Jill's Journey: Embracing Medical & Holistic Choices to Healing

By Jill Robinson

"A shocking cancer diagnosis in 2014 sent Jill on a journey that led her to many choices to healing. Jill relates her story, from the beginning of her cancer diagnosis, then through the search to find well-being.

In this inspirational and empowering book, Jill chronicles her story of the options and choices that she made for her treatments that led her back to vibrant health. She shares the decisions she made for treatments, including medical and holistic options, which ultimately could help others.

Jills Journey is not only a remarkable story; she shares definitions, references, and resources that have led her to wellness. Jill is passionate and on a mission to help you on your journey to wellness by sharing her own journey of healing, from a cancer diagnosis to the well-being of body, mind and spirit."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504355704

Jill Robinson

Jill Robinson has written nine books, including the bestsellers Perdido and her seminal memoir, Bed/Time/Story. She grew up in Hollywood, where her father ran MGM, and writes about issues of love and loss for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. Robinson runs the Wimpole Street Writers Group in London, where she lives with her husband, Stuart Shaw.

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What People are Saying about Jill’s Journey

This heartfelt journey radiates with positive energy and genuine emotion. It is a beautifully written book that will help so many people. We are all on a journey of our own. This book will inspire the possibility that there is always more than one approach to health, wellness and balance in your life.

— Andrea Wilsdon

As a broadcast journalist, I’ve interviewed many authors about their books. Jill’s Journey is different. It is uncommonly real, honest and emotionally expressive on a human level we can all relate to. While Jill shares her deepest fears, confusion and disappointments during an intense battle with cancer, she also celebrates her ultimate triumphs and faith in the power of positivity and the mind/body connection. Jill’s courage and determination to own her destiny and take full responsibility for her choices offers a roadmap to others embarking on the same path and sends a message of hope and inspiration to anyone experiencing challenging times. Jill’s Journey is a good news story!

— Connie Smith,

Former News Anchor

Order of Ontario

www.conniesmith.ca

Jill has the ability to turn around any situation and make it positive, to see a solution to every problem. Jill’s strength is her desire to help others. She is a born communicator, the strongest, most determined lady I know. Having read ‘Jill’s Journey’, I am no longer afraid of Cancer. I take with me her teachings regarding Positive Thought, the importance of looking after our bodies, emotionally and nutritionally. Her journey is a fascinating insight of pain and fear, laughter and tears, love and determination, and peaceful acceptance that everything happens for a reason.

— Debbie Hutcheson

Jill’s Journey will be helpful for anyone dealing with health issues – not only a cancer diagnosis. I especially like the suggestion regarding making twenty cards to describe goals or hopes for your life. It is a handbook of self-care, determination, and a lesson in loving oneself! Jill is a wonderful woman that I have been privileged to call my friend for over ten years! Her strength and support for others is her greatest asset. Jill’s Journey is an amazing, insightful look at her journey through a cancer diagnosis. She openly shares with the reader her fears, her emotions and her choices. Through all this, it is very obvious how strong and committed she is to healing herself. A great book!

— Fran Hoppa,

Retired Pharmacist

Thank you, Jill, for having the courage to share such a tumultuous, trying and expansive time in your life. Your story reminds me of the power of the human heart and mind, and how important it is to invest the time to take care of ourselves BEFORE we get sick, and how to change our relationship with illness and how a new perspective can impact your road to recovery.

— Jennifer Lyall,

Spiritual Mentor and Intuitive Teacher

Jill arrived in my life by ‘coincidence’ not long before her life path was to take an unexpected detour down a road less travelled. ‘Jill’s Journey’ is the true story of a tenacious, spirited woman’s journey from the diagnosis of a potentially life threatening and overwhelming disease to embracing her new life with the insights she gathers. This book is for those ready to consider options beyond the ‘conventional only’ approach in addressing a diagnosis of dis-ease. ‘Jill’s Journey’ is just that - an inspiring journey filled with the wisdom, resources, celebration of spirit and messages for life. Jill discovers there are choices available to her and all that is possible as she transitions during a two year period against all odds, despite the suggestion of a severely limited life expectancy. Spend a few hours with Jill as she discovers a whole new world of possibilities and shares the journey of ‘her truth’ with the world. We can’t help but have our curiosity sparked as we journey along side this beautiful soul and experience life shifts and transitions with her.

