At the age of 24 Layla Ali-Ahmad had fallen riding her bike and noticed a lump near her breast, having lost her aunt to breast cancer at a young age meant that she needed to go have this checked out, she would find that she had stage 3 breast cancer. Of course this came as a shock to Layla and her twin sister Nina, not to mention the entire family. Layla went through all the standard treatment, chemotherapy, mastectomy, and radiation. After a long journey which she accepted, she was cleared of all disease. This meant she could get moving on with her life and growing a culinary food tour business called Beach City Food Tours in Long Beach, California where she also works as a Food Tour Guide for her company.

Two years later, Layla was having pain in her back and learned that she had now stage four metastatic cancer that had spread throughout her body. This new diagnosis would send her and her sister as well as family down the path of what they referred to as 1000 cuts, meaning they were going to try anything that had data to back it up. Nina, a very bright successful engineer, was just not going to sit back.

"I was not ok with losing my sister to cancer this was not an option,” she states.

Nina became Layla's most important advocate delving deeply into a wide range of therapies from a sugar free diet lifestyle, to specialized treatments in Vienna and Mexico. Eventually their journey would lead to the practice of Dr. Mark Rosenberg, an integrative medical cancer specialist in Boca Raton Florida. It was here that they have been able to have the biggest impact on Layla's cancer. We spent two days learning Layla's story and the value of advocacy in one’s cancer journey.

We are so fortunate we are featuring Layla and Nina's story in our film.