Welcome to Grounded Wellness, your go to podcast for
simplified and trusted information on how to live a
more non-toxic and holistic life.
We're your hosts. I'm Bethany McDaniel, founder of
Primarily Pure biohacking enthusiast and mom of three.
And I'm Courtney O'Connor, holistic esthetician with over
15 years experience in the healing power of touch and
holistic skin care rituals. In today's episode, I am so
excited to welcome our friend Taylor Duke, Functional
Medicine. As a Nurse practitioner.
Two years ago, Taylor was faced with a shocking and life
altering cancer diagnosis. She utilized a number of
different alternative practices and treatments in addition to
surgery to heal. In fact, she even shrunk her
brain tumor in half without chemo or radiation.
Taylor has such a heart for helping others experience deep
healing and also providing approachable advice on diet and
lifestyle. Her story is one that you will
never forget. Let's dig in.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Grounded Wellness.
We are here with Taylor Dukes, my good friend and functional
medicine provider and we're switching things up today.
We're having Taylor Dukes Wellness lemonade mixed with
matcha green tea. Cheers.
OK, so just to give everyone some background, Taylor and I
known each other for a while now.
We've met through our mutual friend Allison Evans, who is one
of the Branch Basics Co founders, and I know your story
very well at this point, but I'm so excited to talk to you about
it in even more detail and to share it with our community.
I'm so honored to be here. Yeah, thank you.
Getting into your background a little bit, we know that you're
traditionally trained as a nurse practitioner.
But before we get into your story, give us the Cliff Notes
on why you transitioned to functional medicine after
spending time in the world of conventional medicine.
So I always say, and people need to understand what conventional
and functional or integrative holistic medicine is in the
conventional medical model. It's our traditional doctors,
care providers, nurse practitioners, nurses.
And, you know, we're really good at diagnosing things as far as
coming up with a name for symptoms.
And we have prescriptions and we have diagnostic procedures, but
you don't really ask the why question of like, why is this
happening? And so that's the conventional
world. It's really, really great for
trauma emergency situations. But then the holistic,
integrative kind of functional side of care is more getting to
the root cause and asking the why question.
Like, yeah, you have all these symptoms, but why?
And so I got into this field not because I was smart, but because
I was sick. And I always say a lot of my
colleagues that got into this world, we didn't get into it
because we're like, let's be a trailblazer and be healthy and
be different. You know, we don't learn this in
school. We get into it because we're
sick and we're desperate and the medical system usually fails us.
And that was my story. And so I was sick, and that's
how I got into it. OK, So what happened all those
years ago? How did you get sick?
How did you get better? What did that look like?
Yeah, so I was a healthy kid growing up.
I grew up in, my mom was very healthy.
She had home cooked meals. You know, I was a traditional
college kid and, you know, like to eat out and do the whole fast
food thing, but I never had health issues.
And then after I graduated from nursing school, I had the
opportunity to do some medical mission trips abroad in both
Africa and Ecuador. And I started getting sick
abroad and I would have little symptoms like, you know, I, my
stomach wasn't well and I would just be like, oh, that's
traveler's diarrhea. That's normal.
You know, take my Cipro that my doctor prescribed, which is an
antibiotic to treat, you know, traveler's diarrhea.
But it was all these little things kept adding up.
And because I was there for a longer period of time, I just
kept getting sicker and sicker. And then when I was in Ecuador,
it was like getting to the point where I couldn't function.
I couldn't eat without being in pain.
And I ultimately ended my time there on that kind of medical
mission trip and got flown home to the States.
And that's when I think I realized I've always been really
positive and kind of like a power through kind of person.
And I couldn't. Like, I couldn't.
And it was so confusing because I was never the sick kid growing
up. So yeah, I just had a lot of
symptoms. I had tons of stomach issues.
My skin was a wreck. I never had preteen acne, but I
had inflamed cystic acne in my face and I had joint pain.
Like I didn't even know what my joints were like.
I'm like, you're not supposed to feel your joints at 22 years
old. And yeah, terrible joint pain.
I had days where I couldn't get out of bed.
It was, it was debilitating. And my hair was falling out.
I just had a myriad of symptoms and so I was going from
specialist to specialist, doctor to doctor and just kind of
bouncing around, you know, they'd all do different.
Well, let's order this test. This looks fine.
So let's move to this. We'll do this intervention.
Let's do a colonoscopy. We'll start you on this
medicine. And I just, I felt convicted
because here I am. I'm like a nurse, you know, I'm
a trained RN at this point, registered nurse and my whole
job and the purpose of my life is to advocate for my patients.
And I can't advocate for myself. I was just lost going from
doctor to doctor. And then I started to feel crazy
because I'm like, well, they say it's normal and looking back,
I'm like none of it was normal, but they just didn't have
reasons or answers for me. So they were just shuffling out,
let's try this prescription. Well, let's do this procedure.
We didn't find anything. Let's do this and so.
Yeah, just matching up a prescription with a symptom and
trying to tackle it that way, Yes.
And so eventually I know that you fell into the world of
functional medicine. I How did that happen?
How did you find out about that? Yeah.
So I was going to doctor to doctor and specialist to
specialist and my mom who grew up really healthy.
And again, I was never the sick kid.
And she at that point in my life, my mom was living in Santa
Barbara and I was in Austin. And I remember she came to just
kinda like help me with stuff like clean my apartment.
And I was kinda telling her like mom, I'm not feeling good.
