My Vegan Story

I used to eat a lot of animal products. Eight eggs with a side of turkey bacon for breakfast, two chicken breasts for lunch, and a ten-ounce steak with dinner. But one visit to the doctor changed everything…

My Diet History

For the past ten years (since 2006), I have been a very conscious eater. I wish I could say “health conscious,” but my early attempts to maintain a healthy diet were uneducated and completely wrong. I jumped from one extreme, and very unhealthy, diet to another.

During my freshman and sophomore years in high school, I dedicated myself to running and the sport of cross country. I would eat as little as possible the days I had tough cross country workouts or races, operating under the false idea that eating as little as possible to keep my weight down would thereby increase my running speed. 

During my junior and senior years in high school, I decided I wanted to put some weight on and begin circuit training with light weights and eating upwards of 8 eggs every morning. 

From my senior year of high school to my freshman year of college, I was obsessed with cereal. Thinking cereal was a healthy, inexpensive, and quick option, I would consume 5-6 boxes per week. Raisin Bran, Kashi Go Lean, Kashi Go Lean Crisp, and Kashi Autumn Wheat were my cereals of choice. Granted, I could have chosen worse foods, but eating nearly a box of cereal a day is a very poor choice.

For the next three years of college, my diet improved substantially. As I learned more about nutrition, I began incorporating more whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, and balanced out the rest of my diet with whole grains, dairy, and lean meats. I also added whey protein powder and creatine into my diet as I became interested in weightlifting, which wasn’t a great move, but I was steadily gaining weight and feeling better than ever.

While I didn’t frequent McDonalds or drink away my liver, my unhealthy, extreme food choices over these years were pretty awful.

The Wake-Up Call

In August 2013, I decided I wanted to have a small lump removed from the base of my abdomen. It had been there for two years, but I hadn’t done anything about it because my doctor assured me it was just a harmless cyst and it didn’t annoy me enough to bother with surgery.

After dealing with this lump for two years, I finally had enough and asked my doctor to refer me to a surgeon. He referred me to a urologist who specialized in surgery. A couple days later, I visited the urologist for a pre-surgery consultation. He was hesitant to agree with my primary doctor’s diagnosis, but nonetheless assured me he’d be able to easily remove it.

A week before the start of my senior year, I had surgery for the first time in my life.

“It was a tumor, not a cyst.”

I was sitting on the examination table trying to comprehend what the urologist just told me. I was at his office for my post-surgery follow-up and he was telling me the biopsy results. He continued, “Your tumor tested positive for a disease called Langerhans’ Cell Histiocytosis (LCH). Now, I must admit that I’ve never heard of this disease, but I did some research on Google to find out where to go from here.”

MY tumor?! No, I definitely didn’t have a tumor, that’s ridiculous. And a GOOGLE search?! Why did this accomplished doctor need Google to explain the biopsy results? I was speechless. Certainly there MUST be a mistake...I was in great health! I had just run a marathon the month before and I'm just 21 years old, there is NO WAY I could have some rare disease!

After a long pause to let the information sink in, he told me I needed to see a specialist. He also suggested that I not research LCH because I'd "scare myself" and instead hold my questions for the specialist. Yeah right...

So what was the first thing I did when I got home? I jumped on my computer and proceeded to scare the crap out of myself by researching LCH.

In two minutes, I learned that I had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. And when I say rare, I mean pretty darn rare. LCH affects approximately 1 in 560,000 adults, or approximately 400 adults in the ENTIRE UNITED STATES.

Needless to say, there isn’t much known about the disease, but in brief, the disease involves the clonal proliferation of Langerhans’ cells, abnormal, unwelcome cells deriving from bone marrow that migrate to lymph nodes and develop tumors within them. The primary treatment for LCH is radiation and chemotherapy, the same treatments for most cancers.

And just like that, my life flipped upside down.

I received this shocking news just days before beginning my senior year of college. I wanted answers, but I quickly realized there are very few doctors that have ever worked with LCH patients and only a couple were within reasonable driving distance. The closest “LCH specialist” I could find was an oncologist practicing in Annapolis MD.

In the weeks spent waiting to see the oncologist, everything in my life slipped out of my control. I couldn’t concentrate in class and my grades plummeted. I wasn’t happy, and I pulled away from my family and friends. I was scared and felt alone.

When all of this went down, I was a year into starting my own business and had just completed the most difficult academic semester of my life. I was stressed, tired, and overwhelmed.

During my first appointment at his office, a 2.5 hour drive each way, I learned that this renowned oncologist had only seen a total of 5 LCH cases before mine. Yup, just 5. And when I asked him how his other patients had done, he hesitantly replied, “umm, pretty well” in a highly unconvincing tone. Awesome.

Under the direction of my oncologist, I took a day off from school in early October to head to the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis for scans and other tests that would determine if the LCH had spread to other places in my body. After a 2.5 hour drive, my day of testing began at 7AM sharp with a spinal tap, also called a 'lumbar puncture.' If you don’t know what a spinal tap is, you should know this is not a great way to start your morning.

Things did not improve. The rest of my day was filled with poking, prodding, and a wide assortment of scans. I experienced fear in a way that I had never before. The fear of the unknown. The fear of death. The cold, sterile environment of the oncology center was one I never wish to return to.

After 36 agonizing hours of waiting, my results came back. My oncologist informed me that I had “unifocal LCH," which means I only had a single, contained tumor. Relief washed over me. I felt like I had escaped a death sentence. In reality, I had received a little taste of something so many people in our disease-ridden society deal with on a regular basis.

Although it didn't feel like it at the time, this experience was a blessing. It taught me gratitude for life and the value of maintaining your health. I don’t wish what I went through on anyone, but it definitely helps to put things in perspective. I really feel for all the people battling disease and tough medical conditions.

This experience quickly grew into an intense interest surrounding nutrition-based disease prevention. I began researching the links between food and disease. Alongside my research, I cleaned up my diet, substantially limited my meat and dairy consumption, and began making fruit and vegetable smoothies and juices on a daily basis.

I didn’t care what I had to do to prevent experiencing this again. I would eat tree bark and pine cones for the rest of my life if that’s what it took to never go through that experience again. Tree bark and freakin’ pine cones. Seriously.

Seven months and over a hundred hours of nutrition research later, I cut out all animal products from my diet and began following a strict plant-based (vegan) diet for my health. It was the best decision I've ever made in my life.

Please don't take your health for granted. To start your plant-based nutrition education, click below.