Alternative Cancer Cures: My Choices

Statistically, I have a one in three chance of getting some kind of cancer. For Hal, it's one in TWO. Those are pretty high odds. I'm planning ahead. I don't want to be making fear-driven decisions which is what will happen if I am unprepared.

Since chemo has a 2% success rate, there's a 0% chance we'll try that. Besides, most conventional doctors talk of cancer treatments instead of cancer cures.

There are healers -- some actual M.D.s, most naturopaths and chiropractors -- who talk of alternative cancer cures complete with success stories! That's who I'm listening to and studying.

This prep list comes from years of reading and listening to experts and researchers and to cancer survivors who used alternative* cures.

Much of the list comes from a series of interviews with successful alternative cancer doctors. This series changed my life: I no longer fear cancer. That's big. If you want a copy, leave a comment. I will email you and we'll work out how to get it to you.

Also check out my Cures page here.

What I'd Do If I Had Cancer

Of all the doctors I've studied so far, Dr. Gonzalez and the Gerson Therapy resonate with me the most. As of this writing, if I got a cancer diagnosis and, depending on the type, I'd likely start with one of these protocols. Then I'd do everything prescribed, no hesitation.

What I Do To Prevent Cancer

My program consists of several pieces: Physical (food, supplements, exercise, detox), Mental (learning), Spiritual (meditation, fellowship with like-minded people) and Emotional (family, friends, fun).

Physical

FOOD We don't eat any processed food (in a box), faux food (like margarine) or fast food (unless trapped, as I sometimes am on the road.) We don't even buy processed foods from the health food store because those are full of non-food ingredients, too. As much as humanly possible without breaking the bank, we eat:

• organically raised/grown foods

• filtered water from our Big Berkey

• pastured meats fed no or very little grains and raised 100% without prophylactic antibiotics or growth hormones

• raw milk

• raw milk cheeses whenever possible

• homemade bread made with organic wheat, sometimes sprouted

• eggs from our backyard chickens

• raw honey

• plenty of butter and cream (raw when available)

• fermented foods: sauerkraut, kombucha, kefir, yogurt, beet kvass

• white and brown rice

• lots of good fats: lard, coconut oil, butter, bacon fat

• no oils except coconut, sometimes a little olive, and sunflower in the homemade fermented mayonnaise

• lots of real salt -- yum!

• my new addition for digestion help: bitter herbs

The goal is to eat nutrient-dense ancestral foods, the WAPF way. And to avoid GMOs, pesticide residue, additives like dyes and MSG, eating things we can't pronounce that are clearly not food but still in our food, as well as all the things allowed in our food that don't have to be on the label.

Yeah, there are plenty of those. The FDA allows all sorts of crap in food without it having to be on the label, calling these 500 ingredients GRAS or Generally Recognized As Safe. Stuff like asparaginase enzyme preparation produced by genetically modified Bacillus subtilis, polyglycerol polyricinoleic acid, and ethyl cellulose. Feh. Labeling is so misleading, we'd be nuts to base our food choices on a label.

New Rule: from now on, if it has a label, it's probably not good for me. My farmer doesn't have to label his food. I already know exactly what's in it.

SUPPLEMENTS Here's the complete skinny on supplements. That topic needed it's own blog post!

EXERCISE I do something almost every day. Sometimes it's yoga, sometimes it's push-ups. Most days I walk to the bottom of my long driveway, then jog back up for some high intensity heart throb.

DETOX The hard fact is that we store toxins in our organs and our body fat. It we don't get rid of them, they do us harm. Sweating, deep breathing, coffee enemas, saunas, exercise -- I do it all. Dr. Mercola recommends taking niacin before exercising and sauna. The occasional liver cleanse doesn't hurt. I've done both to good effect.

Mental: Learning

All the cancer docs stressed keeping the brain active, to stay interested. I read a ton on the computer, but that's all "reading by accident." Surfing. Now, I get up 30 minutes earlier and read with my morning wake-up brew. I love this time!

Spiritual: Meditation

Before my reading, I sit quietly for a few minutes and reflect. I'm using The 3-Minute Meditator as my guide. I'm loving this addition to my morning, too. I look forward to it (surprisingly) and have found that I can use the techniques throughout the day. Great book for those of us Type A personalities who find sitting still almost painful!

Emotional: Family, Friends, Fun

Family and friends, I got and I'm grateful. Keeping the fun happening is sometimes hard. I like what I do, I enjoy reading online, all good stuff, but I have to take a break every now and then. I think of FUN as doing something DIFFERENT, even if it's just watching a movie with the boys. I'm doing more of that.

Why All The Cancer Talk?

A) I am practically hysterical on the topic of being in the hospital. As in like PTSD hysterical. Almost dying was nothing. Having to endure another cure would be murder. (Don't you love words?) I never want to go back. Ever. E-V-E-R. That's one reason. Here's the other reason:

B) Remember when I wrote about Hal and his hemochromatosis? His ferritin count was 3,000 ng (nanograms per millileter). Normal is 30-400 ng/mL. The only way to reduce this number is bloodletting. He's given blood every week for the last six months. His ferritin is now @ 500 ng, still high but not overly. He's slowed down on the bloodletting, but he'll do it probably once a month or every couple of months for the rest of his life.

Here's what worried me. (Ok, everything worries me but I'm working on that, too.) Over the six months, he's lost 25 pounds. That's a lot. The man is a shadow of his former self, a bag 'o bones and a hank of hair, skeletal. My husband has always had Thighs. No more. He went from robust guy to skinny guy and it seemed like overnight.

We were not prepared at all for the weight loss. It was a complete mystery. Deductive reasoning said it had to be connected to the bloodletting because that was the only thing that changed for him physically. But NOWHERE online could I find information on what frequent blood loss will do to a body. Zero information.

What I did find is that, even if you are not in pain and don't find a lump somewhere AND you quickly lose a significant amount of weight without trying, you might have cancer or diabetes. Regular blood tests ruled out diabetes. That left cancer. So I've gone after cancer information with a vengeance.

Then one day, while Hal was having his blood drawn, he mentioned to the nurse that he'd lost a ton of weight since doing the bloodletting. She said, "Oh, that always happens. I see it all the time. Pretty great side benefit, huh?" Leave it to a nurse to know what's going on. My immediate cancer fears are allayed, but here I sit with all these great cancer resources. Hopefully someone else can learn from them, too.

I'm not living this way just to prevent cancer. That's a side benefit. I want a healthy body so I can enjoy a good quality of life during my time on the planet. Which, in my family, could be for almost as long again as I've been on it now. Sheesh, hopefully I'll be sick of the place by then!