fatty tissue and not the entire breast) instead of a double mastectomy (off with both my boobies!), because why?!? Then the American surgeon wanted to remove the entire lymph system in the right axilla, risking lymphedema and effectively leaving me without a massive disease indicator for possible future recurrence, instead of a sentinel lymph node surgery (only removing affected nodes.) Then, I kept getting pressured to agree to post-op radiation which thoroughly triggered my hippie sensibilities. But the biggest reason is that if I do the surgery in Mexico with Dr. Cedeño, they will be able to take my tumor cells, attenuate them, and create a custom autologous lysate treatment - a service not available in the United States, one that even my American surgeon agreed is a wise choice to eliminate rogue radicals if I don’t plan on radiation. The procedure will take two weeks of pre-op scans, surgery, drainage, post-op care and infection watch, and autologous lysate treatment creation, some of which they’ll keep in case it’s needed in the future, and the rest I’ll be sent home with to self-administer in the course of 13 weeks. Whew.

Rallying the Community (and Closing a Street)

Does anyone else sometimes look at the road ahead and decide they’ll stop looking at the horizon and just keep their eyes on the pebbles under their feet? That’s where I’m at. One of the biggest pebbles I’m looking at is this $15K surgery tag so my awesome friends are throwing a giant party fundraiser in my backyard that is going to feature my twins singing along with The Uniting Voices Chicago Albany Park Neighborhood Choir, and my partner Nick with his band The Berteau Trippers, and members of the band Ode with their new venture Cloud Farmers for whom I created a little AI video here. The street will be closed down for a block party with some family-friendly activities, but my backyard will host music, eats and drinks, raffle, silent auction, and various variety performances sprinkled throughout the day. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper party. I am so very much looking forward to gathering my community especially since I’m sure I’ve been an insufferable presence throughout the covid affair and so many have come to my rescue this year that the experience has left me soft-hearted and humbled.

Signing Off (for Now)

That’s all I got for now. I’ll be around sharing some video collaborations this month and catching up on some projects. Thank you kindly for being a part of my journey, friends. It has not been boring in the slightest.

I Can, Can Cancer Denouement

The last chapter (I hope!) of my year-long healing journey Nov 20, 2024

Picking Up the Thread

For those who have kept reading and are curious to find out what the last few months have been like, how, without chemo or radiation, my body managed to return to its balanced state, how people came up to bat for me, and what the edited footage from the 7-hour-long fundraising event looks like as a 35-minute recap clip, keep going.

Why I Chose Mexico for Surgery

My last cancer article left off right before I was ready to have a big ol’ fundraiser with which I was hoping to pay for my surgery in Mexico. I chose Mexico not only because I had already had a positive experience staying at St. Andrews cancer clinic in Tijuana, where I found the doctors and staff highly competent and compassionate, but also because my American team was still insistent upon conventional methods, although I was vehemently opposed. My American surgeon, in particular, was pretty aggressively pursuing an entire lymph node system removal even as I raised concerns about lymphedema or losing my biggest indicator of future recurrences. She flat-out told me that a sentinel node removal was out of the question and that I had over a dozen affected nodes as per imaging. My explanation that the ultrasound was picking up on reactionary nodes because of the self-administered Coley injections was insufficient. But most importantly, there was no offer to make an analogous lysate treatment from my own dead tumor cells, an alternative therapy I had at my fingertips in Mexico, unusually frowned upon in the States.

“Don’t You Want to Be Around for Your Children?”

“We don’t do that here,” was her response, and then she followed up with, “You need to remove the entire lymph system and do several rounds of radiation post-surgery. I have been doing this for 30 years, and I know that if you want the best outcome, you have to follow the advice of professionals. Don’t you want to be around longer for your children?”

Holding My Ground

Now, fam, I don’t do well with emotional manipulation. Of course, I want to be around for my children. I had to take a deep breath before I responded slowly, measured: “With all due respect, Doc, there is a lot of cancer in my family, and I have seen every single member of my family follow doctor’s orders and pursue conventional therapies. And not a single one made it through. I hope I’m not closing the door entirely on our relationship, but I’m moving forward with surgery in Mexico.”

