Sarah Hughes & her family need your support!

This is Sarah’s story:

I am very lucky and privileged to be a mum to identical two year old twin sons, a beautiful six year old daughter and wife to a brilliant
and supportive husband. Life is chaotic and very busy from morning to night, with sometimes seemingly endless jobs to do but I love it. I’ve fought hard to be a mum and I have grown to appreciate the ups and downs that are part of family life. I feel incredibly lucky. But if I could change one thing it would be to stop the spread of my metastatic stage four triple negative breast cancer which, after three surgeries, 26 chemotherapy infusions and 14 radiotherapy sessions over two years,
is still intent on spreading through my body. It has now come back and has spread to my liver and upper chest. Triple negative is a rare form
of breast cancer affecting between 10-20% of women globally and predominantly younger women (and some men). It is the hardest breast cancer to treat as there are fewer treatment options available and
therefore has a poor prognosis. This is the third time the cancer has come back aggressively and this time the diagnosis is extremely bleak. Put simply, there is no medical cure for it.

Following my second recurrence in March 2020 I reached out to a fellow mum of twins who had gone through a miraculous recovery from recurrent bowel cancer. She pointed me in the direction of Jane McLelland’s bestselling book ‘How to Starve Cancer - without starving yourself’. This is a story of Jane who through the basic principles of the
Warburg theory (cancer needs fuel to grow) pieced together a protocol of off label drugs and supplements which allowed her to beat incurable cancer four times. She has been cancer free for almost 20 years. I devoured the book in 48 hours, completely mind blown by the very simple idea: if chemotherapy is killing off the active cancer cells then what is feeding my cancer and making it grow in the first place?

This question has led to almost a year of research into over 200 medical and scientific studies into the metabolic drivers of breast
cancer, how cancers mutate and adapt, how the health of your body can either help or hinder your recovery. What I have found out is that cancer isn’t just a genetic disease, it is triggered by weakness in the body (inflammation) and other factors such as diet and levels of exercise. While making lifestyle changes to treat cancer may not sound
particularly groundbreaking, it was the metabolic drivers (the fuel, if you like) that fascinated me the most. This is where I have
focussed my research between nappy changes, making snacks, lunches and
dinners, reading stories and taking the kids out for walks.

I am not a doctor, a scientist or a health professional. I am a mum of 3 children who I desperately want to see grow up. I am a wife, a
daughter, a sister, a friend. I had a successful career in visual arts which I loved and have sadly had to leave in order to focus on my
health. I am teaching myself elements of micro biology and medicine, natural compounds, repurposed drugs through clinical studies and
reviews. This research has now become my new ‘job’ and focus as I attempt to get better. I believe I can control my disease with an
integrative approach. I start my 3rd line (and one of the last lines of chemotherapy available to me) in March 2021. I’m trying to find the right synergy and work out the right combinations and I think I am edging closer to working out how to control my disease in order to live a normal life with my family.

When I found out that the growth of triple negative breast cancer is largely driven by glucose, glutamine and amino acids found in protein I understood that making changes to my diet could help my conventional treatment. I also learnt, through Jane’s book, that blocking certain growth pathways within the body can help hold back and control cancer, and in some cases cause remission. Blocking these pathways can be done
by taking certain widely available drugs, natural supplements and eating a healthy diet. It is important that this is done in addition
to, and not instead of traditional cancer care such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In theory, this should hold cancer at bay, slow down growth or create remission. In fact Care Oncology Clinic, London and USA are conducting a study using 5 key drugs and I am taking part in this study.

Since these mind blowing discoveries I’ve focussed research on my own specific cancer, which is so aggressive that it uses all the growth pathways to grow and spread. I’ve since made dramatic changes to my diet and lifestyle and I have been trying to piece together a complex jigsaw puzzle of scientific and medical information, cross referencing
papers trying to work out how to solve and stop my cancer from spreading to the point that my organs fail. Now my cancer has spread
to my liver, the task is ever more urgent.

In doing this research into the integrative treatment of breast cancer I have connected with other cancer patients across the globe and have found an underground network of ordinary people who are simply trying
to find ways to stay alive. There are stories of miraculous recoveries, there are stories of stable disease, there are stories of protocols that have worked and haven’t worked. There is some sadness but there is an overwhelming sense of hope for the future and I am
holding onto the future with both hands. My ambition is to continue my research and to help other cancer patients to understand that cancer may well be a chronic disease that can be lived with rather than a death sentence. With cancer affecting so many people’s lives, this feels more important than ever.

It has often been said that a patient will one day find the cure to cancer. But with no available cures on the table perhaps we need to look for ways that we can live with cancer and that is what I am trying to do.

Many people have felt helpless in knowing how to support me and my family. Many friends have suggested setting up this page to give those wanting to help us the opportunity to do so. If you would like to make a donation to us, any funds raised will go towards ongoing costs of integrative therapies, innovative treatments not currently
available in the UK and help with looking after our children whilst I undergo chemotherapy. We have set a target of £50,000.

If you would like to read more about my story and progress you can follow my pictures and writing on my private Instagram account:
https://instagram.com/livelife____________?igshid=3szmb0c7x7tf