Some thoughts about this anniversary...
Chris Beats Cancer recent interview
Here is a link to a short 5 minute interview with a man who had colon cancer at the age of 26. The difference between he and I is that they opted to do surgery first and that gave him time to think about the protocol to follow of chemo and radiation. I of course am older but my route was chemo and radiation first with surgery next and then chemo to follow. Chris had time with the recovery of surgery to think and investigate if he would do the chemo and radiation and decided not to. He adopted many different natural ways of dealing with the cancer and is cancer free to this day.
My story happened 3 years ago this month. I was diagnosed with cancer. I was put right into 4 rounds of pretty heavy doses of chemo. 8+ hours in the infusion center and then another 46 hours with a fanny pack pumping it into me. After 4 rounds of this I went to radiation 5 days a week for 4 weeks and on a pill form of chemo. All this time blood tests were taken to monitor me and reduce the amounts of chemo as needed when my immune system started to drop.
The problem is that it didn't, not significantly. From friends and the internet I knew from the get go that I needed to eliminate red meat from my diet and all refined sugar. You lose your appetite taking chemo so what I did eat was beans and a lot of them. I got on the treadmill and got my lymph system working. I got to the point that I looked half dead on the outside but the blood work was saying my immune system was getting the fuel it needed.
Next came the surgery and recovery in July. It was a time to really educate myself on nutrition and what it could do. We purged the house of anything man made and got serious about discipline to eating only whole foods. I had changed my plate so much that there wasn't much room for anything on it after the vegetables were all there. I bought a juicer before the scheduled next rounds of chemo and we started drinking a vegetable/greens mix twice a day - a quart each, that was October.
The chemo was scheduled and I went but something was telling me to stop. My body told me through very strange side effects that I didn't need it and it was doing more harm than good. My mind was getting full of good information that was showing me another way. My wife and friends were behind me on this decision. The day to stop, I asked the oncologist how my numbers were doing and he said to the effect that they still have not dropped after giving you full doses of chemo. Something was stronger than the chemo.
In January 2012, we decided to go all the way and only eat a plant based diet. No more meat or dairy or cheese or eggs or fish, just vegetables and grains and nuts and fruits and a lot of the vegetables came from our own garden - it tripled in size. I went through a couple more CAT scans to check on progress but I stopped that in December and was released by the oncologist to my family doctor. My last visit to the oncologist yielded him saying, "Adam, no one would know that you had cancer by your numbers and no one would know you ever took chemo."
So I am on my own and really okay with that. Back to the interview, Chris does a great job at talking about different things he did and also encouraging people to make some changes that all of us need to hear and do, cancer or not. My lifestyle may seem radical but I had something radical happen to me and I had some radical stuff dumped into me, so me doing something radical about that doesn't seem so radical but probably normal in that situation.
So there is my 3rd year anniversary update.
God Bless.
Adam
Here is a link to a short 5 minute interview with a man who had colon cancer at the age of 26. The difference between he and I is that they opted to do surgery first and that gave him time to think about the protocol to follow of chemo and radiation. I of course am older but my route was chemo and radiation first with surgery next and then chemo to follow. Chris had time with the recovery of surgery to think and investigate if he would do the chemo and radiation and decided not to. He adopted many different natural ways of dealing with the cancer and is cancer free to this day.
My story happened 3 years ago this month. I was diagnosed with cancer. I was put right into 4 rounds of pretty heavy doses of chemo. 8+ hours in the infusion center and then another 46 hours with a fanny pack pumping it into me. After 4 rounds of this I went to radiation 5 days a week for 4 weeks and on a pill form of chemo. All this time blood tests were taken to monitor me and reduce the amounts of chemo as needed when my immune system started to drop.
The problem is that it didn't, not significantly. From friends and the internet I knew from the get go that I needed to eliminate red meat from my diet and all refined sugar. You lose your appetite taking chemo so what I did eat was beans and a lot of them. I got on the treadmill and got my lymph system working. I got to the point that I looked half dead on the outside but the blood work was saying my immune system was getting the fuel it needed.
Next came the surgery and recovery in July. It was a time to really educate myself on nutrition and what it could do. We purged the house of anything man made and got serious about discipline to eating only whole foods. I had changed my plate so much that there wasn't much room for anything on it after the vegetables were all there. I bought a juicer before the scheduled next rounds of chemo and we started drinking a vegetable/greens mix twice a day - a quart each, that was October.
The chemo was scheduled and I went but something was telling me to stop. My body told me through very strange side effects that I didn't need it and it was doing more harm than good. My mind was getting full of good information that was showing me another way. My wife and friends were behind me on this decision. The day to stop, I asked the oncologist how my numbers were doing and he said to the effect that they still have not dropped after giving you full doses of chemo. Something was stronger than the chemo.
In January 2012, we decided to go all the way and only eat a plant based diet. No more meat or dairy or cheese or eggs or fish, just vegetables and grains and nuts and fruits and a lot of the vegetables came from our own garden - it tripled in size. I went through a couple more CAT scans to check on progress but I stopped that in December and was released by the oncologist to my family doctor. My last visit to the oncologist yielded him saying, "Adam, no one would know that you had cancer by your numbers and no one would know you ever took chemo."
So I am on my own and really okay with that. Back to the interview, Chris does a great job at talking about different things he did and also encouraging people to make some changes that all of us need to hear and do, cancer or not. My lifestyle may seem radical but I had something radical happen to me and I had some radical stuff dumped into me, so me doing something radical about that doesn't seem so radical but probably normal in that situation.
So there is my 3rd year anniversary update.
God Bless.
Adam
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