There are conversations that stay with you long after the recording ends. My recent interview with Sandy Yozipovic was one of them. As I listened to her recount a life shaped by illness, near-death experiences, and miraculous resilience, I found myself asking: What would I have done if I were in her shoes?
At twenty-one, Sandy was vibrant and full of dreams. She had just stepped into adulthood, living in the city, working in live theater, brushing shoulders with Hollywood stars. Then everything changed. What began as a headache turned into blurred vision, a body that refused to obey, and within days, complete paralysis. Doctors told her it was acute multiple sclerosis. For nearly a year, she was trapped in a body that would not move, unable to blink, to swallow, or to roll over in bed.
But it wasn’t MS. It was Guillain-Barré syndrome — a rare autoimmune disorder that had been misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and nearly fatal.
She told me, “Fear only exists in the absence of faith.” That was the anchor she clung to. Even when left alone in a hospital far from her family, even when her parents brought in a priest because they thought she might die, she refused to let despair define her.
That year of Guillain-Barré syndrome became the training ground for everything that followed. Sandy learned that the battle is won or lost in the mind. She learned how to measure progress in tiny victories, how to challenge herself to last another hour, another day. And, impossibly, she recovered.
But life was not finished testing her.
Many would call surviving Guillain-Barré the defining battle of a lifetime. But years later, another storm arrived. Sandy, now a mother and entrepreneur, began to feel exhausted in ways that made no sense. She noticed blood, pain, and fatigue she couldn’t shake. Doctors dismissed it as hemorrhoids, telling her she was too young, too healthy, too fit to be seriously ill. But Sandy knew her body, and she persisted.
On September 11, 2001, as the world reeled from the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, Sandy was being wheeled into surgery. The diagnosis: stage 3–4 colon cancer, a tumor doubling in size every 24–48 hours. By the time she came out of surgery, she had lost 14 inches of intestine, part of her rectum, and much of her strength. Cancer had spread to 65% of her lymph nodes. Doctors told her to “get her affairs in order.”
She could have given up. Many would have. But Sandy didn’t.
The Limits of Conventional Medicine
Sandy and her husband sought second and third opinions from some of the most prestigious hospitals in the country, including Sloan Kettering and the Mayo Clinic. The response was the same: chemotherapy, radiation, and limited odds of survival. Nutrition? Lifestyle? Nothing to offer there. The message was consistent and devastating: the standard of care was her only option, and even then, the outlook was grim.
But Sandy had already lived through the impossible once before. She had learned how to stack the odds in her favor by refusing to accept limitations as the final word. So when her husband found a young doctor who was approaching cancer differently, she listened. That doctor was Dr. Dino Prato at the Envita Medical Center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
That decision changed everything.
What’s In It For Paid Subscribers
I believe stories like Sandy’s are too important to skim past. They deserve to be sat with, reflected on, and applied to our own lives. As a paid subscriber, you’ll hear the full, ad-free conversation with Sandy where she reveals how she discovered Envita Medical Center and how their approach helped her stack the odds in her favor when everything seemed lost. You’ll also get access to the companion reflection guide and workbook from this episode, plus behind-the-scenes insights from Passion Struck and The Ignited Life.
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