We Met working together on a movie set in New Orleans, amongst a team of the most incredible women.
It was there that we built the foundations for a lifelong, long-distance friendship. A friendship which has brought us to this point today, despite all the odds, creating this special space together.
MEAGAN’S STORY
“YOUR CANCER ISN’T HERE TO KILL YOU, ITS HERE TO TEACH YOU SO YOU CAN HELP OTHERS”
- LISA, HEALER
Before I was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer I had everything in my life that I’d ever wanted. A husband who loves me, two beautiful daughters, an awesome dog, a safe and secure home in San Diego, and a career that I love. I am a hairstylist for television and film in Los Angeles, and I consider myself one of the lucky ones who genuinely loves her career. And for the rest of my life I’ve looked forward to diving into all of the variations that this job has to offer. But On May 30, 2019 I saw it all slip away in an instant.
Like my career I’ve had to fight for just about everything else, including having a family. Working in the entertainment industry isn’t exactly conducive to maintaining a traditional family life. The hours are extremely long, there’s lots of traveling, not to mention the amount of dedication it takes to succeed in such a business. The pressure is always on. But, with determination and a supportive husband I was blessed to have gotten pregnant with our second baby girl in May of 2018. Looking back, it was a fairly difficult pregnancy. I had to push through the pain and exhaustion while working a busy schedule on shows like America’s Got Talent, World of Dance, and The Voice. Through it all I was able to carry her full term. On top of all the what-seemed-to-be-normal chaos, we had a three-year-old already in the mix, and, we wanted to have a home birth! Nevertheless, on January 29, 2019 we had just that, and welcomed our second beautiful baby girl. It was an incredible and beautiful moment. It was perfect. Today, as I write this, I feel even more gratitude for that precious moment that life gave us, because what came next was far from beautiful.
The next four months were extremely difficult. My ribs kept popping out of place, my neck and shoulders were in so much pain—all on the right side of my body. I had terrible night sweats. Because of the pain I slept sitting up. I was losing weight more quickly than my last pregnancy and felt as if my body was constantly struggling. Friends, family, and coworkers were all concerned that maybe I had the baby blues or postpartum depression. I had to keep explaining to them that it wasn’t my head—-it was my body. Something just didn’t feel right. Myself and everyone else: family; friends; doctors; midwives. We all thought it was the typical side effects from pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding. I tried to go back to work, made it ten days before I knew I needed to see a doctor. I mean, I looked like I was four months pregnant instead of four months postpartum.
I went to see a general practitioner the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend for blood tests. The next day they called and told me I needed to go to the ER because my live enzymes were extremely high and they didnt know why. So, of course I looked it up and I figured I’d go in and they would tell me that I had taken too much Ibuprofen. Never did I imagine that they would find what they found through my first ever cat scan. The doctor in the ER came in and said, “I don’t know how to tell you this.” These are never the words you want to hear. He said it not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES before I covered my face and yelled, “What are you going to tell me right now?” He said that he was sorry to tell me that I had a 21 x 22cm tumor on my liver and that more doctors would be by soon to explain the rest. That was the first time I had heard them mention the word cancer. From there I had a multitude of tests. The results were pointing more and more towards cancer. In that moment I looked at my husband—we both cried—and I said, “I promise you I will fight like hell.” So, from there began my new full-time job—one of saving mine and my family’s life. At four months postpartum I went to the hospital on a Friday. I was sent home on Monday. Tuesday I had a biopsy. Thursday I was told I had Stage IV colon cancer. Friday I had a port put in, and on Monday I started chemo.
From my first day in chemo the love started to roll in. Everything from advice, to doctor suggestions, to donation pages, to a plethora of kind words. There was so much support that it was overwhelming. I am a giver by nature. It is my love language on every level, so accepting the help was a difficult obstacle for me to overcome. That was until a friend explained to me, “In order for you to be a good friend you can not only give. You need to be able to receive as well.” That beautiful advice—along with me googling Stage IV colon cancer for all of 10 minutes—was enough for me to change my view on everything I knew about life, or, everything I thought I knew. Once I opened myself up to all forms of love, this journey went from dark and ugly to trying and beautiful. There are so many decisions to make, opinions to hear, options to choose from, thoughts to have, pains to feel, side effects to suffer, heartbreaks to bare, and tears to shed. But, when I was able, I would wipe my eyes, open my heart, and let all the love in. I can honestly say THAT is when everything began to change. I have learned so many life lessons over the past year, from day one. I will continue to learn. And I will continue to tell my story in the hope that I can help others that may also be fighting for their lives. Our journey is difficult. But as hard and as horrible as it may be, I’m here to remind you that you can find those moments of love. And they help. They work for you. Hold on to them tightly, and never let go.
Fighting for your life is never easy. It will be the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do, especially when you have others depending on you to do it. I have been open and transparent through this experience, and I’d be lying if I said that any of it was a breeze. But I’m not alone in this battle. I’m more than lucky to have the support system that I have, and there have been countless times that I‘ve needed them to be the ones to carry me through. So, now, not only am I fighting for my life, but everything is continuously being tested around me: my relationships; my trust; my job; my love; my hope; my body; and my mind. But when I make it out on the other side I become stronger than I have ever imagined.
I’ve held on to a thought from the very beginning:
There has to be a much bigger reason for all of this. It can’t just be that I’m sick and everything I’ve ever worked for and everyone that I’ve ever loved is suddenly on the line because I have cancer. There has to be an important reason why, a more meaningful reason why.
