We got the wake-up call 4 years ago: my beloved wife Chen was diagnosed with breast cancer. We were shocked: why would a young and healthy yoga therapist, a vegetarian without a family history of cancer, get cancer?
While I’ll never really know what caused my breast cancer (I have no genetic link), the thought of potentially harmful ingredients being in the products that I used, makes me really angry. We shouldn’t have to wonder if the cosmetics or personal care products we used, caused our cancer.
For me, that climb was the ultimate evidence of the quote, “while I had cancer, it didn’t have me.” I was 53, had never seen a 14,179 foot mountain, never mind climb one and yet in June of 2009, four years after my initial diagnosis, I stood on the summit of Mount Shasta in northern California and soaked in the glorious moments of pure joy, of pure living.
