Activity

  • THE VALERIE GOLD STORY  Her Battle with er+ pr+ her2­ Breast Cancer  Written by Val Gold with Eric Drew 
    My name is Val Gold and I am a 54 year­old healthy woman, and I have been successfully  battling breast cancer for 14 years (as I write this now).  I was first diagnosed with “er+ pr+  her2­ Infiltrating Ductal Carcinoma” in January of 2002 at Kaiser hospital in Santa Teresa San  Jose CA.  Needless to say I was terrified!   I could hardly pronounce this diagnosis, and definitely  did not know anything about it.  I sure wasn’t qualified to start making life and death decisions  about what treatments to do.  It was clear, however, that the opinions I was getting from the  doctors were conflicting with my own intuition as to how to treat this disease. 
    I was told I needed to have massive surgery within one week (they recommended a  mastectomy), or have a lumpectomy to remove most of the tumor then six weeks of intense  radiation. They said maybe if I did the full  mastectomy right away, I may not need the radiation  part, However, if the tumor came back I would need the a mastectomy anyway.  Either way  they said I would need six months of heavy chemo afterwards just to be sure, 
     It felt like they were pressuring these horrible treatments on me, and it didn’t feel right at all!  I  looked into the side effects of these procedures, and all of them were going to be very  traumatic!  In the case of radiation and chemo, these were going to make me very sick!  I was a  healthy athletic person and it didn’t make sense to make my whole body sick to fight a tumor in  my breast. 
    After many severe warnings from the doctors and after all the tests and needle biopsies, I  agreed to have a limited initial surgery to extract as much of the tumor as possible, and agreed  to have the lumpectomy.  However, after the first surgery they said they could not get “a clear  margin on the tumor” and needed to go back in, and this time they wanted to take out 20  lymph nodes in a “full lymph node dissection”, but I couldn’t imagine traumatizing my body that  much without even knowing if these lymph nodes were cancerous, so I only agreed to let them  take the first lymph node in line next to the tumor which they referred to as the “Sentinel  Node”.   This lymph node was cancerous, so they again pushed me to do a “full lymph node  dissection”, and again this was counter­intuitive. Why take out all these lymph nodes if they are  not cancerous.  We agreed on a compromise and 8 more lymph nodes were taken out, but all  of these were unaffected and no cancer had spread to these.  
    It was now only three weeks after my diagnosis and I had already had three surgeries and the  damaging side effects were already rearing.  I developed a massive infection in my armpit which  had to be packed with gauze daily for 30 days, and every one of those day they were pressuring  me again and again to start radiation and chemo immediately, both of which I felt very 
    uncomfortable about.  I just wasn’t seeing the benefits overcoming the risks and I didn’t feel  right about making my whole body sick when my only problem was in my breast. 
    To try and find a different opinion I visited Oncologists in Los Gatos, Ca, Stanford Hospital and  U.S.C. in LA. Dr James Wiseman who was then Suzanne Somers Oncologist and head of  Oncology at U.S.C. had the very bold and condescending opinion that if I did not do the  Chemotherapy I would would be dead in four years. These second opinions cost a fortune as  they were all outside of Kaiser and all a waste of time and money. 
    I read about the side effects of all these treatments and began to network with other women  who told me about their experiences with these treatments and how sick it made them!  Lost  eyesight, heart problems, nausea and vomiting, finger and toenails went black and fell out, and  many ended up a few years later with other cancers like leukemia and had died.   I was also told  I needed to take Tamoxifen, which can cause early menopause, cervical cancer, blood clots,  stroke, hair loss, and cataracts.  Forget that!  No way!  They began giving women Tamoxifen in  the 1960’s, and they still had not come up with anything better?  I could not get beyond the  side effects and chose not to take it 
    After being bullied by numerous doctors, I did finally agree to have 6 weeks of radiation which I  now regret, as I feel it did more damage than good.  The only place I have the tumors now is  where I did the radiation, and I am convinced it is because of the radiation.  I also have necrotic  (dead) tissue in this area which has caused edema and other issues.  In parallel with these  treatments, however, I began my search for more natural and less invasive treatments. 
    I followed the writings and story of Suzanne Sommers who had done so much research on more  natural ways to fight breast cancer, and the first thing I realized I needed to change was my  diet.  I followed a microbiotic diet, making sure I ate only organic products.  I had previously  thought I had a healthy diet, but I realize now I ate too much red meat and dairy. These were  quick to go along with wheat flour and sugar, which cancer loves and feeds on.  
    I purchased a Juniper Water Ionizer along with a very complex water filtration system for the  kitchen, as I had researched that cancer loves and acidic environment and hates an alkaline  one.  Changing the alkalinity in my body by drinking alkaline water would make it harder for the  cancer to survive.  
    I did injectable mistletoe, vitamin C infusions, and another natural supplement which was  injected into the lymph nodes called 714X.  For several years I was stable with no sign of  disease, until a tumor appeared under my arm in 2006 (where I had the radiation) and I had it  removed with a small surgery.  In 2007 I went to Germany and did one of the first  Immuno­therapies ever offered, and it seemed to work very well.  The Dr. who ran the clinic  was Dr. Kubler at the Labor­Praxisklinik in Munich. (​ http://www.labor­praxisklinik.de​ )  Since then I have been diligent with an anti­cancer diet and I have taken many anti­cancer  supplements.  I have been doing very well for many years but the cancer is back, and I am now 
    raising money to do another immune therapy in Santa Barbara that I feel very positive about!  Please support me in getting this treatment on GoFundMe  page called “Valerie Gold Stage 4  Cancer”. 
    If I could go back in time 14 years to my diagnosis, and give myself advice, I would say “Slow  down!  You are not going to die tomorrow so don’t rush into invasive and potentially damaging  treatments and surgeries.  “Cut that, chop things off, radiate everything, and poison your body  with carcinogenic cancer causing substances”.  This just doesn’t make sense, even now!  I want  to attack the cancer cells in my body, and help my body fight this cancer, not kill all the healthy  normal cells!  
    I have known tens of other women who followed the medical advice to a tee and did everything  that was recommended, and many of them have died.  Many others who did survive have  severe permanent disabling problems. 
    Even though I have refused much of the recommended treatments and have never done  chemo, I seem to be doing much better than most of the women who went the traditional  route.  I have lived a good quality of life these past 14 years, and am very optimistic that I will  one day be cured without permanently damaging my body to do so. 
    Please keep in touch with me and share the things you have learned in the WeHeal Community  for er+ pr+her2­ breast cancer.  I know that by helping each other and sharing our experiences,  we will get through this together!   ​ https://weheal.org/groups/erprher2­breast­cancer/  

