Park Place Woman Changes Career to Help Others after Cancer Battle

near fatal encounter with cancer gave her a second lease on life and a new career in nutrition.

The Park Place resident was diagnosed with metastatic uterine cancer in 2008 after collapsing at work. What she thought was the flu ended up marking the fight of her life.

“If it had not been caught, I wouldn’t be here right now,” Martinac said. “I had no symptoms and my diet at the time was pretty healthy, but I had been through a couple of bad years because my sister and I were doing a lot of care taking for our parents.”

Three days before falling, she had been biking around the neighborhood in what she thought was good health. Little did she know, that day she would start a new life journey to survive, which would later lead her to help others in leading more healthy lifestyles.

Today, Martinac runs workshops and helps others through her own business, Nutrition U, to manage stress, change diet and more.

The same day her coworkers found her passed out on a patio, she had emergency surgery for internal bleeding after her cancer diagnosis. More surgeries and nine chemotherapy treatments would follow.

“It’s like being run over by a truck and the truck backs up and runs over you again,” she said of the devastating news.

During chemo, she became interested in nutrition. When she was told her white blood cells would plummet because of treatment, she thought there must be something she could do to combat the problem through food and nutrition. The doctors said she couldn’t do much at all.

“So, I started reading on my own and read a book called “Anti Cancer,” which was written by a man who had been diagnosed 17 years ago and he kept himself in remission through lifestyle changes.”

In addition to educating herself, she talked to people and moved toward eating organic food, more vegetables and stopped eating meat—and it worked.

“I would never tell anyone not to have conventional treatment—that is extremely important. But the complementary treatments can really help people to thrive,” Martinac said. “Conventional treatment helped me to survive but I thrived because of these other things.”

Martinac was never sick during chemo. Her doctors attributed that fact to her dietary changes.

As she became more and more interested in helping other make the same life adjustments, she was puzzled by the information cancer organizations were giving patients. In one booklet, a list of nourishing snacks suggested by one organization included ice cream, cookies and pudding.

“By whose definition is that nourishing?” Martinac said. “I felt like I couldn’t trust them. I saw others in treatment struggling who were very interested in reading on their own. It made me think that once I finished treatment and survived, I thought this would be something of great interest to me trying to help other people and learning about it myself. If it could help with cancer what else could it help?”

While Martinac previously worked as a writer and journalist, she did not have any interest in science before her illness. After discovering a new career path, she earned a master’s degree in health and nutrition education, where she learned how to interpret scientific health information for the masses.

“I wrote my thesis on stress management with nutrition because I wanted something a little bit broader,” she said. “I was taking care of my parents and saw what stress did to people’s health. I don’t think stress caused my cancer but I think it definitely played a role in breaking down the immune system.”

First steps she offered to people were going part organic, especially when buying apples and strawberries, and also, cutting back on refined sugars by replacing sodas with healthier options, or turning to dark chocolate for your sweet tooth.

Martinac now offers services at the Nuin Center in Highland Park, and also has done workshops at Gilda’s Club.

For more, visit http://www.nutritionu.net/NutritionU/Home.html.