Miracles, Money, and a Last-Minute Flight

And with that, my mind had been made, and to the horror of both my oncologist and surgeon, I turned down Western health care and sought help in a second-world country. There was only the matter of the 15K needed, but my sweet friends were organizing an event in my honor on July 27th and the proceeds were going to go towards my medical bills.

But things didn’t quite pan out to plan. A few days later, another ultrasound showed cancer on the move. Although it had shrunk considerably through my alternative therapies, the right axilla lymph showed up lopsided and now dangerously close to a main artery. Dr. Cedeño, my Mexican oncologist, was doubtful I could wait. However, I didn’t have the funds; I was waiting on the proceeds from the event, and as it was, even with the GoFundMe, which raised A LOT, it only covered half of my previous clinical stay, and I maxed out all my credit cards to pay for the rest. I had no backup plan. And then, the first miracle happened. A handful of close friends pooled their resources and allowed me to borrow this giant chunk of cash and put me on a plane within days.

The Surgery Shuffle (July 4–6)

Surgery was set for July 4th. I arrived in Tijuana on the 2nd. Because we were dealing with these massive chunks of funds being Zelled from one account into another due to the holiday, everything was moving at the speed of baobab molasses. The hospital that needed funds upfront to schedule the anesthesiologist wouldn’t do it until the money actually showed up. While America was blowing off fireworks, I anxiously awaited the money to transfer. July 4th slipped into July 5th. On the evening of that Friday, I was already admitted to the hospital. While Dr. Cedeño scrubbed up, we received news that the anesthesiologist was stuck at a different hospital and wasn’t going to make it.

A Strange Kindness—and a Delay

Generously, the hospital offered my ma, my ride-or-die on these medical adventures, the room next to mine so she too could have a bed for the night. We were gonna spend the night there like a hotel. They even fed us. Would that ever happen in America? But no surgery. I was a bit relieved, actually, because it was already 9 p.m., and who wants to go under the knife that late on a Friday after everyone has had such a long day and week? July 5th turned into July 6th. My anxiety was further fueled by being told that they might open me up, but if the lymph node had wrapped around that major artery, they’d have to close me right back up.

On the Table, at Last

The thought of returning to Chicago without completing the task at hand, after all the mountains my sweet friends moved to get me to Tijuana, absolutely wrecked me. I meditated and visualized a positive outcome. It’s all I had.

Finally, at 3 p.m., with a new anesthesiologist on deck, I was wheeled into the cold, white, squeaky clean of the operating room. Spanish was spoken too fast for me to catch much of, but it didn’t matter, I was down for the count faster than I could process or worry. Three hours later, I woke up in recovery with Dr. Cedeño, really a tower of a man with the most gentle hands, grinning from ear to ear: “I got it, Tonika, I got it all, you’re tumor-free,” in a sweet Mexican accent. We had arrived in the 11th hour, and just like every single development in my healing process, events transpired never too early and never too late.

Recovery Without Painkillers

My ma, who was waiting for me in my room, had tears welled up by the time I got back. She probably smoked two whole packs in the hot Mexican sun, worrying herself silly. And yes, I have not been able to convince my mother to quit smoking, even through my ordeal. Some old Balkan habits never die.

That evening, refusing painkillers post-anesthesia, I relied on hypnosis to get through the return of my nerve endings. Another friend and Substacker, Mary Poindexter McLaughlin (whose husband is a hypnotist), sent me one of his videos that got me through the uncomfortable and loud Mexican post-op night. I never took any pain medications - my body healed fast and well. I am blessed.

Two Weeks in Tijuana (and One Scary Encounter)

Everything moved pretty quickly after the surgery. I had to stay for two weeks to clean up tubes and whatever inorganic things were extruding from me. I wasn’t out of the woods entirely, I still had to worry about circulating cancer cells and all that, but for now, there was a sigh of relief. We went to the beach to people-watch any chance we got, we talked to the kids back at home on the daily, Trump (allegedly) got shot at and the internet lost their collective minds (but oh, the sweet, sweet memes), I got the chance to finish several creative collabs, and my mom and I even got threatened by a young, accent-free, handsome Latino that we’d get punched in the face if we didn’t give him ten bucks. 😂 We passed on both giving him money and getting punched in the face. Luckily nothing became of it.