I'm not able to work like my mom was just like, this is not you
like what is going on. And when she came to see me, she
was like, I realized just how bad you were.
Like I couldn't even I would take naps in my car before I
would walk upstairs to my apartment.
Like that's how tired I was not normal.
So my mom was the one advocating for me to go see kind of one of
these naturopath Dr. whatevers. And I was like, that's hocus
pocus. That's woo woo.
I don't believe in that. There's no evidence behind that.
But I was also desperate. So I was like, fine, what do I
have to lose? What are they going to tell me
to change my diet? You know what I mean?
And, and so anyway, she ended up finding a functional medicine
doctor in MD at that point in Austin.
And she did all this testing. She was asking me about like,
were you sick when you grew up? Did you have strep throat?
Did you get the HPV vaccine? I mean, she went through all
these different things that I'm like, I don't know, what does
that have to do? I'm sick now.
I wasn't sick then, but she kind of like tied all the pieces of
the puzzle together. She changed my diet, my
lifestyle. She finally had answers.
You know, she was like, you have parasite overload and you have
heavy metal toxicity. My mercury was off the charts.
And so she was able to give me answers finally.
And that's when I was just like, I went all in.
I was like, I'll change my diet, I'll do anything.
And I was able to get off all my medicine and which I think there
are times and places for medicine.
I'm not trying to be prideful and say, but I was thankfully
able to get off and I felt good. I had my life back, my energy
and I was good and I was convinced I was like this just
like saved my life and changed my life.
Yeah, it's amazing. And no other doctor I'm sure had
run those same types of tests as she did.
Yeah, and if anything, they'd be like, well, we don't really
know. And she had so many answers,
which was such a blessing. And it literally changed my life
so much so that I was like, I need to do this.
I need to figure out how I can help people in the way that I've
been helped. And so I went back to go get
like a nutrition certification. And I ended up being Amy Meyer.
She's a New York Times bestselling author and medical
doctor. And I was her nurse at her
practice for years. And I ended up going back to
nurse practitioner school because I'm like, I want to help
people heal how I did. You know, I felt amazing.
I was off these prescriptions. I changed my diet, gotten rid of
chemicals. I was mindful of what I was
putting on my body. And this is back in 2013 when it
wasn't, like, super cool. Yeah.
And so, yeah, it just changed my life and changed the trajectory
of my career. And I, you know, opened a
Wellness Center and started my private practice after I became
a nurse practitioner. And life was good.
I was like, I'm able to help people in the way that I was
healed. And I really believed in it
because not just changed my life, but I started seeing it
change thousands of other people's lives, that whole body.
Approach finally, like solving issues instead of just masking
symptoms. So that all happened about 12
years ago. Things were good.
You had a thriving practice, a family, husband, two kids.
And then about two years ago, you were given perv Ball when
you were gifted a preventative cancer scan that ended up
discovering a brain tumor. Tell us about that moment that
you were diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Where were you and what did that feel like?
It was almost two years ago, which is crazy in a few weeks
and we were on a family vacation.
I had done my preventative full body scan and I didn't think
anything of it. You know, I'm like, I have a
baby, I'm nursing at the time and I have a three-year old.
And we were at the beach in Texas and I was breastfeeding my
son on the beach. It was just a normal day and it
started raining and we were like, well, we have a bunch of
kids. We were with the cousins, which
was such a blessing. My mom, my sister were there and
we're like, let's take the kids to the aquarium.
We got energy to burn. And so we're on the way to the
aquarium, and I got an e-mail that basically said your ponuva
scan results are ready. And so I was like, gosh, I'm so
excited. You know, like, I have no
symptoms. I'm not worried about anything.
I'm just excited to learn so that I can share with the world
and share with my patients. And I'll never forget, I opened
up the app and everything's either green, yellow or red.
And there was a red thing. And it said like, abnormal
finding with an exclamation mark.
And I remember feeling like, what the heck?
And no one had called me or anything.
And so I'm just open up the app and I see like, I don't even
remember exactly what I saw first, but I remember just
reading everything really quickly.
And we're driving to the aquarium and I'm like, my gosh,
they found a brain tumor. And I look at my husband and you
know, me, I'm like the biggest jokester ever.
And so my husband's like, no, you're kidding.
And I'm like, no. And so I'm scrolling and I'm
like, my God, there's a picture like this does not take a anyone
to like, my gosh, even if you're not a radiologist, you look at
my brain scan, which you probably have seen at this
point, I don't know if you have, but it's a huge white mass.
Like it does not take a trained eye to look and be like, that's
not normal. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, what
the heck? Didn't know what to make of it.
I didn't know what to think of it.
But the differential diagnosis, which it is a list of what it
could be. It said lymphoma, metastatic
disease, you know, glioblastoma, oligodendroglioma, astrocytoma,
basically this whole list and a lot of it I didn't understand at
the time, but I know what a glioblastoma is.
And that's like one of the scariest types of cancer you can
get. I mean, people sometimes make it
months, maybe a year. Sometimes people don't make it 2
years. And so I, it was my stomach.
It just, I was so sick to my stomach.
I immediately called the company trying to get on the phone with
somebody. They're like trying to find
people that are practitioners. And so yeah, it was, it was
scary. And I felt like life just
stopped because I'm like, what, what just happened?
And I think the craziest part about this whole story is that I
never had symptoms. So I was also in denial because
I'm like, this isn't me. And then I'm going through my
mind. I'm like, OK, vision, hearing,
balance, personality, memory, seizures, like I had headaches,
nothing. I've never even had a headache
in my leg at this point. So I'm like, this is not me.
