Stage 4 Breast Cancer Diagnosis

I’m a patient at Anatara, my name is Kelly Vail.

I was diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer, in my bones.

In February of 2022 I had a vertebrae fracture and collapse. I was in the hospital, and it was excruciatingly painful.

That’s how I found out that I had stage-4 breast cancer in my bones.

The Traditional Cancer Treatment Route

I explored what my choices were through my doctors, and I was told by my oncologist, you know, here’s a prescription, we’ll give you a couple of months, and here’s radiation which will treat the cancer, but it will also kill the cells in your bones that will help your bones remodel.

And that was pretty scary because my L2 vertebrae had collapsed and they were really telling me that I need to be careful, as far as paralysis.

I started looking at what my other choices were because being told to take a prescription and go home and look at 10 to 18 months of life, I was 44-years old.

Aggressive Treatment in Mexico

I chose to go to Mexico. I wanted to look at something that was more aggressive and had a better outcome and was really more active.

I went to Mexico, and I spent three weeks in an inpatient clinic there and I had great results.

I came home, I went there in a wheelchair with a back brace, and I came home walking and my cancer antigen numbers had improved significantly, but they weren’t into a normal range.

But I came home after three weeks and was feeling very good and kept after the program there, to see if I could completely go into remission from the treatment there.

In October of 2022, I went back to work, which is pretty amazing, but my numbers were still active, they just weren’t, you know, keeping me from living a full life.

Returning Lesions

In December of 2022, I had a PET scan and all 11 lesions had returned.

My energy level had dropped, I was having problems standing, my endurance was really weak, and my antigen numbers had started to increase. They were no longer stable.

By the end of December of 2022, my numbers were accelerating very quickly.

One of the lesions was in my left jawbone, and right between Christmas and New Year’s, my left jawbone had cracked.

And what that means is, like my bite was off, talking was challenging, my teeth would hit.

And as you can see today, I can talk, I can eat, my jaw is healed.

In December 2023, I had met with my naturopath.

I had discovered the RGCC data report that’s out of Greece, and my naturopath was encouraging me to look at, what are my other choices available to me.

And I took this RGCC report which said, hey, your circulating tumor count is increasing, and you really should take action, but by the way, here is your profile of your cancer, here’s what it’s going to respond to from a chemo agent, from a natural agent, and then here’s what its profile looks like.

I took this to my oncologist, and she looked at me and said, Kelly, I don’t do any of this. I can provide your prescription.

Looking for New Options at Anatara

So, I started to look at my other options because I knew what was possible because of my Mexico experience.

But I wanted to look for something that had results that was local but really holistic.

And I found Anatara, through a Google search.

I brought my RGCC report with me and I met with the medical director who immediately kind of went through and said, hey, breast cancer in the bone, here’s our approach to that.

Here are our international best practices that we incorporate into it, here is our path forward.

It’s not going to be a quick like, in and out, it’s going to take some time because in the bone really requires some aggressive treatment.

But there’s hope and there’s referenceable clients who have recovered and regained their health and retained quality of life.

So, I was quite excited. I talked to my husband, and I said, let’s be aggressive, let’s do this.

Anatara’s Cancer Treatment Approach

So, one of the things that I find critical is Anatara’s approach.

They’re not just treating cancer patients, they treat many different diseases, but they also treat healthy people in optimizing their health.

And what resonated with me was the approach that they looked at the whole person and they personalize the medicine.

They use data, so it’s data driven, personalized, and it’s more than just like, my physical health, it’s my lifestyle, it’s my emotional health, it’s the stress.

They take that into consideration and say, let’s look at that. But it’s also integrating international best practices.

And I think that’s important because when I look at the American health care system it has a standard of care and results that are not inspiring.

And why not look and say, what else is the rest of the world doing?

Cancer isn’t just an American challenge, this is something that’s going on everywhere.

And so, the fact that they take those things into consideration and make them available here resonated with me.

The Anatara Team

It’s also delivered by a team of professionals, it’s not one doctor saying this is the way it is, this is the only way it is.