Pathology Surprises—and Relief

My pathology report yielded surprising results: out of the four lymph nodes removed at Dr. Cedeño’s discretion, only one, the big original egg-shaped protrusion I felt in my armpit that was biopsied, had cancer. The rest were only inflamed but not cancerous. I was injecting Coley fluid right into that armpit, no wonder those little nodes were a bit upset! And to think that my American surgeon wanted to remove my entire lymph system!! To risk the use of my right arm! And then to radiate the entire area! I am so grateful to my body for being such a good sport.

A Quick Return—and a Big Event to Plan

I flew back on July 16th, smuggling my alternative cancer treatments again through the border, my whole life-saving trip taking up all of two weeks. When I returned, there was a week and a half left until the big fundraising event that was being held in my backyard. Amongst all the planning and setting up, I still had to adhere to medical protocols. My poor garden, which felt rather neglected every time I would skirt off to Mexico, needed major watering and tending to. That week and a half was gone in a blink, and before I knew it, the big day came.

The Backyard Fundraiser (and the 10K Dent)

I don’t want to talk too much about the great big affair that put a large 10K dent in my medical debt, but I would like to show you a small portion of it. Trust me when I say that sifting through footage of a seven-hour-long event is a daunting task, and distilling it all down to 30 minutes is even more herculean. There was so much behind the scenes that wasn’t captured or couldn’t be included in the recap video as friends and family cooked, set up tents, ran audio, painted faces, ran the bar, took care of trash, and all the other stuff needed for a big ol’ party, but I believe that the talent that showed up on that tiny little corner backyard stage (that I built with my own hands out of flagstone as a pandemic project) gave their hearts and love and well, I will carry that day with me forever.

Parties, Port-a-Potties, and Two Visits from the Cops

It’s funny watching myself dance with abandon, kissed by the sun during all of my outdoor gardening, smiling from ear to ear, and albeit still 20 lbs heavier than my current body weight, looking not at all like a tortured cancer patient. The whole event was one for the books. I rented an outdoor port-a-potty! And you know it’s a party if the cops come! Twice! I want to know which one of my neighbors kept calling Five-O when they were all invited to come and warned it was going to be loud with a hard cut-off at 10 p.m.

Starving the Stragglers: Fasting and Lysate Shots

The rest of the summer was low-key except for my memorable trip to Reno, where I met new friends and finally got the opportunity to breathe the same air with Mathew Crawford and Margaret Anna Alice, two Substackers, which I’m sure need no introduction to my readers. As part of my commitment to starve the remaining floating cancer cells out, I had embarked on a three-week-long water-only fast that I had synched up with the end of my weekly analogous lysate treatment shots that my ma was giving me in the shoulder. The. Most. Painful. Shot. Ever. All 13 of them.

Enter: The Body Code

In the last three weeks, I threw the woo-woo sink at my cancer: Reiki, meditation, journaling, positive visualization, and something new that came serendipitously to me: Body Code. I had never heard of Body Code until my friends suggested we visit some kind of Wellness Expo. I didn’t really care for it. Do not recommend. Zero stars. It’s not the platform for proper woo-woo. There, a lady very badly demonstrated Body Code, and although it seemed interesting, the introduction didn’t leave me wanting to pursue it with her. Exactly the following day, a reader left a comment in my stack that included those two words. Marta was a Body Code practitioner. And she offered me a session. And she has her own Substack, which is most definitely worth checking out. And she happens to live in Chicago. Within walking distance!!!!! I mean... I get it, Universe, you don’t need to yell. Sheesh!

Sessions with Marta

I met Marta and her kiddo at the beach with my kids. I found her warm and charismatic and doing sessions with her felt stress-free and it tapped into some ancestral shit that I think I was afraid to touch. I plan to continue as soon as I get my financial bearings because the Body Code is quite a pleasurable healing modality. To those not woo-woo inclined, it might seem silly, but I’ll tell you what: her method came in pretty handy when I was getting ready for my tests as I’m about to tell you in the last leg of this long-winded story!