Like a little bit of denial, but a little bit of shock and like,
waste my life over. Like, am I gonna make it to next
year? So it was.
I can only imagine how shocking and jarring that must have been.
And I remember you even saying you thought like, this has to be
someone else's scam, like there has to be a mistake because like
you said, you had no symptoms. And typically people do have
symptoms at that point. So I know that there were a lot
of people, including first and foremost yourself, who were
shocked to find out that you had a brain tumor when you announced
that you had a brain tumor. But I also know that it all kind
of makes sense to you now cuz even though you are healthy,
there is a lot more to how brain tumors form and how that works.
Can you walk us through that? So I think and even to this day,
people that like I had already had an Instagram and A blog and
a thriving practice and Wellness Center at this point in my life.
And so people kind of look to me as like someone that can give
health advice. And I think it was like the
whole world was shocked, including me.
Like, I'm like, what? I have a brain tumor.
But what I've learned and even what my traditional, you know,
neurosurgeon and oncologist have said is that it usually takes
years for these tumors to form. And so I was told that it had
likely been there eight to 10 years.
Well, if you look back at my health timeline, that is when I
was really sick. And so basically my immune
system was suppressed. You know, come to find out and
what we know a lot, you know, I had Lyme disease.
I had, and I want people to hear me say this, just because you've
been diagnosed with these things does not mean you're gonna get a
brain tumor. There's a lot of fear, but it
was the perfect storm in my story.
You know, I had gut issues, I had Lyme disease.
I had mono at this time when I was really sick, thyroid issues.
I had the perfect storm and my immune system was suppressed and
that is what allowed these, you know, abnormal cells to keep
mutating and growing. And I also went through a lot of
trauma at this point in my life, which also suppressed my immune
system. People don't talk about enough
about how the body and how trauma, it's not just something
that affects us mentally, it's physically the body keeps the
score. And so my story was just the
perfect timeline. You know, these abnormal cells
started to mutate and grow and grow and then tumor formation.
And there's something called the cancer cascade.
And it's like the perfect storm. And we actually all at any given
point in time have circulating tumor cells, cancer cells, and
basically our immune system. The job, the way that God
designed our body is that it goes and takes care of those
abnormal cells. But when your immune system is
suppressed and it can't do what it's created to do, they get out
of control. And then it takes years for
tumors to form and then for people to become symptomatic.
So by the time someone finds a tumor, it's been years in the
making, right? It's not just like this happened
overnight. And that was my story.
And when people told me 8 to 10 years, I'm like, I didn't know a
lot about cancer at that time because this is all new to me.
But I would, I was able to look back and say that's exactly when
I was really sick. And it had been growing since
then. Now I think the question too is
like, would I have become symptomatic?
I don't know. Did it stop growing because of
my lifestyle? And I never would have known if
it weren't for this incidental thing.
I don't know and I don't have the answers.
I'm not God, but I'm just grateful we found it the way
that we did and was able to take action.
Absolutely. And I want to talk about what
you did do and your whole treatment protocol.
But first I I want to know what conventional cancer care gets
wrong. Like, walk us through why you
decided to not go the conventional route with your
treatment. The conventional cancer route is
surgery, chemo, radiation, immunotherapy, sometimes some
different clinical trial drugs and things like that.
And I am not against traditional oncology.
I think it definitely has its times and places for certain
types of cancer. But where I think our medical
system and the oncology system as a whole is getting it wrong
is no one's asking the why question like, why did this
cancer occur? And what can we do to change the
body to create an environment where cancer can't live in, You
know, and that's why recurrence is so high as you see someone go
into remission and they're healed and they ring the bell.
And then two to five years later it comes back and it might be in
a different organ. And I'm not negative and not,
I'm not trying to be pessimistic.
I'm just trying to be real and say that like, if you don't
address why the cancer occurred in the 1st place, then of course
it's going to come back. You know, you're, you have to
change the entire terrain of why the cancer occurred in the 1st
place and address any pathogens, the immune system, unresolved
trauma, exposure to certain things.
And so that's where I think our cancer system gets it wrong.
I'm not against all conventional treatment.
I mean, heck, I had brain surgery.
That's a very conventional intervention.
I had surgery a year ago or last year, a year and a half.
But yeah, they don't ask the why question and they don't try to
prevent recurrence. Yeah.
And then they just are focused on kill, kill, kill.
Right. And I think that's so evident in
just the increase in cancer rates.
I mean, there's more awareness than ever, yet we are not seeing
an improvement and in fact, we're seeing the opposite.
And more funding, yes, like we have more and more dollars, but
the rates are. Off the chart, yeah.
And even in people in the most, right in the last four years, I
think there's been a massive increase in cancer rates in
young people. What do you attribute that to?
I think it's kind of a perfect storm.
And even with my story, I don't think it's just one thing.
I really think it's multiple drops in the bucket.
And what I mean by that is that this day and age, we have to, we
have to work on our health. Like we have to be mindful of
the products we use in our skin. We have to be mindful of what we
eat. Our food supply is not the same.
You know, we're constantly inundated with EMS and
technology like we were never created to do that.
We're all stressed and working at a pace of life that we just,
I don't think God created us to live at this pace at, you know,
the vaccine schedule changed in 1988 and a lot more vaccines
were added to that. You know, it's just, it's the
perfect storm of all the chemicals, the toxins, our
environment. But you know, very little
cancers actually are caused by genetic mutations and there are
cancers that are just not genetic component what we are
believed. That cancer is almost entirely
genetic, and that there's almost nothing we can do about it.