I know that the staff, whether it’s the medical assistants, the nurse staff, the acupuncturist, the functional medicine, the naturopath or the medical director, they’re having conversations about me on like, how is Kelly responding? You know, is this working? What works best for her?

And, the conversation is about my data, it’s not just like, oh, yeah, we got your lab report.

No, it’s a conversation, we got your lab report, are you responding to treatment? What are the things I could do at home? Do I have homework? What are the things that we’re going to address in our plan?

It really feels like it’s about me.

And I know it’s about me because we’ve run the labs, we’ve done the genetics, we’re having conversations about, how do I sleep? What am I eating?

It’s amazing, this is about me.

But when I go to my traditional oncologist, I get labs, they kind of look at them. I get delegated to a nurse practitioner. It’s just very sterile.

When I come to Anatara, there’s eye contact, there’s people who are happy to see me.

It’s kind of like Cheers, when Norm walks in, they’re like, oh, you know, they know you by name.

And they don’t go, What’s your patient I.D.? What’s your insurance number?

They’re like, oh, Kelly, we’re expecting you. You have a plan, we have you set up in this room, and here’s what we have scheduled for you today.

And it’s a conversation, and it’s human, and it’s not, take these two pills and I’ll see you in 30 days.

It really feels like engaged, personal care, and that they’re as equally committed to my success and my return to health as I am.

Quality of Life

But the thing that really strikes me with somebody who’s a stage- 4 cancer diagnosis, is quality of life.

Is the treatment going to improve my quality of life? Is it going to diminish my quality of life? Is it worth it to do it? And what I find here at Anatara is, quality of life is part of the plan, you know?

Am I not sleeping? Am I constipated? Those are taken into consideration.

Does this treatment make me feel, you know, out of my head? How exhausted am I?

Whereas the other treatments I’ve been told, we don’t know what it’s going to turn out like, you know, take these pills and your quality of life is unknown.

Whereas the treatment here includes, do you feel good? What can we do to make you feel good?

And it’s not a pain management plan. It’s not like we’re just going to give you a bunch of pain meds so you can, you know, suffer through this.

It’s actually, do I feel good?

And that is important because with a stage- 4 diagnosis, sometimes you need to make that choice, is the treatment worth it, and what we’ve done here, absolutely worth it.

I mean, eight months and I can do so many things and I feel really, really good, and I’m not in pain.

And if I look at my case specifically, I came in here in January and my stage- 4 cancer numbers were accelerating, my quality of life was diminishing.

And you could say I came in because the house was on fire, and they were like, sweet, we’re going to treat cancer.

We’re going to treat the cancer, but we’re going to treat it from many different facets.

They looked at it and said, okay, you’re heat sensitive.

It has these specific proteins on the cancer cell membrane.

It has these other factors, and they treat it from all these different perspectives.

So, it’s not like a single treatment and send you home, it’s really comprehensive.

But they don’t stop there. And I think that’s important, that I have not experienced anywhere else.

They’re like, what about her immune system?

They discovered that my immune system was compromised. No one had ever looked at my immune system and said, you have a compromised immune system.

Why is my immune system suppressed? So, then we looked and said, what can we do to support her immune system?

But then why is it suppressed? So, then we looked at underlying conditions and went, why is it suppressed?

Why has no one ever looked at why my immune system isn’t working? I should have a fully functioning immune system.

So, then they looked for underlying conditions and they looked at everything from viruses, parasites, mold and genetic testing.

And I come to find out I have high mold toxicity.

I had no idea. And guess what? High mold toxicity looks like somebody who never gets sick. Why? Because our immune system’s asleep and you don’t know it until somebody something takes you out like cancer.

But they didn’t stop at like, oh, she has mold toxicity, let’s detox. They taught me how to eat to detox from mold, look at my environment, how to actually treat it here.

But then looked at like, was it an acute exposure? Was it a one-time thing, or is she actually really sensitive to it?

So, they went to the next level of teaching me that I actually am genetically super mold sensitive. I had no idea.

