To start the story from the beginning, go here.
It was now May of 2014. It had been a little over a year since my cancer surgery and about a year since I had been receiving treatment through the W Clinic. As I discussed this with Dr. John, we decided that it would be a good idea to get another scan to see if there were any new growths or signs that the cancer had returned. One thing I’ve learned about having cancer is that you never feel truly “free” from cancer. Cancer changes you. It not only leaves physical scars on your body, but it leaves mental and emotional scars. There is always the lingering fear in your mind that it could return at any time. Everybody knows someone who was told that they were “free” from cancer only to have it return months or even years later and take their lives. It’s just the nature of the disease.
I went to the radiology clinic for my MRI and x-ray. I had to change in a locker room into a gown and booties. An IV was placed so they could inject IV contrast for the procedure. A technician led me into the MRI room and I laid on the platform that slides into the machine. I was given headphones with music to listen to to help block out the loud clunking and banging of the machine. They told me that I had to hold “really still” in order to get a good image. And I definitely wanted the best image. I was familiar with the procedure but I still had to close my eyes so as not to be aware of how small the tube was that I was in. Each scan was to take approximately 20-30 minutes, with a total of about 40-50 minutes in the tube. I don’t consider myself particularly claustrophobic, but I am not good at holding completely still. It’s like when someone tells you to not think about your nose and then you immediately think about your nose. So I had to mentally drift off into my thoughts that didn’t involve thinking about being stuck in a tube and not being able to scratch any itches that may happen. To my relief, they let me have a moment to get up and move around between the abdominal and the pelvic scan.
The x-ray was much more tolerable after the MRI. I just had to stand in front of a screen with my arms up and hold my breath for a second; turn to the side and do the same thing and I was done. I changed back into my clothes and was on my way home. I was told that my doctors would have the results in about a week.
At my next visit with Dr. John for my IV Vitamin C treatment, he reviewed the results of the scans with me. “They all look good,” he said as he handed me a copy of the results. I took them with a little bit of awe and disbelief and looked over them myself. The hemangiomas on the liver remained unchanged. Nothing significant in the pelvis MRI. I looked over the x-rays of the lungs. The findings showed: “There is no pulmonary infiltrate. There is no lung nodule identified.” And the impression of the radiologist stated, “No radiographic evidence of active cardiopulmonary disease.” I was a bit dumbfounded as I read this; all the lung nodules seen in previous scans were no longer visible. At this point I was feeling incredulous relief. The cancer clearly wasn’t growing and spreading as I had feared would happen and as I had been warned to expect. The diet was working! The treatments were working! But I didn’t feel like it would be wise to stop the treatments at this point. I needed to be sure that I could keep the cancer from returning. It is possible that there could be microscopic tumor cells throughout the body, just waiting for favorable conditions to enable it to grow and spread. I was determined to maintain a hostile environment to cancer in my body. I discussed with Dr. John my future treatment plans and we concluded that it would be okay to decrease the frequency of treatments to every other week for at least 6 months. I would continue juicing and eating organic foods. I would maintain my sugar-free, unprocessed, organic, mostly vegan diet. I left the clinic with my spirits high and more weight off my shoulders. I practically skipped to my car with a huge grin on my face. Everything was going to be okay.
News of my success was slowly spreading. After story time at the library, while the kids were outside playing on the playground, there was an older woman there with her grandchildren. She came and sat at the picnic table with me and a few other mothers and we began talking. Somehow the conversation turned towards diet and food and the older woman asked if we knew about the young mother who was healing her cancer without chemotherapy, only juicing and changing her diet. One of my friends that was there told this woman that I was actually that mother. Her mouth dropped open and she was flabbergasted. She looked at me incredulously and peppered me with questions about my diet and how I’m doing now. It felt strange to be treated as a sort of health wonder or celebrity. I have never enjoyed being in the spotlight so I felt very awkward and out of place. But in the end, I hopefully inspired her to live a more healthy lifestyle.
I began receiving other phone calls and messages: people had heard about my miraculous healing of cancer without chemotherapy. Friends of ours had friends or family that were recently diagnosed, or more often, had tried chemotherapy and it didn’t work. They wanted to hear my story as a last resort after everything else failed. I agreed to talk with those who were willing to talk. The conversation would usually begin by them telling me about their diagnosis, subsequent failed treatments, and how they are ready to try anything to live. They would ask questions about my diet and wanted to know what I ate and what treatments I did. I would explain my juicing and refer them to the Hallelujah Acres diet website. And then I would give them encouragement and hope that they could do this. Most conversations followed this format.
Sometimes a family member or friend of someone who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer would call and want me or Jeremy to talk to this person and convince them to follow the same protocol I followed. Rarely, this person would consent to talk to us. And even more rarely would they even consider trying it. These phone calls, especially the latter ones, began to take their toll on me. It seemed like case after case, these people were not surviving. It was depressing. I felt like I was having the same conversation over and over, and no one was willing or able to follow the protocol the way I did to be able to survive. But clearly it worked–I was alive, right? My existence is absolute evidence that it worked.
During this time, we continued our research of holistic healing and natural treatments. We kept up to date on the latest findings about what cures cancer. I followed Chris Wark on his website and social media pages and then branched off to other websites with similar messages. One of these websites was the “Truth About Cancer” website. It appealed to me due to its message of healing cancer without chemotherapy and radiation. It was started by Ty Bollinger and his wife after he lost both of his parents to cancer as well as 6 other “close family members.” It’s a heart-breaking story that many can relate to. We all know someone who has died from cancer. And we all wish there was a way we could have saved them. Their website states:
“In 1996, we lost Ty’s father. Not to the cancer with which he had been diagnosed, but to the invasive treatment plan that his doctors prescribed. That day set us on a course that led to the creation of TTAC and a mission to bring you all of the information we wish we’d had. When it comes to cancer treatment, this information is saving lives.