And then people feel doomed and it's like, I just got these
genetics and I'm like, no, actually you have the ability,
it's called epigenetics, to change the expression of your
genes through the lifestyle that you lead.
Now, we're not God, we're not control of everything, but there
are things that we can do. And I feel like now more than
ever, we have to make a conscious effort to take care of
ourselves and advocate for ourselves and minimize our toxic
exposure and. Fuel our bodies with healthy
foods because the government's not doing it.
Our doctors, sadly, they're just not trained.
I was trained through the same medical system.
They just don't know, You know, the textbooks are outdated.
The pharmaceutical companies have a big influence in what
even goes into those textbooks. So there's definitely a lot
wrong with the system. So what did you end up doing?
Yeah, I know you have. You have a whole care team.
How did you piece that together and what did that look like?
When I was first diagnosed, I, you know, we were on our family
vacation, which was a blessing. We were able to process.
I mean, I'm like, what the heck, You know, we were able to get in
with a neurosurgeon three to four days later locally to get
more advanced imaging to really look at what we thought it was.
And he was basically like, it doesn't look like leoblastoma,
but you have a huge tumor in your brain and it's a matter of
time before you come symptomatic.
But like, we don't have to do surgery tomorrow.
You know, this is a weird freak finding.
He was like, how? Big was the tumor.
It was the size of a plum when they took it out, which is huge.
And I think a lot of people, they think the tumor is just
sitting on your brain. It actually the kind that I had
grows within your brain. So it invades healthy brain
tissue. And so he basically was like,
get your affairs in order. I mean, it was, I was diagnosed
September. It was my son's 1st birthday, it
was Thanksgiving, Christmas, our wedding anniversary, my
birthday, all within three months.
And so it just felt like, Oh my gosh, you know, like this is a
lot. Were you pretty depressed?
Were you hopeful? Were you kind of going back and
forth between the two? I look back and I even I could
cry because I look back at stories and I'm like, and just
pictures and things that I posted and I'm like, I God just
gave me supernatural faith and hope beyond my circumstances.
Like it was not me. I like literally glory to God
because I think I was in go mode because I was like, I'm going to
live and I'm going to see my kids grow up and I'm going to
fight. But I also just by the grace of
God, I just was able to get by one day at a time.
And I had a lot of hard days. Like of course, I feared like a
song would come on and I'm like, Oh my gosh, am I going to be
able to be at my son's first dance?
You know, it was like it was a really hard time and life slowed
down and I really was able to focus on what mattered.
But we also had to, like, execute a living will and find a
surgeon and all these things. But I knew that the cancer
didn't happen overnight. And I did a deep dive on
integrative care. And I'd always known about Hope
for Cancer, which is, you know, an integrative holistic center
in Mexico, which sounds so sketchy, but it's not It's
amazing. It's this Christian healing
center. It's just so wonderful.
So I knew I was like, OK, it'd be awesome if we could shrink
this brain tumor, Lord willing. But if not, at least I can
prepare my body for surgery. And so I actually waited five
months before surgery. Not everybody gets to do that.
But again, because I wasn't symptomatic, I didn't feel like
I didn't want to rush into a decision and fear.
And I did. I slowed down, I prayed, I did
so much research and I found the perfect care team.
So I went there for two weeks. I flew to California to go see
Doctor Kennelly, who's still is my doctor that I call her the
quarterback on my care team. She just, I love her so dearly.
She just overseas my care. She's just such a good voice of
reason. And yeah, so she I established
care with her. I even changed my diet more.
I went into more of a metabolic ketosis and did all sorts of
therapies and that was five months leading up to surgery.
And then I found a brain surgeon out in Arizona.
And in those five months we were actually able to shrink my brain
tumor in half, which is truly a miracle.
Like it's unheard of. Like even people that do chemo
and radiation may not even have a treatment response.
So I mean, yes. And there are some days where
I'm like. I wish I just ate Whataburger
and did nothing and like, could just give all the credit and
glory to God, which it is him at the end of the day, right?
Like, but I really do think he's using my story to show people
that like taking an integrative approach, like there is purpose
to it, you know? And so, yeah, I was really
grateful. And then I had surgery a year
and a half ago, February 1st 2023, to remove it.
And was anyone in your life skeptical about the approach you
were taking or did? Was there anyone that
discouraged you from going that route?
You know, no, not that anyone that spoke up, I'm sure people
had those feelings and thoughts like I, I'm sure people did that
were close to us, but I think they trusted me enough to know
that like, OK, but some people, I did have a few people be like
you, you really need to get this out.
This is really serious. And I'm like, I know, but I'm
also, I probably had this for a long time and I'm not
symptomatic and I also didn't want to walk around with a brain
tumor in my head. Like, of course, every time I
drove my kids, I'd be like, I don't have a seizure, you know?
But no one really, like, butted heads with me.
I think they just trusted me and knew that I was going to
ultimately get surgery. And I wasn't totally writing off
conventional. But yeah, no one said anything
to my face. Maybe a couple people were like,
that's crazy. I don't know that I'd do that.
It's incredible that you were able to shrink your tumor in
half by just utilizing natural and alternative therapies.
And I know you mentioned you were in ketosis, deep ketosis
for a lot of that time. What are some of the more like
advanced bio hacky alternative therapies that you used during
that time? Yeah, So I incorporated a lot.
