At age 58, Chris Collins noticed tiny red dots on her legs and feet, and several large bruises on her legs. A worried friend urged her to visit a doctor, and after blood tests, bone marrow biopsies, and being told that she had something serious—they just didn’t know what—a doctor diagnosed her with aplastic anemia, a rare blood disorder that affects only three in one million people. The doctor gave her three to six months to live.
BUT.....Chris rejected the doctor's sentence. She chose to navigate mainstream medical treatments and alternative modalities to ultimately find her way to heal. She explores meditation, Chinese medicine, diet change, and significant lifestyle changes to reduce her stress. Chris discovers that a lifetime of stress, beginning with abuse from an alcoholic mother and leading to being a full-time caregiver for her disabled son, had helped to bring her body to its breaking point. Her diet of nutritionally deficient foods and eating foods that she had reactions to (dairy, gluten) was the other major factor in developing aplastic anemia. Chris ultimately decides to pursue only alternative healing, and three-and-a-half years after her initial diagnosis, blood tests confirmed that Chris had completely recovered.
