Hi Dr. Thakwani,



My mom is 59 years old and in 2008 she had a lumpectomy in her left breast to remove an extremely small cancerous tumor. The cancer had not spread anywhere else, and after the lumpectomy (April '08) she underwent radiation (may '08 to August '08). After she finished radiation therapy she was comppletely fine and back to normal. Approximately 5 months later (January '09) she began to develop a superficial redness all over her left breast, which all of her doctors attributed to a radiation burn. She tried numerous medications, topical and internal, and none helped to relieve the severe pain she was in. She described the pain as a severe burning sensation inside and outside of the breast. It only got worse and it reached a point where any type of friction whether it was clothing, air, water, etc would cause her excruciating pain. In either October or November of '09 she started to rapidly develop an external mass in the hinge of her armpit on the same breast. It grew very quickly until it was basically the size of a narrrow grapefruit. Her doctors told her it was nothing serious and that it was most likely fluid retention, and as soon as she had it surgically drained her pain and redness would be immediately relieved. She had a surgical aspiration in January of '09, which is when it was suggested, and a biopsy taken on the same day proved that the tumor and the tissue surrounding it was cancer. She is now at a different hospital being treated by much better and knowledgeable oncologists and hematologists. She has now undergone 2 chemotherapy treatments and it appears that the tumor is already shrinking and drying out, and there is a lot of necrotic skin and flesh extending all the way around to her back. I'm extremely worried and wonder if you could provide any insight with your expertise including what kind of diet might help her or anything else you have to offer us. Thank you so, so much.