I'm trying to think like, what would a day of my life and
treatment be like? And so I did ozone.
I did a lot more frequent coffee enemas rectal.
What kind of ozone, OK. Rectal ozone and then also I did
EBOO which is like ozone on steroids, basically filters your
blood and ozonates it. I did that.
I did something called Indo laser.
It's where you do Ivs and you basically send laser frequency
and light. I did.
I wore a red light helmet. For those of y'all that watched
my journey, I kind of shared a lot of it and still have a lot
of highlights on Instagram. It just would be like another
day in my office with my red light helmet.
I did molecular hydrogen oxygen therapy.
Gosh, I took I still do take quite a bit of supplements, tons
of supplements and then sauna. I just upped my detox.
Anything that helps support the immune system.
High dose vitamin Civ curcumin, IV artessinate, I mean literally
so many things. So red light bed, hyperbaric
oxygen chamber hyperthermia. So I did a lot, but I also in
addition to the herbs and all the therapies I did, I changed
my diet, I did all the supplements, I did all the
therapies. You know, I actually did a lot
of emotional and trauma work because that's part of feeling.
And I again, I had a lot of trauma in my life and so just
making sure that I was addressing that.
What else did I do? Oh, I did repurpose off label
drugs and medications, which not a lot of people know about this,
but there are FDA approved drugs that are not approved for the
purpose of certain cancers, but that can affect certain
metabolic pathways. And so for me, like I was on
several and I still am, I still do off label drugs.
So it's it's a drug that's approved, but it's just off
label for the purpose of why we're using it.
And so. And a lot of those will target
parasites, right? And those aren't something that
just any oncologist is going to prescribe.
No, they would actually think that's totally crazy.
Yeah. And but yeah, no.
And I still, you know, I'm on a fungal and a parasite protocol
because we know that I had a huge parasitic and fungal load,
which do stress and tax the immune system.
And if I want my immune system to be optimal to fight off any
abnormal cells. And that's the other thing
people ask me too. They're like, why?
You're cancer free. You don't have a tumor in your
brain. But it's like the recurrence
rate even of what I had is so high.
And so I'm, you know, I'm like, I'm preventing recurrence and I
am becoming even healthier. And again, I felt good, but my
immune system, there was something that was hindering and
suppressing. And then a lot of it's the Lyme
and coinfections that I've had for years too.
Yeah. And I think you've mentioned
this either an e-mail or social, but you're the type of parasite
that that you had has actually been linked to brain tumors even
by the American Cancer. Society.
So there's something called I had multiple parasites, but one
of the parasites that we identified, I actually drew this
on my tap myself because I'm a provider.
And so I'm like, I ran the whole test and this is such a God
thing that I found this out. But basically there's a parasite
called Toxoplasma gondi that can cross the blood brain barrier
and the International Journal of Cancer and the American Cancer
Society link. When you have that positive in
your blood, the antibodies, you're more likely to have a low
grade glioma. And that's exactly what I had.
And it's young middle-aged people.
And so it's like, here's conventional treatment linking
this. And even a lot of people don't
know this, but EBV, Epstein Barr virus, mono, that's actually a
Class 1 carcinogen like that is a known cause of cancer.
Wow. So again.
I have EBV. Yeah, it's a lot of you're doing
all the things, yes, and but it's like you.
Have to help support your immune system and that's where ozone
and all these supportive therapies come into play.
Is there one or a few things that you feel like made just by
far the biggest impact on your healing out of everything?
You know, and it's the biggest question, the $1,000,000
question of like, Oh my gosh, what did Taylor do that shrunk
her brain tumor? And even Doctor Kennelly and I
will never know because we threw the whole kitchen sink at it.
And I don't want to guess. I don't want to know.
I'm just grateful that I am where I am.
But one thing I can say is that after brain surgery, I really
struggled with overstimulation and I think I realized the value
and importance of nervous system health, which is just a fancy
word for managing your stress and being at peace.
And just realizing, you know, like I owned 3 businesses at the
time and I think it was a crossroads in my life of just
like Taylor, just cuz you can do these things, should you?
You know, And I think also when you're given a terminal
diagnosis, I say that because I don't believe that yes, it's
life limiting for everybody and all that.
But I choose to live my life like I am healed and I am going
to live a long life. And mindset is important.
But it was very humbling. And it was really faced with,
like, how do I wanna spend my days?
Do I wanna spend them grinding? Or do I want to have flexibility
to make memories with my children and travel and go to
treatment facilities? And so, yeah, decreasing my
stress load was really, really big, especially after surgery.
I didn't have a choice. And you're recovering from brain
surgery. Like sounds, lights,
overcommitments, loud areas, airports, like it was just
overload. And it was things that I've
never struggled with. And so I feel like the biggest
thing that I've taken away is that stress and nervous system
health and trauma and emotional trauma can be really, really
big. And healing from any disease,
whether it's autoimmune, cancer, whatever it may be, it's just
important. Yeah, absolutely.
Especially like you mentioned in this world there is so much
stimulation from devices, from artificial light, so many things
like that everyone should be mindful of regardless of whether
or not you you have a diagnosis. You mentioned that recurrence
rate was really high for your particular type of cancer and I
think for a lot of types of cancers what what is the reason
for that? Because I think people just
don't address why it occurred in the 1st place.
You know, it kind of goes back to the terrain theory.
You have to take care of the terrain in which the cancer grew
in order to not prevent it to come back.
