Imagine, if you can, a scenario where a bout with cancer can actually turn your life around.
In fact, that’s how it played out for St. Michael’s Tiffany Flaten, owner and founder of Personal Nutrition and Wellness, Inc., located in nearby downtown Osseo.
After giving birth to two children, Flaten was still feeling tired, sluggish, battling with mood swings and trying to get back into the swing of her teaching career. It got to a point, she said, where she felt as though it was an unnecessary burden on her family.
“It was really awful,” she said. “You should be happy about the fact you have made this wonderful family, and I couldn’t figure out why I always felt sick.”
Exams showed, twice, that she had lumps in her throat, but those were considered benign. Until one day, in 2007, a doctor discovered a large lump on her thyroid. It was removed, as well as some nearby lymph nodes, and determined to be a stubborn type of thyroid cancer that was very treatable, but was making Flaten very ill.
“It started to make a bit of sense,” she said. “My body was tired all the time because it was fighting all the time.”
But now, she found, she would have to go through surgery and chemical therapies, including a radioactive drop that would keep things in her throat under control.
After clearing those hurdles, Flaten was frustrated with her recovery time. Now showing no markers for cancer (though she’s not, to this day, considered ‘cancer free’) she couldn’t get back on track. She was still battling with exhaustion, and she felt that, even though she was eating healthy, she wasn’t getting back up to speed after winning her fight.
Taking a chance, she consulted a Twin Cities nutritionist, who told her body was still fighting – it was just fighting things that Flaten was putting into her body. Gluten was irritating her digestive and immune system. Soy was complicating things, as were eggs.
“Immediately, when I cut those things out, I felt like I was on a better track,” she said.
And in fact, that track led to her to Personal Nutrition and Wellness. A science fanatic in high school in college (she has a degree in microbiology from North Dakota State), she decided she wanted to study nutrition, and in 2014, earned her master’s degree.
Now, she’s made it her mission to help others looking for answers, just as she was six short years ago as she rebounded from cancer.
“There’s so much science behind what we eat and the way it interacts with the body,” she said. “It’s not all gluten or all milk. Some people can handle that just fine. But different things in the body can make us feel so much better than some of the trash that is out there now.”
Flaten has teamed up with a clinic in Osseo (232 Central Avenue) that focuses on holistic health, with great results. She said she has many friends from the STMA, Otsego and Hanover areas that come down (it’s just about a 20-minute drive with normal traffic) and enjoy their time at Personal Nutrition and Wellness.
Her services include everything from a personal evaluation to grocery store tours to personal and group nutrition classes. She’s evolving her offerings as we find out more, as a society about processed foods, good fats vs. bad fats and the effects of everyday things like milk and sugar.
But it goes beyond that, Flaten said. There needs to be a mental “health check” with people, too.
“People feel better when it feels like they have someone on their side,” she said. “I really felt like I had to advocate for myself when I was looking for my answers. I kind of hope no one else goes through something like that.”
For more information about Personal Nutrition and Wellness, check out Tiffany’s website. There, you can follow her blog and find out about classes and other resources she’s using to help people feel better.
She’s also on Facebook with links to the site and other nutritional bites and bits. Or, call 763-300-4816.