“Globally, about 1 in 6 deaths are attributed to cancer, and more than a third of all humans will develop cancer in their lifetime. Unfortunately, the conventional cancer treatments may be more likely to kill you than the cancer itself. In fact, chemotherapy can actually cause new cancers!
“Because the medical industrial complex has such an immense influence over Western medicine, cancer patients are often given little choice when it comes to treatment. Doctors will tell you how long you have to live, and insist that chemo, radiation, and surgery are your only chance.
“But what these doctors don’t tell you is that there are a number of ways to treat and beat cancer naturally! Drug manufacturers will promote their new cancer treatment as a miracle cure, but these drugs are expensive and won’t fix the underlying cause of the disease.
“In fact, some of the most promising cancer treatments have been outlawed in the United States! That’s because there’s more money to be made treating patients than curing them. The cancer industry generates well over $100 billion each year.
“At TTAC, we’ve shared testimony from hundreds of doctors, researchers, and patients about how a holistic cancer treatment is the best way to treat the entire body – instead of just the symptoms. Our bodies are unique, and finding the right cancer treatment for you is essential.”
The Bollingers had just created a docuseries entitled, “The Truth About Cancer,” that they were releasing over the internet in May 2014. Jeremy and I heard about it through Chris Wark’s Facebook page and we started sharing links to it through Facebook as well. We were excited to share the message of healing with others. I thought this would help all those people who have been reaching out to me. They would have access to everything I’ve been learning and researching the past year. They would be able to see how conventional medicine was causing more harm than good; that the only way to heal from cancer was to seek alternative methods. Jeremy and I sat down every week as a new episode was released to watch it live. Each episode provided more sensational information that demonized the medical industrial complex and the commercial food industry. By the end we were convinced that the medical establishment was intentionally trying to prevent the population from seeking out cheaper and more effective ways to heal and prevent cancer, and at best, they were inadvertently perpetuating the plague of cancer and keeping those who are sick from getting better. As The Truth About Cancer website states, “there’s more money to be made treating patients than curing them.” We also believed that the food and drug companies were benefiting from adding poisons to their products that contributed to many ailments we are experiencing as a population. We felt as though our eyes were opened to the conspiracies contributing to cancer. Not only were certain foods the enemy, but Big Pharma, the Medical Industrial Complex, the FDA, and all of the large processed food companies.
Soon after this, I was told by a friend about a teenage boy whose mother created a Facebook page for him and his battle with osteosarcoma. She asked if Jeremy and I could possibly reach out to him and tell him about my experience with cancer and healing naturally. I checked out the Facebook page and it was heart-wrenching. This young man was bald and sickeningly skinny due to chemotherapy. The mother documented his cancer journey from diagnosis at age 14 from a pain in his leg, through multiple surgeries to remove tumors in his lungs, and chemotherapy regimens to slow the spread of the cancer. As I scrolled through the posts, I was appalled at the amount of sweets and junk food he was being fed to help him ‘be happy’ through the misery of his treatments and his diagnosis. I couldn’t help thinking that in her effort to appease his sadness with treats, his mother was actually feeding his cancer.
After Jeremy came home from the farm, I told him about this young man. He was as disturbed as I was as he looked at the Facebook posts. He found the mother’s phone number and called her. He shared my cancer story of healing with her and asked if she would mind if he came over to show her how to juice and discuss dietary management with her to try to help her son. She agreed to a visit.
The next day Jeremy drove over to her house which was in a neighboring town. He brought our juicer, carrots, and apples. It was several hours before he returned home. He told me that he told her about my story–my diagnosis with stage 4 leiomyosarcoma, how I refused chemotherapy, and how I juiced and adopted a strictly organic, vegan, sugar-free diet, and how I now have no evidence of disease. He showed her how to juice. They talked about her son, his diagnosis as a young teenager with osteosarcoma of the knee and mets to his lungs and his subsequent rounds of several different chemotherapy drugs. He had multiple surgeries to remove the tumors on his knee and in his lungs. But the lung tumors kept recurring. The family was becoming desperate and reaching out to the social media community for help.
Jeremy explained how rigorous and strict the diet must be to achieve results. The mother replied that they have improved their diet over the past year to a healthy diet, in a way to justify not needing to make any further alterations. Jeremy further pressed that this diet is a mindset–junk food (processed food) and sugar are to be treated like poison and avoided at all costs. They should even be removed from the house and all the family should eat the same way out of solidarity and support. The mother was very hesitant to jump all in. She explained that her son had already been through so much–the chemotherapy had affected his eating significantly so that they were grateful to get anything into his body. Too much joy and pleasure had been taken from him as a result of his treatments that it would just be further torture to remove the last vestiges of simple sugar pleasures he could still enjoy. By the time he left, Jeremy convinced her to at least give him as much juice as he could tolerate to give him a fighting chance at surviving or at least minimizing the effects of the chemotherapy. He even gifted them a box of Fresh Farm produce every week to support the juicing. I could tell that Jeremy felt defeated that he couldn’t convince her to get fully on board with the diet.
Over the next six months, we followed his decline on social media. It was heart-breaking to watch him continue to lose weight, have more surgery to remove tumors, until the tumors were so wide-spread that the doctors closed him up without removing anymore. And we watched all this happen amidst posts of him eating candy and junk food. He became confined to bed and then lost consciousness, never to wake up again. We felt so helpless–it felt like a preventable, unnecessary death.
To continue the story go here.