Because if you just throw chemo and throw meds and radiation,
then you know, like you're not really resolving, you're killing
it. But then some of those things
like, you know, there are certain cancer treatments like
brain radiation. We know that radiation causes
brain cancer, right? And it's such a high dose.
And so some of the treatments for cancer are actually some of
the known carcinogens. Of cancer.
Yeah, like tamoxifen, which I'm not saying it's bad, people need
at times and places to shut down estrogen, but it's, you know, a
lot of people are on tamoxifen and that's a Class 1 carcinogen.
So we have to think like, what is worth it?
And then what can we do harm with, you know?
And so, yeah, even when I shared like, hey, guys, I have no
evidence of disease, like per my scans.
And I still have clear scans and I still will do scans for the
rest of my life. Lord willing, we'll get further
and further out. We don't have to do them as
frequently. But even when I shared like I'm,
I'm healed, I have no cancer. People are like, well,
technically you still have leftover cancer cells, so you'll
never be cured. And I'm like, well, I don't
choose to live my life way. I believe I'm healed.
I have no evidence of disease. My, my, my scan says that my
doctor's in agreement and I'm walking in that freedom and
healing. Do you think that if you would
have kept going with all of the the full plan, everything that
you were doing that you might have been able to completely
shrink the tumor eventually and and not have the surgery?
Was that ever something you considered?
Yeah, you know, I, so here's the crazy thing is we actually
didn't find out that the tumor had shrunk until after surgery
because I did a pre op MRI like the day before surgery, so the
surgeon could map everything and get clear margins and know
exactly like blood vessels and everything.
And I didn't find out that it had shrunk until like a week
after brain surgery. I was getting all my medical
records and report. And so in my mind, I kind of
view that like that was God's plan.
I was supposed to get surgery and I wasn't supposed to find
out that it shrank. And honestly, we didn't think it
was cancer. We knew that it was a brain
tumor, but we didn't think that it was cancerous.
And so I'm really grateful that I did get clear margins because
prognosis and statistics show that when you get it out, your
survival rate is better. And so I don't know if it would
have fully shrunk and resolved. It could have, but that wasn't
my story. And I'm just, I'm grateful for I
know, you know and trust that the Lord has led me through all
the steps, even brain surgery that was so hard that I was
supposed to have that as part of my story.
So I know your brain surgery. Was successful, but also I can
imagine an extremely difficult thing to go through and you were
just mentioning to the crew offline that a chunk of your
brain is actually missing now. So what has recovery looked like
and what his life looked like since brain surgery?
Yeah, I don't think anyone prepare you enough for a brain
surgery. And you can't compare every
case. They're not the same.
You know, I was so fortunate I was out of surgery and in
recovery. And my husband, he said he'll
never forget. He almost cried because I was
talking. I knew where I was.
I was telling the nurses to get the catheter out.
I'm like giving nurses orders or nurse practitioner orders.
And you know, I was so fortunate I went to ICUI, got up and
walked to the bathroom. And I'm also, I'm a good
patient, but I must like, I know what it takes to get well and
get to a step down unit. And so I was like, I want to go
to the bathroom. This is good, Get my bowels
moving, you know. And so anyway, I went to the
bathroom and I was walking six hours after brain surgery and I
was discharged straight from ICU 24 hours later, which is also
kind of unheard of. My surgeon is amazing.
He has a little bit more or less invasive approach and that's why
I chose him in Arizona. But yeah, the recovery itself, I
mean, I didn't have to go to speech OT occupational physical
therapy. You know, some people have
paralysis on one side. You know, there's a lot of
variations of how someone can be after brain surgery.
So All in all limitations, I'm so blessed and everything's been
intact. But I'd be lying if I said it's
just been easy and it's all good because it's not.
It's drastically affected my life.
And you know, I struggled with insomnia.
I've never had sleep issues in my life.
You know, we traveled last summer and it was so hard for me
to sleep and over stimulation and sounds.
You know, I had to start wearing headphones in public and
traveling and even with my kids, you know, I have two young kids
and the dog would bark and I just, I couldn't proofread,
which is a huge part of my job, you know what I mean?
Proofreading content. And yeah, so a lot of things
felt overwhelming, but All in all, like I can function on a
day-to-day basis. I mentioned at the time, you
know, I did own several businesses and I was like, this
is too much. I can't do this.
You know, I have to heal. And they say the brain can take
a year to heal. And that's, that's pretty true.
And on par. I do pretty good.
I do pretty damn good. And I'm so blessed.
Yeah. Most people don't know.
Ever know. Yeah.
Ever. Unless.
Having not known your story, yeah.
And what are some of the things that you're doing now to
continue to support your nervous system?
I know we we've talked about it. We do a lot of the same things,
but. But tell our audience what you
do. Grounding.
Big fan of grounding. I noticed a big shift especially
when I travel. Travel days are still hard for
me. Just the lights, the sound, the
airport. Whenever there's a lot going on,
I have a hard time with my brain processing.
Like whenever there's a ton going on, it's just like whoa,
you know, like a kids birthday party.
I'm trying to watch my kids and so I noticed when I go.
Parent for sure. Really.
Especially I can imagine. Like see, and so many people say
this, they're like, welcome to my everyday life.
Like you were just. Running at such a high octane, I
mean, and you still are, but you're just so smart and so full
of energy, so vibrant that for you, I know you say like you
know, that you you've gone down maybe a few levels with certain
things, but I feel like you've probably just like normalized
leveled up. Yeah.
