Traditional and Modern Medicine Cross Paths, Aiding Each Other and Patients

This story was published with New America Media, Nguoi Viet Times and The Daily Casserole.

Yasmin Bhadha could have taken the diagnosis of stage four breast cancer as her death sentence.

After all, this isn’t her first go-round with the disease. Seven years ago the 63-year-old La Crescenta resident battled breast cancer, which went into remission. But it emerged again in 2009, this time manifesting in the bones throughout her body.

“I feel very happy, that luckily it's not my children, it's not my grandchildren, it's not my husband, it's me,” says Bhadha, a teacher originally from India. “I can take it. I'm strong, I'm strong like a pillar.”

And, she says, she's getting stronger, despite her diagnosis. She supplemented traditional medicine, her standard chemotherapy appointments, with Reiki, the ancient Japanese energy therapy that claims to promote healing for a variety of ailments. She says her cancer markers are declining drastically.