Lining Up the Big Three Tests

I finally made an appointment to meet with my American oncologist to schedule the three tests that would indicate my cancer status: the CA 27.29, a PET scan, and the most important one, although not widely used, the circulating cancer cell count. The last one, Dr. Cedeño had imprinted in me that it would be the most telling and that I needed a score of zero, one, or two to be considered cancer-free. A score of three, four, or five will indicate that I need to start expanding my treatment options and a score of five and above would be trouble.

The Hormone-Therapy Ultimatum

I had been preparing myself psychologically to meet with her. I knew she wasn’t happy with me that I eschewed all the treatment recommendations she made. To her credit, not only did she seem super impressed with Dr. Cedeño’s surgical skills, but she gave me no pushback on requesting the circulating cancer cell test, an ask I dreaded. But she pretty much put it as an ultimatum to my agreeing to start hormonal treatment ASAP. A Lupron shot to kick me into menopause and Letrozole: a pill you take every day for 10 FREAKING YEARS!

Research, Red Flags, and Resolve

“Should we wait to see what the tests say about me being in menopause already?”“Nah, even if you’re in menopause, you could get started right now.”“Should we wait to see what the cancer test results say? What if I don’t have cancer anymore, why start a hormone aromatase inhibitor if I don’t need it?”“Well, there are false positives. Better safe than sorry.”“What about side effects?“Most women don’t report any. Maybe slight bone pain. There is something like a 3% bone density loss reported.”“I’d like to go home and do some research and sleep on it.”“Ok, well, I’ll schedule it for tomorrow when you come in for your tests. You absolutely have to do this.”

So I left her office feeling slight unease at our exchange. Of course, I went home and did research and told a few friends who also looked into it, but my unease with hormone therapy grew larger. For starters, the 3% bone density was on the low end. The high end was 8%. So, that was a lie. And the bone density was per year! Can you imagine taking a pill every day for ten years and ending up with 80% bone density loss?!? Can someone spell osteoporosis?!? What kind of quality of life are they offering women dealing with cancer if they become so brittle they can’t walk?!? Thanks, but no thanks. That was another lie. No wonder only 30% of women do NOT renew their prescription for Letrozole. A staggering statistic my doc omitted from our convo. But the nail in the coffin was looking up the specificity and accuracy of the circulating cancer cell test which she told me might result in a false positive. A 99.997% accuracy for ER/PR+ breast cancer. I now absolutely dreaded going back to face her and geared up myself for conflict.

Yom Kippur, Ancestors, and a Lucky Break

The next day, I told Marta, my Body Code expert, my anxieties over facing the oncologist. She told me to do my swipes before going in; to draw support from my ancestors. So there I was in the clinic, in the public foyer, my eyes closed, swiping my hands over my head like a crazy person, when I was startled by the nurse calling my name and I looked up to see her standing over me with a look on her face that was about to deliver some bad news.

“I’m so sorry, but your insurance hasn’t approved the Lupron shot yet.”“Oh, that’s ok.” My insides were giggling a little, but I didn’t let on.“And, unfortunately, because it’s Yom Kippur, your doctor isn’t in today, so I’ll do all your testing without her here.”

Messages Sent; Waiting Begins

Hahahahahaha! I didn’t have to face my onco after all! The ancestors came through, and I silently sent Marta a bunch of gratitude for nudging me to swipe before my appointment. I got home and sent several messages into MyChart, letting the oncologist know I wasn’t going to start hormone treatment and why. And if you have ever sent a message to your doctor via MyChart, you know that it’s limited characters, so that lady got ten separate chunky paragraphs from me. Her nurse let me know that she received them and was going to respond soon. But I never got a reply from the doc. Tests and scans were all done within days of each other. And now I waited.

