I first noticed lumps when I was 19. I was in a deeply painful relationship, my mental health was at its lowest, and I knew something was wrong. But nobody took me seriously.

It took four years to get a diagnosis.

At 23, I was finally told I had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The three months it took to get that diagnosis were some of the darkest of my life - and somewhere in the middle of them, I found out I was pregnant.

Six weeks along. Newly diagnosed with cancer. Terrified.

My doctors told me I could have my baby, and we’d look at treatment afterwards. They warned me the high growth hormones in my body would likely make things worse. So I monitored every two weeks, held my breath, and hoped. After my baby was born and the scans came back - it was gone. My body had done something remarkable.

Then in 2020, after another devastating season of life, it came back. And this time it was worse. My spleen went from 9 to 17 centimetres. I could push on my stomach and physically feel the tumour. The lymphoma had spread through my entire abdomen.

They removed a lymph gland to confirm it, and my next appointment was booked straight into treatment. No real conversation about options. No time to think.

My naturopath ran a blood panel called. RGCC test - it takes your live cancer cells and test them against a wide range of treatments, both natural and conventional, to measure how sensitive your specific cancer is likely to respond to each treatment. It’s personalised in a way that standard oncology simply isn’t. The treatment the hospital wanted to give me had a 16% sensitivity rating. There were other options with higher ratings, but because of the PBS, Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - the hospital could only offer what was government funded, regardless of what the testing showed would work best for my body.

I turned up not knowing it was a treatment appointment. And something inside me froze. My body just said no. I couldn’t go through with it - I walked away. It wasn’t a decision I made sitting at a desk weighing up pros and cons. It was something deeper than that. A knowing.

That was the moment I committed fully to finding another way.

So I went down the rabbit hole. Podcasts. Books. Research. I consumed everything I could find about the body’s ability to heal itself. And water fasting kept coming up. It made sense to me on a deep level - giving the body complete rest so it could focus everything on healing.

In 2023, I flew to America and did my first 14-day water fast.

After that fast, I had scans. The lymphoma that had been throughout my entire stomach had almost completely cleared. My spleen was still showing some activity, but the change was undeniable.

When I got home, I built a full protocol around what I had learned. I went whole food plant-based and threw myself into my own version of Gerson Therapy - two litres of fresh carrot juice every day, two coffee enemas daily, and a supplement protocol guided by my naturopath. I fasted for 48 hours every week and used my near-far infrared sauna five times a week.

But the part that surprised me most was the emotional work. I could see the pattern now - both times the cancer had shown up, it followed the most painful periods of my life. So I went deep. Tuning fork therapy, hypnotherapy, plant medicine, breathwork. I started to understand that my body hadn’t turned against me - it had been trying to get my attention for a very long time.

Healing wasn’t just about what I ate or what protocols I followed. It was about becoming someone my body felt safe being.

I’ve since done a 10-day and another 14-day water fast. All my cancer markers are within normal range. My energy - which had been so depleted I struggled to get through a day - has returned. I’m still here. And I feel better than I have in years.

I can’t tell you I’m in remission, because I haven’t been back to the hospital. What I can tell you is that I have lived this. I have been the person lying awake at night, terrified, feeling like the system had nothing real to offer me. I have made radical, frightening choices because I believed my body was capable of more.

And I built Omura Wellness because I know I’m not the only one who has felt that way.

If you’re searching for another way — I see you. And I’m here. 🌿