Fallbrook woman wanted to spread message of nutrition

By: YVETTE URREA - Staff Writer | Saturday, September 9, 2006 9:19 PM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK ---- Amber Marie Lloyd, 29, of Fallbrook died Sept. 3 of cancer, but she wanted to help other people to fight the disease.

"I want to go and help kids with cancer and help them with their nutrition through their cancer treatment," Lloyd wrote in her online diary. "I want to change the face of cancer and help people believe in the power of their body to heal. I want to help others so they are not scared and alone and stigmatized by a disease they feel they have no control over."

Even as her family made funeral arrangements Saturday, they were trying to get her message out about the benefits of a macrobiotic diet.

Husband Raul Montes said Saturday that Lloyd's family is in the beginning stages of trying to form a Cancer Diet Education Fund in her honor, because she firmly believed that a healthy diet contributed greatly to her long survival and quality of life.

Lloyd was born March 21, 1977, and lived in Fallbrook all her life.

She was married Aug. 5 at the adobe in Vista. Montes said it was the happiest day of their lives until the evening when she began to feel ill. Ultimately, she was hospitalized that night and learned she had another recurrence.

She was first diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma at age 19 after a tumor burst inside her abdomen, Montes said. Doctors then told her that because the tumor had burst, her chances were very slim for recovery because they could never be sure it was all gone, he said.

She found a doctor that would take her case in Los Angeles and began an aggressive round of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

The treatments left Lloyd with digestive problems, so her mother began researching nutrition and they found the macrobiotic diet, which Lloyd would come to adopt. Lloyd even took an eight-month course in macrobiotic cooking.

Montes said she believed the diet helped her fight off the cancer. She was declared cancer-free after five years.

She went back to college and earned her bachelor's degree in communications from San Diego State University in 2001, and then her master's degree in education from National University just two years later. She also graduated from the New York Film Academy in 2001.

While still at SDSU, she took an internship with Stu Segall Productions and met Montes, who was a camera assistant. The two felt an instant chemistry, he said.

"I just consider Amber to be the most caring and wonderful person I ever met. And you won't just hear it from me, you'll hear it from everybody that ever met her," Montes said.

She worked for Stu Segall Productions as a set costumer and assistant designer and buyer through 2004.

In 2003, she discovered she had another tumor. Montes said she blamed herself because she had become lax in her diet, but she began it again after the tumor was removed.

Another tumor was discovered in January 2005, but low-dose radiation and diet seemed to be taking care of it.

Then in June, her mother died of cancer, Montes said. The illness "totally demolished Amber because (her mother) was the one person that had gotten her to this point."

Contact staff writer Yvette Urrea at (760) 901-4076 or yurrea@nctimes.com.