When TV talk show host Ananda Lewis looks back on her healing journey, she has little to no regrets.
The 51-year-old was diagnosed in 2019 with stage 3 breast cancer and opted not to undergo a double mastectomy.
“The circumstances were not conducive to surgery because my tumor wasn’t aggressively growing at the time, and then COVID hit,” Lewis told The Epoch Times on Oct. 17.
When she was ready to entertain the thought of a double mastectomy, the Los Angeles resident was unable to schedule it during the pandemic lockdowns because it was deemed a non-emergency. So she traveled to Arizona for cryoablation treatment.
“Arizona was one of the states that wasn’t locked down, and cryoablation got the tumor down to a reasonable place,” she said. “I do wish I could have found a surgeon who was willing to just take the tumor out and not my whole chest.”
Cryoablation is a minimally invasive surgery using extreme cold to destroy diseased cells.
“Many cancers can be treated with a lumpectomy, especially if they can be shrunk prior to surgery with chemotherapy or other types of treatment,” Dr. Anne Peled, a breast cancer surgeon who survived breast cancer at the age of 37, told The Epoch Times.
Peled is co-director of the Breast Cancer Center of Excellence at Sutter Health in California and a board member of The Breasties.
Lewis has since learned that the cancer spread to other parts of her body.
“Between January and October of 2023 is when everything went nuts,” she said. “That’s when I hit stage 4, and it went to my spine, my hips, and a tiny bit in my liver.”
Lewis is best known for being an MTV veejay from the late 1990s until 2001 and for her role on the BET young adult talk show “Teen Summit.“ She subsequently hosted a syndicated talk show called “The Ananda Lewis Show” and was a correspondent for “The Insider” from 2004 to 2005.
“With advances in treatment, many women are living longer, fuller lives while managing the disease with treatments and living a good quality of life,” Dr. Lauren Ramsey, a breast cancer surgeon, told The Epoch Times.
Ramsey works at the John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, as director of breast cancer surgery. She advises patients with stage 4 breast cancer to maintain hope.
“Focus on your strength and wellness by eating a balanced diet and staying physically active,” she said. “Build a strong network of friends and family who can provide support and continue doing things that bring you happiness.”
To date, Lewis has spent some $200,000 on treatment. She avoids alcohol, white flour, and white sugar and follows a keto diet.
“I am on hormone blockers … the estrogen blockers,” Lewis said in a 45-minute telephone interview with The Epoch Times. “They tested me for other genetic mutations, and I’m on blockers for some of those, and they’re really effective. They keep the cancer from growing.”
Other integrative treatments, such as insulin potentiation therapy (IPT), are not fully covered by her health insurance. As a result, Lewis paid $78,000 out of pocket and was only reimbursed $6,000.
“I haven’t been able to afford this on my own,” she said. “I’ve had angels who are friends and friends of friends who have rescued me and made sure I get the treatment I need.”
Under IPT, patients are tested to determine which chemotherapy will be most effective, and then fractionated chemo and insulin are administered. Fractionated refers to the chemo being administered in smaller doses.
“If I knew what I know now, I would’ve started with the IPT chemo immediately,” she said. “I didn’t know about it until it became urgent for me to find out about it.”
The single mother of one son thinks the health care system needs to improve when it comes to helping Americans who have cancer. For example, most health insurance companies cover chemotherapy, but there is no uniform definition for “medical necessity.”
“This is a real problem that we face as a nation of people who are getting sicker and sicker in all kinds of ways, cancer included,” she said. “We’ve got to figure out how to take better care of our people.”
For example, one YouTube video is titled, “Ananda Lewis is now dying from breast cancer because she didn’t have surgery.”
Lewis dismissed the headline as untrue.
“It scared people because those who are close to me who know what’s going on are wondering what happened,” she said.
“Nothing happened. Today, I am fantastic. I may have felt like I was dying in February, but I’m not dying, and I’m definitely doing better than I was last October.”
According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, 31 percent of women with a stage 4 prognosis will remain alive five years after diagnosis.
Lewis, however, plans to beat the odds. After all, she has a 13-year-old son to live for, and her mother and sister are both breast cancer survivors.
“I think I'll do better than five years,” she said. “I’m not dying anytime soon. I plan to get a good 20 more years out of this body, and honestly, I’m not someone who wants to get old-old ... so 20 more years is perfect for me.”
