Skip to main content
Submitted by PatientsEngage on 23 January 2021
A woman, a cancer survivor of cervical and colorectal cancers sitting on a sofa

B V Lakshmi, a resident of USA, reflects on her decade long journey with three cancers - cervix cancer, colon cancer and rectum cancer, living with the complexities of the ileostomy bag and discovering the healing power of the mind. Read about how she embraced change and positivity.

My Childhood…

I grew up in India, traditionally in a vegetarian family. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents were aligned with nature and ate what nature gave them, so we were also taught the same things. I was very healthy, athletic, practiced yoga and very spiritual in nature.

But all these practices went down the drain once I moved to the US after my marriage. Since I was working full time life was busy and hectic. So to make my life easier I stocked on foods that was store bought, cooked once a week and stored food in the refrigerator. Everything was so easily accessible I compromised on the quality. I didn't even realise that what I was putting in my body would create havoc later. I didn’t even take care of my exercise routine as I was busy living my American dream. This had a direct impact on my social emotional well-being too. Time went by and I had my kids and eventually quit my job and stayed home to take care of them.

Diagnosis and treatment timeline

In the year 2011 my husband wanted to relocate to India in order to be with his parents. Within six months of moving I was diagnosed with cervical cancer (2011-2012). Check-up followed by surgery, chemotherapy, brachytherapy and radiation therapy was done. Soon after the treatment got over I went back doing my routine things. Then within few months during routine check-up the doctors found a new growth in the colon area and that turned out to be positive. I had colon cancer. (2012-2013). This was followed by chemotherapy.

Around this time I heard about a Nutritional Medicine doctor in Cochin who happened to treat our close friend’s relative. His name is Dr. Sreekumar. So I started some treatment with him and I took it for nearly 8 months. When I went to his clinic the first time I stayed there for nearly 10 days. Food, treatment everything was taken care of. I ate whatever they gave me. There was no milk and no gluten products. But I had soups, steamed veggies, rice, herbal tea in between meals. During one of our trips the doctor advised us that if I had a change of environment then things would get better so we decided to move back to the US in the year 2014. Once we settled down I went for my routine check-up and it was revealed that there was another new growth in the rectum area. As the saying goes things come in threes it was the third episode of cancer. This time I had diagnosed with rectum cancer (2013-2014).

We were so upset and worried and for the first time I asked why me? What did I do to get cancer the third time? So check-up was followed by surgery. This time around I did not have any chemotherapy but came out with a life changing situation i.e the colostomy bag for life. I did not understand what it was when the doctor who was treating me in the US explained to me and my husband. I went with whatever the doctor was suggesting. Little did I know what was lying ahead for me. So surgery was done to remove the tumor and I came out with an ileostomy bag.

Life with ileostomy

It took me almost 2 years to settle down with my ileostomy bag. Initially I took the help of a nurse who is trained in this to teach me how to change the bag. In the beginning I had to change every two hours as the bag would leak. The nurse gave a few tips as to how to handle it. First, I started observing the amount of food that I was putting in my body. I did that by eating less. I avoided foods that created problems. I used to get frustrated. I did not know how to handle my bag as there were more leaks and lots of skin eruptions but I did not give up. Eventually, I learnt to handle this also. Slowly, as the days went by, I learnt to accept it and things started falling into place. That shift in change of my mind was important at that point of time.

Help comes in many ways

During my stay in India (2011-2014) I found a personal mentor and coach who would go on to influence my life. I enrolled myself in her class once a week. There we would not only read books related to personal growth work but also set goals and put them into practice. It was through these classes that I came across books like –

  1. You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
  2. Dying To Be Me by Anita Moorjani
  3. Zero Limits by Joe Vitale. Here the author talks about Ho'oponopono, the Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace and More.

Reading these books gave me new hope. It changed my way of thinking completely leading to positive changes. I learnt through these classes that our mind has the power to heal anything as long as you put in the right ingredients. I started a gratitude journal. Before going to sleep I will go over my day and say thanks to all the lessons learnt. I would do affirmations from Louise Hay book. I would also do some meditation by chanting some mantras. This I would do before my chemo treatment and during the treatment I would do some visualisation. I would imagine a white light passing through me and killing all my cancer cells. All these practices only helped me and I would come out without any serious side effects.

Then I found a personal Yoga trainer who would come home and train me in Pranayama and certain asanas. He was the one who told me that I can reverse my diabetes and hypertension through practicing certain asanas and breathing techniques correctly. Also I learnt that cancer cells thrive when there is less oxygen inside our body. So by doing Pranayama helps in bringing more oxygenated blood into our body.

Changes that I made

With the advice of Dr. Sreekumar I made lots of lifestyle changes in treating my cancer. His approach in treating cancer was holistic in nature. He was the first person who talked about about genetic predisposition and the influence of environment on us. There are certain things that are predisposed through our genes and when it comes in contact with the right environment it gets expressed. It can be either good or bad. So along with nutrition and diet, exercise, I also brought changes in my social emotional well-being.

I decided to go off dairy and gluten products. I learnt to make cashew and almond milk at home. I looked at my pantry and started making note of items I bought on a regular basis. I started reading the ingredients on the packets. If I am not familiar with a particular ingredient I won't use it. I slowly switched to buying organic vegetables, fruits, even my regular groceries (rice, lentils, etc.) were organic.

Secondly, I looked at my routine and made changes to it so I could accommodate a few things that I wanted to do. I realised for the first time that I never took time for myself either for personal care or for pursuing things that I liked.

The next thing that I took care of was my eating habits. I ate breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen and dinner like a pauper. I made sure I finished dinner by sunset and had a 12 hour gap between dinner and next day's meal. Also I made sure that I got 6-7 hours of sleep. I started writing and kept a journal of how my day went and made plans before going to sleep. Over a period of time I could see the change in my energy levels when I started implementing these practises in my life. It only helped me in my healing from cancer.

Lessons learned...

  • I learned to love and approve of myself.
  • I learned to forgive and let go of things.
  • I learned to be grateful for everything that I received.

Read more about what Lakshmi had shared earlier in 2016

 

Community