I started working with Sheila Lucas's husband in June of 2004. This is some of her and her husband's personal story.

Naturopathic and Conventional Medicine Working Together: Sheila and Malcolm's Story

We received the devastating news on April 9, 2004, just 37 days from our first wedding anniversary: "You have cancer... in the upper right lobe of the liver, posterior to the right kidney. You also have Hepatitis C... you need a liver transplant. If you don't get the transplant, the tumor will continue to grow.

A friend was telling me about her friend who is a Naturopathic Doctor and explained that she practices holistic medicine and helps you understand how your mind, body, and spirit work together. I needed to do some research on this as it was my husband's life we were dealing with. Needless to say, I did the research - hours and hours of research. Every spare moment I had went into research. My husband and I decided we would go and see what she had to say. Her name is Milena Safran, ND. Our first visit took three hours. Milena asked questions about every body system and also went into (my husband's) upbringing and his mental and spiritual health. She asked as many questions in her one interview as all the medical doctors (we had seen before) did. Milena told us that she was going to research what the best combination of herbs would be for his situation.

After this first meeting, we went back. Milena reminded us that we still needed to work with our primary doctor while seeing her. She needed blood tests on a regular basis to monitor him and an MRI to monitor his tumor. She told us she wanted to work on the cancer first and then we would go after the Hepatitis C. We started on the herbs and nutritional modifications she recommended. In July and December of 2004, my husband was scheduled to have chemo-embolizations which worked a little (the tumor's mass went down by about 10% after each treatment). We were also taking herbs this whole time. We only discontinued the herbs 1 week prior to the chemo treatment. These treatments would wipe my husband out, but as soon as we started the herbs he would bounce back. 

Let me tell you about the Hepatitis C. When my husband was diagnosed his Hep-C count was 362,000. By September 15th, 2004 it had risen to 821,000. I asked Milena if we could start working on the Hep-C at this point as it was rising. She started my husband on some more herbs and by November 17th, only 2 months later, his Hep-C count was down to 280,000. This was less than when he was first diagnosed. After his chemo treatment in December, his count had risen to 1,210,000. Again Milena started him on herbs and on June 23rd, 2005 his count came back down to 80,500. This is as low as it had ever been. God has truly blessed us with two wonderful doctors - our family doctor who works closely with us and Milena Safran, ND. Let me close by saying that if he would not have had the two chemo treatments and more importantly continued with the herbs, I truly do not feel that he (my husband) would be with us today.