Hi, I’m so glad you stopped by!
I’m Susannah Baldock, MS, MPH, RD, LDN and the owner of The Roving Dietitian, LLC.
My roles in life are many and include mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, lifelong student, advocate, volunteer, and cancer survivor. Actually, you’re meeting the new and improved me, or as I prefer to think of it as the turbocharged edition, because I received my first biventricular pacemaker on May 27, 2016. I’m incredibly happy to say it is fabulous!
This is how The Roving Dietitian, LLC came to be and why Nutrition is my mission!
In fall 1991, I resumed my interrupted college education to pursue a degree in nursing. I started Nutrition for Today and was fascinated to learn how nutrition factors into one’s quality of life and that a person’s nutritional status is a deciding factor in the body’s response to and survival of surgery and many disease states.
In fall 1992, I was diagnosed with inoperable Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer. My two beautiful daughters were six and nine years old, so succumbing to the big C was not an option. I needed to complete the journey of raising my girls, which would prove to be the greatest result of my existence.
The battle began and the initial radiation and chemotherapy cycle resulted in really tough side effects. Unending family support, faith, medicine, and nutrition served as the foundation of my quality of life throughout treatment. We used nutrition as a tool to provide my body with the strength to manage the negative side effects into mid-summer of 1993. Thankfully, my incredible family and I used any nutrition information we could find to create a menu that I followed for five days before each chemotherapy cycle. I was convinced it provided me with the strength to get out of bed the following day and continue with a somewhat normal life.
From a nutrition standpoint, the evidence and crucial aha moment for me came when my treatment was stopped for a few cycles and, during a checkup, my doctor said we had to resume treatment cycles the next day. I said “No, I can’t, I need my five-day eating program first.” He said “Susannah that is BS, it doesn’t really work, you just think it does!” Unfortunately, he won the argument and I had chemo the next day. The side effects following that cycle were much more severe than any of the times when I had followed my five-day eating program before the cycle.
Experiencing firsthand how nutrition absolutely improved my side effect management and quality of life ignited my passion to pursue the study of nutrition and the role it plays in the overall quality of life for cancer patients during active treatment. After years of persistence, I graduated in 2011 and started working as an Oncology Dietitian and since then have worked as a Dietitian in many different settings.
Today, nutrition continues to be the foundation of my long-term survival, management of post-chemo cardiac issues, and post-radiation gastrointestinal issues. Using nutrition as the foundation for good quality of life fuels my dream to empower people of all age groups and all walks of life by teaching relevant, reliable, evidenced based nutrition education that can be used for everyday living whether their focus is disease prevention, acute and chronic disease management, survivorship, weight management, or simply to feel their best every day.
I look forward to working with you in the future.
Susannah – The Roving Dietitian, LLC
Last updated: 1/13/2017