— Simone Usselman-Tod,

Former Registered Medical Radiation Technologist;

Main care giver of late husband diagnosed with cancer;

Health and Wellness Practitioner

"I have read this book through and through and what an amazing story! Jill’s Journey is not only for people enduring health issues, but for anyone to consider for making positive changes in their overall wellness. Some people diagnosed with a disease choose to enlist a naturopath and it amazes me that the first item of business is a change in lifestyle. This change includes focus on the mind, body and spirit - not just the disease itself. Jill’s book takes a look at just that and how making these types of changes may help tremendously with surviving such a diagnosis and living life well again. I so appreciate where Jill has been and what she has gone through although I would prefer to avoid it if I could. Her amazing journey inspires me to begin my own changes to a healthier me. Thanks to Jill for sharing her story."

— Sandi Holst

Business Instructor

Jill’s Journey is a thought-provoking and practical book that illuminates complimentary approaches to Western medical treatment for breast cancer. Jill’s ability to speak from the heart in her recounting of her personal two-year victorious journey with cancer is both heartrending and inspirational. A must read for those looking for clarity in the myriad of options available while going through cancer treatment.

— Barb Leese, MA, Eryt, RYS

Yoga Instructor/Yoga Training Teacher

Not only was this a story about one woman’s journey from a cancer diagnosis to recovery, Jill offered me resources that not only helped her at her time of need, but can help anyone of us improve and attain a higher quality of life - physically, mentally and spiritually. I found this book to be an indispensable resource and an inspiring and uplifting story of Jill’s journey and her many choices to healing. Thank you to Jill.

— Deborah Ferdinand

Creative Consulting Services

[phone]

http://www.creativeconsultingservices.ca

Jill’s Journey

EMBRACING MEDICAL &

HOLISTIC CHOICES TO HEALING

JILL ROBINSON

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Copyright © 2016 Jill Robinson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Editor: Herb Holst

Author photo provided by: Sandi Holst

ISBN: 978-1-5043-5569-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-5571-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-5570-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016906420

Balboa Press rev. date: 5/16/2016

Contents

Preface

Introduction

The Beginning

Synopsis

My Good Friend Fear

By Brittany Luise Snedden

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Definitions

References

Resources

About the Author

To those I love and I have loved

…until we meet again.

With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself, or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.

— Dr. Wayne Dyer

Preface

To this day, I honestly can’t tell you exactly why I am still living on planet earth since my breast cancer diagnosis two years ago. What I can tell you is that it has completely changed my life. I did almost every medical/conventional option that was offered to me along the way, and I embraced more holistic/complementary therapies and options than any other person I have talked to thus far. It was far from an easy path and the decisions I had to make were often times…. daunting. I have learned that my choices were vastly different from those of many others!

So, why am I still here? Was it the chemotherapy? The radiation? The surgery? The holistic remedies and treatments I embraced and am still taking to this day? Was it the diet change and taking even more responsibility for my body and health? Was it the meditation? Praying? Visualization? Affirmations? Was it my mindset and brutal determination to stay alive as long as I can in this world? Or was it a combination of all of them? This is something I may never know.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if I could travel back in a time machine, and try taking away or changing my choices to see if the outcome would be the same or different? Obviously, this is not an option.

What I have realized is there is a common thread that goes through what I call My Journey which will be shared with you. Whether you have been recently diagnosed with cancer, whether you have other health issues, or you just want to be healthier, the answers for getting better may be in these pages. The answers, and this may sound strange to you right now, are within yourself. It comes down to choices!

When you or someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, you can be inundated with hundreds of opinions…opinions from people who are expressing it out of concern and love; people who are handling the news in their own personal way; people that just want to help and give their experiences.

If you choose to go the online route, be prepared to see literally thousands of options from medical/conventional, to holistic/complementary, and also spiritual options, including limitless different beliefs. It’s all out there. It’s all available for you at the click of a button, to read and question is this going to help me and who should I trust? It can be overwhelming to say the very least.

