Here's the scoop. We were slated to start chemo on Wednesday, January 9, but we pushed it back a week. Chemo is devastating to a person's immune system and after air travel, I just didn't think I was ready, health-wise, to get bombarded just yet.
All that week I was very depressed, despondent even. I was so sad that I had to have all these toxic poisons injected into my body. Again. We had gotten orders that I was to do 12 weeks of chemo, followed by 6 weeks of radiation, followed by more chemo, indefinitely. I had virtually given up, given in. I sat and moped, rarely got dressed, just started to die basically, and cried a lot, weeping many times every day in such agony of knowing what was coming. I wasn't living any more, that's for sure. Obviously, this info wasn't sitting well with me, with us.
We researched the different types of chemo that I was to have. The side effects were such: one causes uterine cancer, one causes sensory neuropathy (deadening of the nerves in the fingers and toes), and the third causes cardiac damage. Lovely.
Even so, we decided late Saturday to just go ahead with the chemo and do what we could to mitigate the side effects. We were resigned to just go with the flow even though the flow seemed intuitively wrong to us.
Sunday morning at church, we had a Word. The reading was from Acts 2, where Peter actually quoted Psalm 16:8-11. Here it is in its entirety. When you read it, think of how confused and undecided we were. Think of how we were really desperate for leading and direction (emphasis mine):
"I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body will also live in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy at your presence."
Can you hear that promise? Can you feel that hope? We were overjoyed to hear this word for us!
I'm a 42-year-old mom. I'm too young to die, and my children are too young for me to die. I'm also too young to have to live with the disabilities that can be brought on by chemo. I'm already horribly disfigured from the surgery (not that I truly miss those curves, at all), but at this point I'm wondering how much more I have to endure to be able to live. Is living that important? Is death the worst that can happen? We decided it is not. While we are completely and humbly submitting to God's plan for our life and know that my death is only a part of life, no matter when it happens, I truly feel that I have had other words from God about His plan for me. We feel we are on par with what God wants us to do. (Some other verses God has made known to us: 2 Kings 20:5-6 and the story of Gideon)
Thus begins our subversive, counter-culture, revolutionary, alternative, "dangerous" new journey.
We have opted not to do chemo and radiation at this time. This is against the advice of my oncologist, but I do have the tentative support of my nurse practitioner who is my primary these days. She is wonderful and I'm so grateful to have her on board for this unusual ride. My oncologist, who I also like very much, was very upset and aggravated by our decision. I'm not sure how much of that was due to him being concerned about me and how much was due to the fact that I wasn't just doing what I was told. The fact that I was questioning the foundational tenets of cancer medicine (the cut, poison, burn methodology) was likely not as exciting to him as it is to us.
Instead of poison, I'm using vegetables and nutrients, antioxidants and minerals, supplements, and above all prayer to heal my body. Thousands of people do this every year and I aim to be one of them. The anecdotal evidence is out there, it's real, it's successful, but because the pharmaceutical companies cannot patent fruit and veggies, there is no money to be made. Therefore there is no reason to tell anyone that they can heal their bodies with food instead of using the currently mainstream barbaric practices that we've chosen to avoid......at this time..... I feel I have to add that disclaimer because I don't want to burn those bridges. Never say never. We may very well find some compelling reason to return to chemo at some point. I hope not. I hope and expect that I will heal completely through overdosing on nutrients.
Yes, there are risks. But conventional medicine with all its wisdom and documented research (they're very proud of their research) was giving us only a 20 to 50% survival rate, which is worse than a coin toss. We feel very strongly that I got cancer due to my poor eating habits and my stress levels. Every person's body has a tipping point and once you reach that, your normal cells mutate into cancer cells that begin growing. Lots of factors play into how fast the cells grow, but diet and nutrition contribute greatly to the speed and direction and aggressiveness of those cancer cells. Everything I have eaten in the last 40 years just made things worse.
But, since January 8th or so, I have gone on a raw, vegan diet. Everything I eat is now helping me rather than hurting me.
Some of you know that I am admittedly one of the biggest carnivores on the planet. I have not had any meat, dairy, sugar, salt or soy in two weeks. This is my medicine. This is my hope: Eat the Lord's good plant creation, and He will heal me through His provision.
We needed this hope. We needed this plan. We feel we were led to this regimen for the health of not just me, but all four of us.
So far, I feel great! I've lost about 25 lbs since just before the surgery (Dec 11), so joint pain is gone, minor aches are even more minor. Of course, almost 8 of those pounds was accounted for on the day of surgery, but the rest is all from my eating habits and exercise. The less body weight I carry, the less fat I have on me, the less estrogen my body makes. Estrogen is something my particular cancer loves, so it stands to reason that I should block it or eliminate it. Soy has been known to encourage estrogen production so it's out.
That's the news from here. If you want to research this any further yourself or look up some of the great websites that are inspirational to me, check these out:
www.cancer-tutor.com
www.chrisbeatcancer.com
www.beating-cancer-gently.com
We are so blessed to have this time to learn, to grow, to change. All four of us are getting our 5 to 9 servings of fruit an veggies every day. Actually, I'm getting more like 20. But we are healthy and we are learning to make fantastic choices.
Let me leave you with this quote. Unfortunately, I've read so much in the last three weeks that I can't remember where I got this. I wish I could because it is so meaningful to me and I would love to thank whoever wrote it. Simple, yet profound:
People eat things that are bad for them because they don't know HOW BAD they are for them.
People don't eat what is good for them because they don't know HOW GOOD they are for them.
PS: Nothing I eat is cooked. I've got a hankering something fierce for a baked potato. No butter, no salt, just warm food. Never in a bazillion years did I think I would ever contemplate "cheating" on a diet with a naked baked spud. Moreover, in my daydreams and fantasies of this verboten potato, it is a baked sweet potato. Oh how the McTimes have McChanged, huh?! :)
