‘You will DIE if you do not remove your breasts’, doctors screamed at me. I refused and tried a new experimental therapy instead… now I’m cancer-free

When Erin Bacon called to cancel her double mastectomy, doctors told her she was going to die.

The 33-year-old American Airlines worker from Florida had been diagnosed with stage two breast cancer in February 2022 after she found a large lump behind her right nipple.

By the time her surgery was scheduled, she had already been through seven months of grueling chemotherapy – which left her feeling constantly sick and struggling to breathe. But she said the treatment had ‘barely shrunk’ her three-inch tumor.

The next step, doctors said, was to remove both breasts. But Bacon was completely against the idea of surgery.

‘I just knew this wasn’t the path I wanted to go down,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘It’s difficult for anyone to lose their breasts, but especially at 33 years old, when you’re a little young, and you feel like you’re in the prime of your life.’

After canceling the appointment in September 2022, Bacon turned to alternative remedies she found on the internet, adopting a strict vegan diet and drinking herbal teas. 

For a while, she believed the remedies were working – there is some medical evidence that suggests slashing sugar consumption from a patient’s diet can slow cancer growth. But after more than a year, her tumor began to grow again.

Desperate for a cure, but still not wanting surgery, Bacon found the Williams Cancer Institute based in California. She signed up for an experimental therapy they offer out of a satellite office in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

She said the procedure – which has not been approved in the US – saved her life (and her breasts).

Bacon told the Daily Mail that she had always led a healthy life, staying ‘very active’ with Pilates, weightlifting and cardio classes, and sticking to a nutritious diet.

She routinely checked her breasts for signs of cancer after her aunt and grandmother were diagnosed with the disease, which is how she discovered the lump. Both survived the cancer – her aunt received a lumpectomy and radiation, and her grandmother had a mastectomy and lived to be 94.

After visiting her doctor about the lump, Bacon was told she had stage two invasive ductal carcinoma, the most common form of breast cancer. It is behind 80 percent of cases and originates in the milk ducts of the breasts.

At stage two, about 93 percent of patients survive more than five years, and 35 percent undergo a mastectomy.

Her initial chemo treatment included infusions of three different drugs over the course of one four-hour session a week.

Among the drugs used was doxorubicin, also known as the ‘red devil’ because of its bright red color. The drug is used to treat several cancers, including of the breasts, lungs and ovaries. It works by interfering with the DNA in cancer cells and slowing their multiplication.

Bacon said she initially recovered well from the infusions, but soon started to feel tired constantly, lost her taste and felt like she ‘couldn’t breathe’ – doxorubicin can cause damage or injury to the heart muscle.

Even with the treatment, she told the Daily Mail her tumor shrank ‘very little.’

She said that was when the double mastectomy came into play. She recalled being told it would eradicate the cancer before it spread to her healthy breast or elsewhere in the body.

Bacon initially agreed, but four days before her appointment, she cancelled the operation.

‘My doctor, the surgeon, called me,’ she recalled to the Daily Mail. ‘And she’s like screaming at me, “Are you sure you want to cancel?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m positive”…

‘Blatantly, she said, “If you don’t have a mastectomy, you’re going to die.”‘

After her subsequent failed attempts to treat the cancer herself, Bacon frantically searched the internet for ‘alternative breast cancer treatments’ and eventually found the Institute.

The center’s approach treats cancer by targeting tumors directly to reveal them to the immune system, cause it to seek out and destroy cancer cells.

Within three weeks of contacting the Institute in late 2023, Bacon was transferred to Mexico from her home in Florida for her first treatment.

A representative from the Institute told the Daily Mail it administers this treatment abroad, in part, so it can use immunotherapy drugs not currently approved in the US. They also said it can save patients money, explaining that an immunotherapy drug that costs $10,000 in the US can cost just $1,000 in Mexico.

In the experimental procedure, doctors fire high-voltage electrical waves at the tumor in a method called Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) ablation therapy. This aims to kill cancer cells and alert the immune system to the disease.

Then, the team infuses a cocktail of immunotherapy drugs directly into the tumor, which also helps to reveal the cancer to the immune system.

Almost no immunotherapy drug has been FDA approved for injection directly into a tumor.

The treatment differs from more widely used methods, in which the immunotherapy drugs are infused into patients via a vein in their arm. The Williams Institute argues that this confuses the immune system and makes the treatment less effective.

Dr Barry Hahn, an emergency medicine physician, told the Daily Mail that patients looking to try novel cancer treatments should exercise a ‘measure of caution.’

‘Just because something is not FDA approved doesn’t mean it can’t work, and something that is FDA approved won’t always work,’ he said.

‘I am a big believer in the body healing itself and I am all for trying new therapies, but I think this should be taken with a measure of caution. I am not involved in the research, but you can’t make any general conclusions from a population of one or small population size.’

The Williams Cancer Institute has not presented data on how effective its treatment has been for breast cancer patients.

But in June, it revealed at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO’s) annual conference in Chicago, that eight out of 15 patients, or 53 percent, with stage four prostate cancer saw signs of their cancer disappearing after the treatment.

Doctors involved in the study underlined how sick the patients were, saying 13 had cancers that had spread to their bones and, in every case, their disease had not responded to standard treatments.

Within a month of her first treatment at the center, Bacon’s tumor shrunk by 92 percent.

‘A lot of the doctors were like, “Wow.” They were expecting good results, especially because of my age, but not expecting it to be this fast,’ she told the Daily Mail.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer diagnosed in women, with about 315,000 new cases every year, according to the American Cancer Society. 

Behind lung cancer (42,000 annual deaths), it is the second leading cause of cancer death among women.

Breast cancer patients are around 63 years old on average, but the cancer, like many others, is becoming more common in younger people.

A 2024 study found that diagnoses of breast cancer among people under 50 years old has been rising by nearly two percent each year since 2010.

Doctors are not sure why breast cancer cases are rising among women, but have suggested that sedentary lifestyles and pollutants in the environment might be to blame. 

After receiving the initial results, Bacon went for two more infusions over the course of three months. Her tumor completely disappeared, she told the Daily Mail.

Bacon said she was declared effectively cancer-free in July 2025, after about a year of scans and monitoring showed the cancer had not returned.

Typically, doctors wait for five years after a tumor has completely disappeared before they declare someone cancer-free.

She still undergoes regular scans back at her local hospital to check for the cancer, but doctors have told her that, as of now, there have been no signs the disease has returned. 

‘It’s changed my life,’ Bacon told the Daily Mail, ‘It brought me back to my faith and, you know, it just gave me a second chance at everything. I don’t take it for granted anymore.’

To others going through diagnosis, ‘I would say… life is not over. You know, do your research. Don’t allow one doctor to tell you what you need to do. Don’t allow fear-mongering. Just, again, be your own advocate. Do your research. 

‘There’s different ways of healing. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach.’