I'm newly diagnosed with stage 3 Follicular B cell NHL. It's only been about a month, yet in a way it feels like forever. I never enjoyed one moment of denial, past the point where I decided to have my suddenly swollen neck looked at. I allowed myself to rationalize it could be my thyroid, but I suspected it was lymphoma imediately, when I'm honest with myself about it.

This past year has been extremely difficult emotionally and even those stresses had been building and multiplying for so long, that my cancer seems inevitable, even logical, in retrospect. That's not to say my "case" doesn't seem particularly ironic, because it does! I'm young, at 54 and have always lead a healthy, natural lifestyle, with youthful energy and appearance, until the last 5 years, when circumstances and I do mean everything, really began to take a more noticible toll.

My husband and I lost the 5 year old grandson we had raised since birth last October 13th. My oncologist thinks I had probably been dealing with undetected indolent lymphoma for a "long time". But I know I just couldn't afford to get sick while being the 24/7 caregiver for my beloved, medically fragile boy. When he suddenly died, without any warning, I was so shocked and wounded with heavy grief that my immune system finally lost it's precarious balance and the lymphoma turned aggressive. There is no doubt that a large part of myself seemed to die with my little boy. No matter how improved my emotional state became, over the months since his passing, the initial, intense pain with it's undeniable, accompanying, death wishes, was plenty sufficient to accelerate any slow growing cancer lurking inside me.

That is the most condensed description of the cause, that I can come up with. I've never smoked or done any particularly hazardous work. I've been health conscious and eaten a mostly vegetarian diet, since I was 16. I've exercised and stayed slim and taken only the best supplements and always been way ahead of the curve with applying nutritional information about fresh, organic, whole and natural foods. Of course, I'm even more careful now and hoping to fight this cancer with natural alternatives.

Ironically, my most nagging emotional issues now, mainly stem from my holistic beliefs and my distrust of WHO, AMA, FDA and Big Pharma.

My husband, of almost 29 years, is on the same page and supportive of my decision to turn down chemo, although some of my family and friends have not been so convinced.

I am scheduled to undergo immuno-therapy with the mono-clonal Rituxan alone, instead, together with everything alternative and complimentary that I discern to be most synergistically important. It's a huge undertaking, but I want to take responsibility for my own health and healing. I never was the type to blindly trust any so called authority and the longer I live the more reasons I discover not to!

So, I'm seeking support and information about ALTERNATIVES!

Thanks

Heather