My Journey to Health: Cancer, Part 1

It’s been seven years since I got the call that my dad had cancer. But I remember my Mama’s somber words, as if it was yesterday. Even her optimistic and hopeful attitude could not mask the brevity of such news.

It seared into my conscience like the damp concrete of our Carolina patio piercing my bare feet. Life and death clung equally to the words she spoke as I grappled with the gruesome reality of what terminal illness might mean for my Mom and the rest of my family. I had no idea yet of the fight that would ensue, between the two.

I immediately began to think of all the ways that my dad would surely outsmart this awful thing. I thought if anyone was going to beat non-hodgkins lymphoma, it was going to be him.

He had seemed so healthy my whole life. In fact, as far as I was concerned, he was one of the healthiest people I knew. He ate “well-balanced” meals, loved the outdoors, worked hard, and was happily in love with my Mother, for as long as I can remember. It did not seem possible that he could get such a deadly disease.

It had barely been three weeks since He had come to our home in North Carolina to help my husband finish up the remodel of our house before we would sell it and move to Nashville. I absolutely loved having my dad around, smiling at his quirky ways, and watching his eyes sparkle with joy as he worked his magic on our home. Even the nightly cold sweats he was having could not have forewarned me of his impending doom.

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When I got the news of his cancer, I urgently began to research everything I could on the subject including: causes, scientific studies, treatments, and cures. I scoured the internet, buried myself in books, and sought out every single person I knew that had beat cancer in some way or another. My parents did the same. We had always been a bit unconventional in our approach to health, my Mom having homeschooled and homebirthed most of us, treating our colds with garlic, instead of doctor-prescribed antibiotics. Ironically my dad had always been intriqued with natural cures and the healing properties of herbs and plants and the foods we eat.

It seemed only natural that he and my Mom would seek out a more holistic treatment method for his lymphoma, than the chemo/radiation that had been loosely prescribed by the medical doctor that diagnosed him. In their seeking, they came across a hospital in Tijuana, Mexico, which at the time, was having far greater success rates in treating cancer, than any here in the U.S.

My dad personally knew of at least two people who had recently experienced relative success/remission, with two different kinds of cancer, while under treatment there. After he and my mom prayed about it, they both decided that this was clearly the best choice for him, in spite of the fact that it would require alot of money out-of-pocket, and medical insurance would NOT cover it, since it was considered “alternative” medicine and in another country.

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It was an act of faith and courage when my father boarded a plane, a few weeks later, to place himself under the treatment program at the Oasis of Hope hospital in Mexico. My sister, Christina just so happened to be doing mission work with her husband in the same country, and came up to Tijuana to support him for his first round of scans, tests, chemo, and natural therapies.

In less than nine days, he came home with an overwhelming prescription of diet and lifestyle changes, but with more hope and knowledge than he had left with.

His diet plan included lots of raw fruits and veggies, supplements, and no red meat. My mother began to juice fresh carrots and make raw hummus, while my dad took a massive amount of supplements, every day. It was all a huge change for them, in spite of the fact that they had eaten relatively “healthy” up to this point.

However, they were both committed to the program and did their best to follow what was outlined in the protocol. The rest of us supported their new way of life and truly believed that this was the avenue to my father’s healing.

Continued in “My Journey to Health: Cancer, Part 2.”

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