But yeah, so as far as like the nervous system, I will say
grounding is so big for me. That's the first thing I do when
I fly. It is like if I can get to water
like a river, a Creek, that's amazing.
If I can be at the beach to stay in the ocean.
Nothing resets me like that, but day-to-day, you know, just
grounding, getting morning sunlight, getting sunshine and
fresh air, taking what I call brain breaks.
You know my team like we'll be at a big team meeting.
I'm like I'll see y'all on Slack later.
I'm going to take a brain break. I'll go lay on my higher dose PM
if not and just just really calming.
I love baths are really grounding, you know, with Epsom
salt, magnesium sulfate and yeah just really trying to disconnect
too. That's really big for my brain.
I feel like this day and age we're all connected, whether
it's phones and apps and emails. And so for me just to have some
time to disconnect is and then let us not forget my favorite
thing ever, reflexology. I have my girl back home who
I've been seeing. I've actually saw her almost
weekly for two years prior to my diagnosis.
It was like an intuitive thing, I guess.
I mean, I saw her weekly during pregnancy and I just kind of
kept on. And my son's now 2 1/2 and I
love her and she's changed my life.
And so anytime I'm feeling overwhelmed or it's a big work
week or we've been traveling a lot, the first thing I do is go
see my girl and she gives me a massage.
Yeah. And I know you have your girl
here now too. Yeah, I have my girl here and I
saw from trip times in the last year or so.
Now I've started going to her SO and she's the girl.
It's not the fancy spa, but it gets the job.
Done. Yeah.
How do you ride the line between obsessing over preventing any
reoccurrence and just being aware?
So this is a good question and something I feel like I'm still
learning. I haven't perfected it.
And honestly, I'm not big on perfection anyway because if
you're trying to be perfect, you're probably stressed and
trying to control everything. But I was definitely much more
motivated at first before surgery.
And again, I just was in go mode.
Like we got to get this done. I'm going to live a long life.
I've got it was like battle mentality, like I'm in a warrior
and I'm going to do this. And then I was really
disciplined after surgery. And it got to a point it was
about last summer that I was like, OK, I'm learning.
This is going to, this is not a Sprint, this is a marathon and
this is my life. And I'm going to have to have a
sustainable pace, you know? And so last summer, I wasn't in
perfect ketosis and checking my GKI and my blood sugar.
And you know what, I decided, you know what, I'm going to go
travel with my family. And we still eat clean when we
travel. It's not perfect, but we're
making memories and that's medicine too.
And so I kind of had to let go of that last summer.
I'm still disciplined and do a lot of my therapies, but you
know, there are days where I don't take my supplements and
that is OK. And I just start back the next
day And I don't feel bad or guilty or shameful that I do
that. And I think we've, we've done a
lot of trips and a lot of travel and that's been medicine and
healing for us too, even if it doesn't mean wearing my red
light helmet every day. And I feel like I'm passionate
about prevention and I'm motivated, but I'm also not a
slave to it and it's not my identity and something that
controls me. What about if someone is going
through conventional cancer treatment and maybe they feel
like that's their only option for whatever reason?
Or maybe it is their only option?
How can they still advocate for themselves?
Even being like a traditional oncologist and going that route,
what are some things that they can still do to support healing?
Yeah. So I think it depends on where
someone is in their cancer journey.
Are they on a surveillance? Are they in remission and are
they just getting scans? Which that is me right now.
I still see a neuro oncologist and a neurosurgeon.
You know, I'm not like, peace out.
I'm out. You know, it's really important
to maintain those relationships. I think some people go left
field and they're like, I'm never going to do a scan.
I'm never going to follow up. And I'm like, no, you need them.
You need to maintain that relationship.
I mean, everyone needs to do what they have peace about and
what their doctors say. It's a, it's a, you're
advocating for yourself, but also there's an expert that can
order scans, but it depends on and if you're in the thick of
treatment, I would definitely recommend.
And there are times and places for conventional treatment, like
hear me say that, you know, there are certain types of
cancer that respond amazing, certain types of breast cancer
that respond well to treatment, lymphoma, you know what I mean?
So I'm not saying don't do that, but maybe find someone that can
talk to you about diet and nutrition and what integrative
therapies. You know, I have several mom
friends in Fort Worth that unfortunately are all young moms
that have breast cancer and they've all done chemo and
surgery, but they've also gone to doctor Kennelly and Irvine
and done all the integrative stuff.
And even if they're doing conventional treatment, they can
still do ozone and high dose vitamin C and coffee enemas to
minimize side effects of their treatment and to support their
body going through it. And so I would just say find a
provider or a cancer advocate, Nisha Winters, who is amazing
and wonderful. She's who referred me to my
surgeon. She has a book called The
Metabolic Approach to Cancer and she has a whole list and
directory of cancer advocates that can help you.
OK. Yeah.
So I can see how it would be so important for someone to seek
out additional information and additional opinions even when
going through conventional treatment.
I mean, I have just heard horror stories from people who have
gone through cancer themselves or have a child that is going
through treatment. And they're spending a lot of
time in like the cancer wing of the hospital.
And just there's like bowls of candy around.
And oncologists are telling them it doesn't matter what types of
foods you're eating, just that you're getting calories in,
which is which is nuts because you'd shared something with me
about what happened. Like when they scan for cancer,
they actually have you drink. Is it drinking a sugary drink or
so? This is interesting and I have
never done chemo or radiation so I can't speak to an actual
treatment floor. And actually a lot of brain
cancer patients will do. Some will do infusions but some
will do oral chemo. They take at home a pill, but
I've had so many friends, you know, and warriors text me like
I can't believe that they're serving this.