I hope that by sharing my experience, this book will benefit, comfort and strengthen anyone who may be going through a difficult prognosis or time in their life. The book is written to share my journey, but more importantly, to help you find your way through your own journey. Your journey doesn’t necessarily have to be one that includes cancer. This book is intended to help you regardless of what health issues or conditions you may have. I have written it in a way that will hopefully help on all levels: physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

My hope, as well, is that this book will illustrate that there are options out there…many options indeed. It is my passion that whatever it is that has put this book in your hands, it will help you and give you hope and energy to move forward to make your life better! Hope is a very powerful word and sometimes that’s all a person needs to move forward in their life whether that means recovering from illness or finding a healthier life.

What you will find through reading this book is that one of the most important things you can do is trust yourself in the choices you make. There is no right or wrong in any decision you make in your life. You can gather the information and then see what resonates with you. You will be getting many opinions from different people who have either been through a similar journey themselves, or know somebody who has been through it. There will be people who care about you so much that they just want to help you because they love you so much and because they are literally desperate to keep you on the planet.

The bottom line is that whatever you choose is your choice and nobody else’s. I want to point out that regardless of whether we live for another day or until we’re 101, we actually live each and every moment of our days with ourselves. We obviously will spend moments with family, friends, co-workers, total strangers and the like, but the bottom line is that, in the end, every moment always includes ourselves. It’s very important to be at peace with the decisions that you make.

I hope you are able to enjoy the ride to self discovery through these pages. Perhaps enjoy finding the answers to questions you may have about what to do next. Most of all, enjoy your moments day-to-day and trust yourself to do what is best….for you.

Please join me on My Journey and may it help and inspire you on yours - whatever that may be or wherever it may lead you.

"No one saves us but ourselves.

No one can and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path."

— Buddha

Introduction

January 27, 2014… a day I will never forget…a day that is seared into my memory; the day I received the type of news that most of us have nightmares about; the day that began what I call My Journey. That day, which easily could have been labeled My Fateful Day, was the day I received a call at four o’clock from my general practitioner medical doctor telling me that the biopsies taken on my right breast showed up with three areas of cancer, ductal carcinoma to be exact, or cancer in the milk ducts.

You might as well have told me that I was Santa Claus in that moment for the disbelief I felt. It came to me as an intense shock as it did for everybody else in my life. This can’t be happening. After all, I was the person that was so healthy and looked after myself and exercised and always ate the right things. I was so positive and holistic! How could this be? I just remember being so stunned. I was questioning everything in myself and my life and thinking: Why me? This has to be a mistake or a very bad dream!

My memory definitely has its moments of vacancy, but at that four o’clock moment I can actually remember exactly where I was in my house when I received that call. I was on my own at the time and heard the phone ring. Just go answer the phone, Jill… and don’t forget to check the ‘call display’. I’m not in the mood for a sales call for carpet cleaning or chimney sweeping! I saw the caller ID and it said the name of my doctor’s office. My heart sank in my chest. This was the call I was waiting for. This was the moment of truth when I will find out the results of the biopsy of my breast lump from six days ago! When I heard my doctor’s voice, my heart sank down even further. She never calls me. I’ve been a patient of hers for more than 17 years. Why isn’t the nurse calling? Why is SHE calling? I paced around the basement, waiting with my breath almost stopped. She gently delivered the news to me. The serious voice came through the phone with the news. Did I just hear that correctly? The pathology came back and I DO have breast cancer? Wait, what? She said she was sorry to have to call but wanted me to know as soon as possible. Her voice started to fade into the distance as my head started to spin. She then asked me Are you alone at the moment? Are you okay Jill? As I mentioned, I remember exactly where I was in the basement at the time.

Standing still and after saying goodbye to her, I pressed end on the phone. My head was spinning. What? What? That can’t be right! Really? Seriously? How could this be? I immediately went for a walk in the cold, winter-covered forest with my dog, PT, feeling complete shock and disbelief. As I walked along the Bruce Trail, I ran my doctor’s voice and words in my mind over again and again. Is this a dream? Is this really happening? Who do I tell? What do I do now? How did this happen? I kicked through the newly fallen snow like