The saying “Love Beats All” came to me at the beginning of it all, and there isn’t a single moment that goes by where those powerful words don’t stand true. The love I have for everyone—including the love I'm learning to have for myself—and the love I draw from my friends and family, fellow fighters and survivors, my nurses and my doctors, even complete strangers is what has been my driving force. And because of them, because for me Love truly does Beat All, I continue to fight. And I will never give up, even though there have been many times that I’d wished I could. With all the love and gifts my family and I have provided, and in order for me to be able to receive them, I knew that I needed to give back on the level of which we have been given. I knew I needed to find a way to share the power that I now possess, to spread love everywhere.
So here we are. While fighting to save my own life—and in order to do so—I know that I need to also fight for you. You the mother, the father, the sister, the brother, the grandmother, the grandfather, the son, the daughter, the friend, and the stranger. All of you that have followed my journey, whether through social media, or YouTube, or word of mouth from friends or co-workers, have made my life that much more worth fighting for. You have given me purpose through it all. We have created Love Beats All so no one ever has to feel alone, so that no one is lacking in love, and so everyone feels supported on their journey. But it doesn’t stop with you. It’s just as important that your team receives love and support because they’re taking the journey with you. And we need them. It has been equally difficult watching the people I love so much be affected by my diagnosis. While the pain may not be the same, the end goal is, with a completely different path.
I have to believe I’m going to live a long, healthy, happy life filled with love. While I know this will never be easy, I believe with everything in me, through this experience, that as long as we have each other there is nothing we can’t do. There is nothing we can’t survive even if it’s just another day. I see my girls growing up and falling in love. I smell the air of world travel and the touch of my husband’s hand as we take in a view, knowing how precious life is. I feel the pride in growing my skills in a profession that has taught me how to face my fears and deal with the pressures of being successful in such a competitive environment. All while spreading love to make a difference. I see it all. And I see it all for you.
My hope for the future is for our generation of fighters and survivors to change the face of cancer. Not just for us but for those that will follow us, those who have yet to discover the battle they have ahead of them. We can do this by sharing stories, engaging in uncomfortable conversations, offering knowledge and encouragement, and, most importantly, to give the fighters, survivors, and their team the love and support they need.
Because at each and every moment…
LOVE BEATS ALL
IT COMES WITH GREAT SADNESS TO ANNOUNCE THAT MEAGAN CAME TO PEACE ON MONDAY 4TH JANUARY 2021 AT HOME WITH HER FAMILY. HER SPIRIT WILL CONTINUE TO LIVE ON IN OUR HEARTS. IN HONOUR & MEMORY OF MEAGAN’S VISION LOVE BEATS ALL WILL CONTINUE TO GROW AND BECOME EVERYTHING WE HOPED IT WOULD BE AND MORE.
ALICE’S STORY
“WHEN YOU LIVE IN FEAR, YOU ARE LIVING IN THE PAST OR THE FUTURE, IF YOU’RE LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT FEAR CANT EXIST”
- LISA, HEALER.
It’s always strange making new friends as an adult isn’t it? On the day I met Meagan on a movie set in New Orleans, with her giant telling eyes and infectious energy, I knew that she had my back and that I was going to have hers - forever. Back then neither of us could have imagined the chain of events that were about to unfold.
For those of you not in it, the film industry is a fickle space. You spend a really intense period of time with people who become your family. Then the job ends and you all go back to your normal lives and that friendship, more often than not, kind of drifts away. I feel truly blessed that my time in the industry has given me some of my best friends, my partner and so many experiences I could only have dreamed of. It has also led me here, to this very moment, creating Love Beats All alongside my now dear friend Meagan. We have vowed to give everything we’ve learnt through her experiences to as many people as we can with the hope (though some may call us crazy) to change the face of cancer for those following in Meagan’s footsteps.
Let’s go back a few years… I used to have zero focus on my health and no awareness of the health of anyone around me. I was blissfully unaware, blessed with relatively good health both myself and within my friends and family. My career was going great and everything else was secondary. Then I met my now fiancé, Pete, a very health conscious physiotherapist, now functional medicine practitioner. I started to question the effect of food, stress, lifestyle and toxins on my body. I discovered that I had deep-rooted systemic inflammation from my diet and lifestyle choices. This left me feeling lethargic and bloated. Like so many people out there I thought this was normal. Throughout my own journey discovering what it actually feels like to be ‘healthy’, I couldn’t help but want to share my findings. My thirst for more knowledge grew and I trained to become a certified health coach. I’m now a nutritional therapist in training and starting a company with my fiance called Kyushi Wellness. You’ll see Kyushi pop up every now and again as we will continue to support Love Beats All in every way we can.
Meagan’s diagnosis sent a shockwave through so many lives, ours included. She accepted our hopefully non-pushy help graciously and together the three of us have navigated certain elements of Meagan’s healing. By combining holistic practices and Western medicine we have seen results we could only have dreamed of. Joining Meagan in what we hope is a game changer of a company feels almost meant to be. I feel passionately dedicated to helping as many people as we can to prevent disease, help the body recover from disease, prevent reoccurrence, lighten toxic load, and more than anything to arm everyone with the information that they deserve to have. Everything you find here is to be shared far and wide. Feed these recipes to your kids or chat about it over coffee with a friend because together we can and will change the world.
As I continue to grow in my new role I hope to learn from you as well as support you and your loved-one as you go through the unimaginable. I want to give you hope, the courage to be strong, the strength to question and above all I want to give you the love you need.