  • If you click on the link it will bring up the picture from the pet scan. It’s all the black dots everywhere. The larger circles is my Brian, heart, pelvic area.

    • Eric Drew replied

      Thank you for the summary and PET Scans Erin. Let me know if you filled out the ASK form with Cancer Commons and had them copy eric@weheal.org

      • Eric Drew replied

        Also, to initiate the free treatment search service by Aloha Health, please fill out this brief contact form here. https://contact-aloha.weheal.org/ In the questions space, you can simply cut and paste the content that you wrote below

  • I have been diagnosed on 10.8.19 with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, which has also spread throughout my entire body. I go to standford for all doctors appointments. I found these lumps myself on 9.18.19 on my neck and I contacted STANFORD myself, went through biopsy they tested 10 lymph nodes. They gave me this news below on Tuesday.

    My oncologist told me on Tuesday 10/8/19 that this cancer has spread throughout my whole body, and that I need to start treatment immediately, also that all they are able to do is prolong my life with chemotherapy treatments and other drugs and for the rest of my life every 3 weeks I will do my chemo treatments and I will live as long as they can continue to do treatments. I asked my oncologist “so your saying that unless I do these treatments for the rest of my life every 3weeks, I will die? And that there is no cure for this”Completely in tears sitting there alone with just the oncologist. I also asked how long have you seen someone in my situation live for? She said some make it 2 months so make it 2 years. After I left I just kept thinking to myself NO WAY I just turned 40 years old on 9/30/79.
    I have 2 children a son that is 18 and a daughter that will be 8 this month. This is not how I’m going to live my life. There has to be another way or something else out there that will help me.

    have been in remission since 10.12.2016, i found a lump in my right breast in January 2016 and after testing and all i found out on April 12,2016 that i had stage 3 breast cancer the lumps in my right breast were the size of 3 golf balls and it had spread into my lymph nodes. It was HER2 positive, estrogen positive. And something else, i will provide all the information which i have in a box at home.

    I am blessed to have been referred to Eric Drew and i am looking for help with any other treatments or options available. I am a VERY STRONG WOMAN AND I NEVER LOSE A FIGHT. I will fight till the end. I was going to start my own research on what else is out there before I was introduced to Eric Drew.

    I’m here to learn and help with any questions anyone has and i want to learn what other options are out there for this news I received. I’m going to share a picture of my pet scan results showing where all the cancer has spread throughout my body, My oncologist has not been able to tell me how long these have been in body and I SERIOUSLY DO NOT BELIEVE that all of them just showed up randomly, they also said that there is nothing i could of done to prevent this from happening (which i really don’t understand) and that there is nothing i could have do to cause this. I think its bullshit and i want more answers. Before i undergo and treatments. I know there is other treatments out there.

    • Eric Drew replied

      Erin your story absolutely brings me to tears, as I have been there myself and know how difficult it is to bear such news, and I can say that everything I was told and probably everything you were told was not true. This is THEIR opinion, not YOUR reality! You can choose your own reality and your own destiny just as I did, and I am here to help you in any way I can!.. Please email me and I will walk you through what resources we can arrange to help you evaluate your “curative” options. eric@ericdrew.com

  • I had dense breast tissue like many of my survivor friends.

  • It is about time they stop over treating