Scanxiety—and Early Results

Cancer folk have a term for the test result waiting period: scanxiety. Part of me never succumbed to the grips of that. Part of me just knew that it was all going to be OK in the end. And that if it wasn’t OK, it just wasn’t the end, as the saying goes. The CA 27.29 results came back the next day with below-the-threshold tumor markers. Dr. Cedeño had already told me they got all the tumors, so no surprise there. The PET scan results were a little confusing. The technician, who probably had no idea what they were looking at with all the injections I was self-administering, just wrote, “Inflammation or metastasis present, further tests needed,” but I knew - the spots that lit up were in the areas of the injection shots. I sent the CD to my Mexican team, and their correspondence proved the theory:“I am looking at Tonika’s new PET/CT. She is good. Her last 2 abdominal injection sites have prominent FDG uptake. The small scattered lymph node tracer uptake in the right mammary region is consistent with Coley Fluid treatment. It is highly unlikely that this minor FDG uptake represents metastatic activity. She will get my congratulations.”

The Final Test—and a Zero

I only now waited for the final and most important test: the circulating cancer cells. It had been a week since Yom Kippur, the test date, but it was a Friday, and they said they’d send the results to my oncologist in 7-14 days, so I didn’t expect anything exactly then. Then it was the weekend. On Monday, I checked my chart and had nothing. Tuesday rolled around. Then Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday, it had been 14 days, so I was getting a little antsy so I went to MyChart to sleuth around and see if I could poke someone.

Notes in My Chart—and a Direct Call

While doing that, I stumbled upon comments my onco left in the post-patient notes where I read things like “patient has refused every treatment offered to her” and “patient went to Mexico to seek treatment against my advice,” which although professional and not untrue, felt borderline condescending. But I also get it: she has to wash her hands clean in front of any superiors who might question why I’ve slipped through the cracks. I feel bad for medical professionals and how much they have to adhere to retain their medical licenses. Must be a tough deal.

I found the number for the lab and called. After telling them that I wasn’t able to log into their portal, they notified me that they had sent the results to my oncologist a week prior. Funny. I never got a call. And then they asked me if I wanted them emailed. Do I ever?!? Five minutes later, I was stuffing my face with the sacrilege that is the saltless potato of the Gerson diet when my email notification lit up on my phone.

One Year Later: Cancer-Free

It was like that, mouth full of tasteless starch, my ma at the sink washing dishes, we saw a big fat ZERO under my circulating cancer cell count. It had been a year to the day, from when the lymph node in my armpit made me think, “I wonder if this is cancer?” to getting that last test result. I know it was exactly a year because I was ready to go to the Halloween event I production manage annually, and in 2023, after the swelling, I tried to ease my mind from cancer thoughts by convincing myself it was just a reaction to my deodorant. It wasn’t. It was Stage III breast cancer, and it took me a year to heal from it.

Radio Silence—and Deep Gratitude

I never got a call from my oncologist with the results. I wonder if she fired me as a patient. I didn’t get a call from her to tell me my results, let alone some kind of congratulations. I wonder if I ever will hear from her again. I was hoping she might get curious enough to find out exactly how I managed it. Alas.

There is no way that I could have stayed strong physically, mentally, or spiritually from the point of the first oncologist I fired who told me that I wouldn’t survive the year if I didn’t start chemo right there and then, to the point of writing these words here to you now, my dear readers, if it wasn’t for the prodigious support from my family and friends and the outpouring of resources and research by all of you.

A Birthday, a Breath, and a Song

Thank you for being here with me throughout my story. Today is my birthday. Last year, I remarked that turning 45 might mark the halfway point in one’s life, but sadly, not many of us live to see 90, so that metric isn’t quite accurate. Little did I know I would spend the year trying to extend the near future. According to my astrology chart by the inimitable wholesome conspiratorial wombat Isaac Middle, it’s gonna be a good year. And with the dragon of death no longer breathing down my neck, it’s starting to feel like it. Today, my tribe is showing up for a celebratory birthday jam.

We’re gonna lift our voices in harmony and spread the good juju all around. I’ll record some of it and maybe publish something if it doesn’t sound like total shite. I am forever humbled by all this magic and adventure. I am forever grateful for this life.

Bioregulatory medicine is a total body (and mind) approach to health and healing that aims to help facilitate and restore natural human biological processes. It is a proven, safe, gentle, highly effective, drugless, and side-effect-free medical model designed to naturally support the body to regulate, adapt, regenerate, and self-heal. BRMI is a non-commercial 501(c)(3) foundation and will expand and flourish with your support. Our goal is to make bioregulatory medicine a household term.

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