Meet Sonia

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I deal with two terminal diagnoses:

Stage 4 lung cancer — spread to my ribs, liver, sacrum, and pelvis. No treatment options. Six to eight months to live. Told to go home and make a bucket list.

And Addison's disease — my adrenal glands destroyed by immunotherapy. Without daily medication, I'll slip into a coma and die.

I'm happily in remission because I listened to my body first over anything else. My oncologist doesn't know why.; keeps shrugging and saying "OK... I guess we'll just keep waiting." because he's expecting it to come back

I'm not. I'm living.

I just completed a 5 month solo trip in Europe.  

Before cancer I was a Registered Holistic Nutritionist. A corporate auditor. A government analyst. I worked with Olympic and masters athletes. I spent my entire career finding lost value — in systems, in organizations, in numbers that didn't add up.

I was good at it.

Then on Easter Monday, I got the call. Stage 4. Terminal. No options.

A month later they offered me four rounds of palliative chemo and immunotherapy. I took it — and made it my mission to survive chemo without damage. 

I didn't even think about immunotherapy damage.

That was my first mistake.

Seven immunotherapy sessions. Then three months of my body eating itself alive. 

I would would wake up each morning and see more skin where muscle used to be. 90 days of vomiting and diarrhea. I lost forty pounds in six weeks. My words started slurring. My mind started slipping. I couldn't control my arms and legs properly — people told me I walked like a marionette. That's exactly how it felt. And it was terrifying.  

My family doctor — after ten years — dropped me. Said he didn't know what was going on. And just walked away. 

I went through six doctors and four hospitals looking for answers. I ubered myself between emergency rooms. 

Myer's cocktails...Glutathione shots to keep me going while I found someone to figure this out.  I was running out of hospitals. Running out of doctors. Running out of time.

I told my oncologist I needed help.

When I arrived I had to link my hand through his elbow to steady myself. Walking had become that difficult. He looked at me and asked: "Sonia, do you know where the ground is?"

I thought it was the silliest question. Of course I know where the ground is. It's below me.

"Because you're walking like you don't," he said.

In the examination room I didn't let go of him. I put my head on his shoulder and I said: 

"Paul. You need to find out what's going on. My mind is starting to slip and I can't figure it out on my own."

One blood test. That was all it took.

He knew the side effects of immunotherapy. Whether he'd seen this before and recognized it, whether he'd kept me on it too long and caused this.... whether an angel whispered in his ear telling him what to test for....I still have no answers to those questions. All I know is that he caught it.

Addison's disease. My adrenal glands destroyed by the immunotherapy. 

I walked away from cancer treatment. The rest was up to me.

Six months to rebuild the capacity to live. My leg muscles were gone. It was exactly like recovering from a stroke. I had support workers come in to help me wash, cook, do my laundry. 

Palliative nurse. Home care. Walker. When I told them later that I didn't need them anymore — they were shocked. No one had ever gotten better. That's how close it was.

The chemo and immunotherapy did their part. 40% of the cancer was gone - but at such a cost.

Remission? That's mine. Built through nutrition, fasting, functional healing, radical self-trust, and refusing to accept that 40%  was all that was available to me.

I made the decision to go to Bergamo with full self-awareness. I knew that if I stayed in a wintry Canadian city I would hibernate. I always do. I would not go outside. I would not walk. I would stay warm and stay small and lose everything I'd rebuilt.

So I engineered around myself.

I chose Bergamo in Northern Italy - because it is nothing but hills. I hated it at times. It was exhausting and frustrating and some days I resented every cobblestone. But it worked.

I arrived unable to walk 1km. I left walking 5km daily, carrying weight.

Then I went to London — because London fills my soul — and I let myself enjoy what I'd built.

I have two terminal diagnoses, a quiet oncologist, a daily medication I'll take for the rest of my life, and absolutely no intention of accepting their timeline.

I'm still single. I did all of this — every doctor's appointment, every emergency room, every cobblestone hill in Bergamo — alone.

So when you tell me you don't have anyone to help you through this?

I know. I was there.

And I'm still here.