Ananda Lewis, a base from the golden age of MTV, died this week after a long battle with breast cancer. He was 52 years old.
During the years prior to his death, the beloved television personality aroused controversy in choosing alternative treatments instead of a double mastectomy recommended for the doctor, a decision he raised to the end, although not without regret.
“Do everything in your power to prevent my story from becoming yours,” Lewis wrote in a candidate for Essence published in January, reflecting on the options he made during his illness and long before the cancer went into his life.
Lewis discovered a stroke on his right chest while showering in December 2018. He was slightly larger than a pea and was often experienced mastitis while breastfeeding his son.
MTV’s ex -video and television amfitrio hoped that it would be nothing, but a biopsy the following month revealed a breast cancer of Stage III that had already spread to the lymph nodes.
“For a long time, I have rejected mammograms and this was a mistake,” Lewis shared Instagram when he made public with his diagnosis in October 2020.
“If I had done the mammograms from the moment I was recommended, when I turned 40, they would have taken the tumor in my chest years before I took it through my own self -examination,” he continued.
Despite the advanced stage, Lewis chose to face the diagnosis on his way.
“My life approach is to deal with the things that happen as they happen,” he wrote in essence. “So instead of panic, I made a play plan.”
After seeing that her mother and cousin had a traditional cancer treatment, she rejected the doctors’ advice to submit to surgery to remove both breasts, along with possible chemotherapy and radiation.
“My plan at first was to remove excessive toxins on my body,” Lewis told CNN in an October 2024 interview. “I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of the body in a different way.”
He later admitted that he had doubts about his decision. “Looking back, I go,” Do you know what? Maybe he should have, “he said.
Instead, he did an investigation and reviewed his lifestyle, focusing on diet, detoxification and natural healing.
“My goal was to do things that support the ability of my body to continue to be whole enough to cure -instead of destroying -Lewis wrote it.
He received a monthly ultrasound from a breast surgeon to keep track of the tumor and pledged to a mix of alternative therapies, including high-dose vitamin C, hyperbaric chamber sessions, Qigong, energy work and prayer.
The progress was constant, until the Covid-19 pandemic. California closed and Lewis could no longer access his treatments or explorations. “By the summer of 2020, I felt the tumor growing again,” he wrote.
With limited options in California, he traveled to Arizona, where medical clinics remained open. There, he underwent 16 weeks of integrative treatment, including acupuncture, breeding and low doses chemo.
The results were promising: his cancer fell from Stage III to Stage II, was erased from the lymph nodes, and his tumor was reduced.
But the cost was abrupt. Without insurance, Lewis could not keep his return treatments home and had to pause carefully for more than two years while leaning on herself and his son.
In October 2023, his cancer had advanced towards Stage IV.
He re -entered a treatment at an integrative clinic in southern California. After 12 weeks, in January 2024, his condition had improved significantly. But the toll of years without consistent care was weighed.
“I’m in Clara? No,” he wrote. “But I could have finished here, regardless of the route I took, because I did not go in with the resources I needed to follow the course for all the time.”
Doctors generally recommend jumping surgery for breast cancer, especially in previous stages.
“At stage and at III breast cancer, which is careful, there is no scenario that we can jump out completely,” Dr. Stephanie Downs-Canner told Health, a Sloan Kettering Memorial Breast Surgeon.
Research is constantly demonstrating that women who reject surgery have five -year -old survival rates and are more likely to die of the disease.
Still, Lewis remained firm in his convictions.
“I understand that people do not succeed,” he told the host Rhymes Rhymes on Soulibration in October 2024. “I still feel the right thing to do. I need women to learn from my mistakes. I need them to learn from my victories.”
Lewis also said he regretted the factors he now believes he contributed to his illness: from chronic stress to poor nutrition and jumped the projections.
“If I had known what I know ten years ago, I may not have ended here,” he wrote in essence. “I would have been doing all the things I have been forced to do now, to prevent my body from creating more cancer and eliminating what he has already done.”
He urged women to manage stress, sleep well, stay active, get enough vitamin D, moisturizing, clean eating and avoiding environmental toxins.
“Increase your knowledge of how to avoid getting here first,” Lewis wrote. “Prevention is true care.”
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among North -American women after skin cancer, with one in eight planned to develop during their lifetime. The rates increase, especially among the younger women and those who are Americans or islanders of the Pacific, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Despite significant advances in early treatment and detection, breast cancer is still the second cause of death from cancer among women, behind only lung cancer.
Black women are disproportionately affected, facing higher mortality rates at each age.
By 2025, the ACS hopes that 316,950 cases of invasive breast cancer are diagnosed in the United States and 42,170 women will die from the disease.
Most major medical groups recommend that women at average risk begin annual mammograms at the age of 40, according to Breatcancer.org.
Those who are at higher risk, due to family history, genetics or other factors, are usually recommended to start annual mammograms at 30 and breast RMN between 25 and 35 years.
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