And the mold sensitivity, I’m going to have to pay attention to the rest of my life, so it doesn’t suppress my immune system.

And that multi- faceted, many layer approach, by far sets Anatara’s approach.

They have referrals to groups outside of what they do, and other practices.

But just the approach of looking at it like, she’s got cancer, we’re going to treat it, many facets.

We’re going to look at her immune system, we’re going to look at underlying conditions, we’re going to look at her lifestyle.

I am in a medical menopause state, and which includes hot flashes and night sweats. They helped me fix my sleep. Sleep is when you restore and heal.

We looked at my nutrition.

Do I have malabsorption? Am I getting the nutrients that I need? What does my body need?

They taught me how to eat, to look for inflammation, to look for blood sugar management, and to look at things that are optimizing my health.

And then what are my genetic predispositions? For example, I’m always going to be low on magnesium, I should really pay attention to my magnesium or things like that.

Like really educating me on me, so I can optimize my health and not just recover from cancer, but really become somebody who’s educated and caring for themselves.

And I think that’s really powerful that no one really talks about. And that visibility to that multifaceted approach is really something that I would attribute to how their patients recover.

The Human Connection & Support

And the other part is, that people don’t really talk about, is humans need connection and support.

And the way the Anatara team comes together, and they’re aligned around a common vision and connection, like it makes you feel like you’re walking into a group of people who are healers.

They want you to feel better, they want you to feel good. And that sense of comfort and like, give a s**t, is powerful.

I’m not a number here. I am Kelly, and they know me, and they know my husband, and they know what lights me up and makes me excited, and they celebrate my birthday and celebrate my milestones in healing.

And to me, that’s just another level of human experience that is overlooked in our system.

And I’m so grateful for that because to overcome something like this and really heal, it should be celebrated, and it should be celebrated people who care. So, I want to acknowledge the team as well.

I’ve done amazing, and I’ve done amazing because you guys have taught me.

And you guys have been there and held my hand and like to me, there’s just something there, like, I love the fact that no potential therapy with results is overlooked.

I love the fact that there’s a lymphatic body work option, that there’s acupuncture, that we are looking at the Weber lasers, which I look at, I know it’s photo-biomodulation, but I look at it as quantum physics and the very fundamental of, you know, light particles.

I love that we have functional medicine and we’re looking at nutrition, like, it’s the whole gamut.

In addition to, how do you maintain quality of life? And how do you use natural things as well as pharmaceutical things?

Like, it’s a whole approach, and is super powerful.

Why Do I Stay with Anatara?

One of the things that comes up is like, why do I continue to come to Anatara?

And I think there’s two answers. I think the easiest low hanging answer is, results.

And it’s not just results on the cancer level, there’s, my gold standard Cancer markers are excellent, my immune function is excellent, my quality of life is excellent.

So, the results are there, why would I change path, you know, like, we’re so close, I’m going to continue.

That’s amazing.

But there’s more of a human answer. And there’s an experience of personalized medicine here. Like, we know my cancer profile, we know my body profile, my genetic profile.

And the healing professionals who are around me to help me thrive and bring me back to health, like there is an experience there, that once you’ve experienced that, it’s really challenging to go back to a practitioner’s office who doesn’t know who you are, they don’t know your name, they’re not really sure why you’re there and it’s more of like a speed dating experience, where it’s like super-fast, we got to go through our checklist.

I am in love with my primary care physician, but she’s like, Kelly, it’s completely just how it is.

Like, I’ve got 15 minutes to hear what you say, make a recommendation and a diagnosis, and I have to keep moving.

And I love my primary care doctor, she is incredibly sweet, but she’s very honest about the way the system is.

And my oncologist office is even worse, like from a personable standpoint.

And she’s a really wonderful person, doing the best she can, but she’s honest with me.

She’s like, I write prescriptions for pharmaceuticals, that’s what I do.

Okay, so to be able to have a team of people who really are looking at my health on many levels, and my data and are all focused around getting me to that point of return to health, I can’t imagine going any place else. It really matters.