The surgeries and treatments had failed. The malignant melanoma had returned — for the fifth time.

Jeanette Cheney was given two months to live and her doctors urged aggressive chemotherapy.

Faced with such a bleak prognosis and nothing to lose, Cheney turned to natural treatment and juice fasting.

Eleven years later, Cheney is cancer-free and a health educator at the Christian-based Wellness Education Center located at 103 Ponderosa Lane on U.S. 93. The center houses a massage therapist’s office, a colon hydrotherapy office, a raw foods coach and a small store that sells supplements, sea vegetables, natural skin-care products, healthy snacks and cookbooks.

Cheney leads guided juice fasts and teaches people about healthy lifestyles and eating choices.

“My core belief is as little out of a bottle as possible,” Cheney said. “Consume foods the way God made them.”

Cheney has led more than 100 seven-day juice fasts and instructed more than 2,000 students — many of whom have returned — since 2001. She is not a medical doctor, she is quick to point out, and recommends anyone participating in her program consult their doctor first. She believes she has a gift for helping people become healthy.

Before moving to Montana in 2000 from Florida and prior to being diagnosed with cancer, Cheney was a commercial real-estate appraiser and broker engaged in high-end sales. During her last three years in the business, Cheney sold 13 projects for a total worth of $151 million.

But the stress of the career took its toll. Cheney participated in a Colorado juice fast after being told she had just months left to live and dramatically changed her lifestyle. She became keenly interested in helping others do the same.

“The reason I opened an education center is because by giving people knowledge, you empower them to make changes,” Cheney said. “I realized standard medicine wasn’t going to fix me. When I stepped into the natural world, I felt like I was forging new ground. I didn’t know where to turn. I learned where the resources are and I can point [others] in the right direction.

“I feel much more fulfilled doing this than when I was doing $25 million deals. It was not my mission in life and this is. I felt called to be here so I started a wellness ministry.”

Cheney said many people are under more stress than ever from their jobs, pollutants and unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles.

“How can the immune system handle it?” she asked. “Not very well obviously.”

When a person signs up to participate in the juice fast, Cheney helps that person realize the factors in his or her life that are depressing the immune system. Cheney named diet, stress, water intake, exercise, sleep patterns, bowel movements as factors, as well as emotional and spiritual health. By correcting problems in these areas, the immune system is able to work faster and better.

“I don’t think there’s a disease we haven’t seen,” she said. “Getting the toxins out of your body is a process.”

Cheney has treated people with arthritis, sleep disorders, cancer, infertility, migraine headaches, parasites, high blood pressure and auto-immune disorders, as well as many other conditions.

Juice fasting is a way to jump-start the process of cleaning out the body to strengthen the immune system. During a juice fast, participants flush toxins, such as cholesterol, from their bodies. Most people lose between five and 20 pounds during the week.

“When people hear about fasting they think it’s starvation,” Cheney said. “But it’s a rejuvenating fast. [Participants] are getting more nutrition when they fast than their typical American diet.”

During the fasts, participants drink 12 different drinks a day as well as a mixture of grapefruit juice and olive oil that flushes the liver.

Cheney explained that fasting helps the body detoxify itself, frees up energy for healing, prevents disease and provides relief for symptoms of illness. However, Cheney goes a step further, educating participants on healthy diets.

“It does me no good to clean you out and not teach you how you got to where you are and what to do after,” she said. “I encourage people to fast on a regular basis. I invite people to come to our free healthy potluck suppers on the last Tuesday of every month at 5:30 p.m.”

Each juice fast includes 18 hours of classes throughout the week. The fee also includes yoga and stretching classes, a large manual, numerous healthy recipes and food preparation classes. Cheney said she tries to keep her nonprofit program inexpensive and targeted at locals, though people travel from all over to participate.

The juice-fast program has helped thousands of people, Cheney maintained.

She said her most remarkable case was a 65-year-old man who weighed 370 pounds, and was taking 13 prescription drugs including 120 units of insulin daily for Type II diabetes.

He had lost part of his foot due to diabetes and was also taking drugs for congestive heart failure.

After participating in Cheney’s program, he lost more than 100 pounds over an eight-month period and is taking no drugs. He has been pronounced heart-healthy by his cardiologist.

It is the success participants experience in her program that has allowed Cheney to enjoy every day of her job for the past eight years.

“It is such a blessing every month to share in this little part of people’s healing journeys.”