This is the tray that they go around at the cancer treatment
center and it's like Cheez its and granola bars and Skittles.
And it's just to me, it's just sad.
You know, I feel like it's like, what the heck?
And I get it. And I have compassion and I
can't say that I know what it's like to go through chemo and not
have an appetite. Like I have compassion for
people and but I'm like, let's get some creative ways of how
you can get nutrients in that can fuel you.
But yeah, so when most people ask their oncologist like, well,
does sugar affect cancer? And some will say yes,
especially in the brain world, a lot of even like traditional
neurosurgeons, neuro oncologists are saying, yeah, there is a
connection and ketosis can be helpful, but we're not sure.
There's not enough data. And I don't know.
I just don't know that that's being shown.
But with that being said, it's not hard for me and I don't want
to argue with anyone, but it's not hard to present the case
that the way that someone does a PET scan is you literally drink
a sugar solution and then cancer is like Pac-Man.
They eat up the sugar 1st, and so when they do the scan, you
see the places in the PET scan that light up and which shows
that it just absorbs the sugar. And so to me, I'm like, it
doesn't take this like really outside the box thinker to know
that like, well, if it's taking up sugar, wouldn't that mean
that's its food source, Right. Yes.
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Seems very obvious, but maybe not to everyone.
Yeah, OK. You have also said in the past
that cancer is not a death sentence, which I love, but what
would you say to anyone who is struggling with a cancer
diagnosis right now and maybe feels like it is a death
sentence? First of all, I just want to say
I'm sorry. Like I've been there.
I'm not coming and talking to you from a place of you should
do this, you shouldn't do this. I'm opinionated.
I've been there and I'm just sorry.
Like it's really, really hard. And there are times where I do
grieve what my life looked like. And I do fear, you know, I would
be lying if I said that everything is rainbow
butterflies. And I have faith and hope every
single second of every single day because that's just not the
case. Like it just comes in, I'll,
I'll see a picture and I'm like, Oh my gosh, there are these
moments that trigger you, you know, And So what I will say is
grieve the life that you thought you were going to have.
And it's OK to be sad and it's OK to be scared, but don't stay
there and don't be stuck there. Continually renew your mind,
have hope. I don't know what that looks
like for everybody. For me, the Lord has given me
hope beyond my circumstances. And this world is not my home.
And there's a lot of sickness and brokenness and I can't wait
for heaven one day, but I want to live here now for my kids.
And so I would say, you know, just you do have to affirm
yourself and you do have to. Tell yourself that you can heal
because your body's listening. And I think one of the hardest
things is that, you know, you get a diagnosis, whether it's
finding a lump or getting a brain scan like me.
And then, Oh my gosh, I can't even like I can remember because
I know, but the pit in my stomach, the fear, the, it was
so crippling, the anxiety, you know, I remember what that felt
like. And so that you're scared, you
go to the doctor, they tell you you have cancer.
So now this is spoken over you and you start to believe it, and
you associate cancer with death, and then you start treatment and
you start losing your hair. And then you really are
identifying with like, death and cancer.
And I'm not saying that mindset's gonna carry you, but I
think that it really is. So that is so powerful and
resolving emotional trauma in your life that is so
significant, you know, going to great measures to heal.
But you, you can heal. And I'm not saying that we're
gone. We can control everything.
But I do believe there's a lot we can do to either mitigate
treatments, side effects or, you know, Lord willing be that
taking an integrative approach. Yeah.
Absolutely. That's good advice.
We are going to switch gears to end this to a little bit of a
lighter note with some this or that questions.
Love it. Let's do the fun stuff.
OK, let's do it. All right, this or that.
Eggs or bacon? Bacon Veggie.
Burger or grass fed beef? Grass fed beef all day long.
Double beef, baby. Mocktail or cocktail?
Mocktail, hyperbaric chamber or eboo?
That's hard. I've done so much hyperbaric but
I'm claustrophobic lately and so I would have to say eboo.
OK. Loungewear or dressing up?
Loungewear all day. Resistance training or power
walks? Resistance training.
Cold plunge or infrared sauna. I'm a sauna girl.
Guasha or facial cupping guasha. All right, love it that.
Was hard. Those are all my favorite.
Things answered them so quickly, I know.
I'm decisive, I'm decisive. But it didn't work.
Thank you so much for coming on the show Taylor.
You are such a light to the world and have helped and
encouraged so many people and you continue to do so on all of
your platforms. Where can people follow along
with you and also purchase your amazing Wellness products?
Yeah, so you're sweet. I have a website.
I'm so passionate about educating people and I was
before cancer. It's just a different topic that
I focus on now. But website,
taylordukeswellness.com. I have an online store with a
lot of protein electrolyte supplements.
And stuff. I love the lemonade.
We just got caring away chatting.
We got bone broth protein. Protein.
The chocolate and vanilla ones. Yes, it's so.
Good. The electrolytes are amazing.
I love the coffee Creamer. You're so sweet.
We got coffee. But yeah, so that's
shop.taylordukeswallness.com. And then I share a lot on my
Instagram, Taylordukeswallness. And yeah, I'm on the interwebs.
Yeah, check her out. She's a good one to follow along
with. Yeah.
So for any of y'all listening today, you guys can get a 15%
off discount code to anything on our store using the code
primally pure. Thanks for coming on, Taylor.