I am 47 years old and was brought up on what is known as the American diet. I consumed large quantities of meat, dairy products, sugar, frozen foods, and last, but not least, fast foods. I smoked cigarettes for over thirty years. Throughout my life I suffered with colds, flu, sinus problems, kidney infections, cysts, and weight problems.

In August 1984, I was diagnosed as having breast and lung cancer that had spread to various bones in my body. The prognosis was that I had two months to live as the cancer was deemed terminal and inoperable. I immediately began chemotherapy, which resulted in every hair on my body falling out and my not being able to keep down any food. When I wasn’t vomiting, I was thinking about it. This way of life continued for a month, resulting in my body becoming weaker daily.

In September, a friend lent my husband a copy of The Cancer Prevention Diet by Michio Kushi. That book was the ray of sunshine I had been waiting for. It became my Bible. I carried it around with me. It was on the night table next to my bed, in case I needed to look something up during the night. I started to see that if I ate the American diet I would feel worse and vomit, as some of the additive in food and cosmetics were the same as those in my chemotherapy treatments. If I would have a visitor who perhaps had on perfume or aftershave lotion containing these additives, I would say hello and have to excuse myself to go throw up.

As soon as I started to cook and eat miso soup, brown rice, and steamed vegetables, I began to feel better and stronger and the vomiting subsided. I started to cook in my wheelchair. Each day I was getting stronger. My doctor had wanted to give me two years of chemotherapy, which was twenty-two months longer than I was expected to live. He believed that without chemotherapy I would not survive. I continued chemotherapy for an additional six months and prepared special dishes to rebuild my blood after each treatment.

I also had to deal with the cause of my cancer. I had to accept that smoking for thirty years had contributed to my lung cancer, and that eating a diet high in dairy products had most likely contributed to my breast cancer. Once I realized that I had helped my body get into this situation, I also realized that I could turn this illness into a blessing and allow God to heal me. I now had the ways and the means to change my condition.

During January 1985, I started to call in well for my chemotherapy treatments. I would feel so great that I didn’t want to go for a treatment and spoil things, for example, by starting to vomit and losing my hair. I had lost every hair on my body three times. I also grew back every hair three times with the help of good food. We also went to Florida for a vacation and walked on the beach, went into the salt water, ate good macrobiotic meals, and were thankful for what we had.

In March 1985, I went into the hospital for a blood transfusion after having been given too much chemotherapy. My doctor said that if I didn’t have the transfusion I would be in serious trouble if I came in contact with anyone carrying any germ that my immune system was unable to neutralize. In other words, my immune system was extremely weak. I realized that after the many X-rays, scans, and chemotherapy my body had become toxic and had it not been for miso, sea vegetables, brown rice and vegetables, I would probably not have survived.

I now teach cooking classes in our little hamlet of Montauk and nearby. To me, macrobiotics is not to be kept in a treasure chest but shared with whomever needs and wants to learn about it. Six years after my struggle with terminal cancer, I am alive and well, and thanking God for the opportunity to help others just as I was helped.

by Magdaline Crowley