In the Spring of 1980, I graduated high school as excited as any 18 year old could be to head off to college in the Fall. I was scheduled to move into a Freshman dorm in late August. In July, I discovered I was pregnant. I was no longer in a relationship with the baby's father, although he has been a wonderful father to our daughter, Bonni, and a good friend to me all these years. Needless to say, I was not allowed to move into the dorm and had to cancel my classes. I did make it to OSU. I just started later than planned. My gorgeous and amazing daughter has been an incredible gift in my life and is the one with me in the picture of the 5K I ran last month. I don't regret having that baby for one second. But let me tell you, being completely single and pregnant at 18 is no picnic. Believe it or not, I was not "that" kind of girl but the stigma was certainly there.
Of course, none of the boys I hung around with were comfortable hanging around with me as they didn't want people to think it was their kid. There were two exceptions to that, John and Don. This post is about Don. Don was 21 and a student of my mother's. He was Mexican-American and very good-looking. We were only friends but he was always there for me. He didn't care if people thought it was his baby. When people assumed that he just went along with it and winked at me. Don had not had an easy life. He had been on his own, quite literally, since he was 12. He was really smart in the important ways but wasn't really "educated." He had gone to job corps to learn a trade and was an ideal student there. He made sure not to cause any trouble if he could help it because he was so appreciative of the chance he had to make his life better. He graduated job corps the same Spring that I graduated high school. He spent weekends and holidays at our house because he didn't have any family and Mom had become a mentor to him. He was like a brother to me.
We lived in Guthrie at this time and in the Summer, Don got a job in Oklahoma City. He stayed with us until he got his job and an apartment. He found a roommate to share expenses and was so proud that he had pulled himself up out of homelessness and was now earning a good living. I missed him so much that Fall but he would come for weekends and since I was babysitting a lot during that time, he would just hang out and help me babysit. He was fantastic with kids. I knew he would be a really wonderful "Uncle Don" to my baby and a wonderful father someday.
But none of that was meant to be.
My baby was due on my 19th birthday, Feb 11, 1981. She didn't come. Don was planning to spend Valentine's Day with me and be at the hospital with me when she was born but on the 13th, late in the evening, he went to the Emergency Room with severe abdominal pain. The doctors initially thought pancreatitis. As it turned out, Don had cancer in his liver. He was admitted to the hospital on Valentine's Day and I went into labor that day a few hours later. We didn't know his diagnosis at that point. I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl on February 15 and on the 16th I expected to go home. But they had me stay an extra day. My mom worked at this hospital and my doctor was my best friend, Patti's, dad. They had chosen to keep me an extra day pending Don's test results so they could tell me he had liver cancer before I was sent home. They were that worried about my reaction.
I went home with my baby, Bonni, on the 17th and was chomping at the bit to get to the hospital in the City to see Don. I had a birthday gift for him and he was dying to see the baby. We had talked on the phone several times and I could tell his spirits were low and I knew Bonni would cheer him right up. Did I mention that Valentine's Day was Don's birthday? He was 22.
When I finally got the okay from the doctors to visit him, it had only been a couple of weeks since I had seen him and yet he didn't even look like the same person. His abdomen was distended and the rest of him looked skeletal. They had already started him on chemotherapy and he was so sick he could barely sit up. When he held the baby, his face lit up and all I could think was that this was death saying farewell to life. I wasn't wrong.
People who know me often wonder why someone as pragmatic as I am absolutely hates Friday the 13th. I stay home with my family on any Friday the 13th if AT ALL possible. February 13, 1981 when Don was admitted to the hospital was a Friday. And on Friday, March 13, they told us (we were put down as his next of kin, much to the fury of him mother who had arrived from Mexico) that the cancer had metastacized throughout his entire body and he was beyond their help. They sent him home with us to die. Don died in April.
This was the first time I had ever seen cancer up close and personal. It happened during an already emotional time for me and left a deep, enduring scar. I become terrified of cancer. I lived in mortal fear of cancer touching the lives of my family again and viewed it as my ultimate worst nightmare. When I was diagnosed with Pagets disease less than 2 years ago, the doctor was concerned about the possibility of cancer and it sent me into an absolute tailspin. I always knew that if I ever got any kind of cancer that I would want them to treat it VERY aggressively to the bitter end.
My how time changes things. Over the past year of learning and changing my life, my diet, my health, my outlook, I have read more research, watched more documentaries, read more books concerning cancer than I ever would have thought possible. I always avoided anything that mentioned cancer. Some weird fear that if I thought about it, I would be inviting it in somehow. Nobody ever said phobias were rational. But I started hearing stories here and there about cancer being halted or healed with the diet I had chosen. (Actually, it chose me but that is another story.) So I gave in to my curiosity and watched "The Gerson Miracle." I was flabbergasted. Then I watched, "Crazy, Sexy Cancer." I looked around and started seeing story after story of cancer healed. Doctors saying, chemotherapy or die. But they refused chemotherapy and lived!
This week, thanks to referrals from the good people on my favorite facebook group, Let Food Be Thy Medicine, I watched two more amazing documentaries, "Eating" and "Healing Cancer from the Inside Out." The second one, my 18 year old watched with me growing more furious by the minute. She is becoming a regular warrior for Whole-Food, Plant-Based nutrition which makes me a very proud mama.
I have spoken many times about all the benefits I've gained from my new lifestyle but one I haven't mentioned because I couldn't think how to make you understand what it means to me, is that I no longer fear cancer. I could NEVER have said that a year ago. I would have felt that it was an absolutely certain way to make sure that I was diagnosed with it very soon. But it holds no terrors for me now. Don's body was so eaten up with aggressive cancer cells by the time it was discovered that it is entirely likely that no protocol on the planet would have saved him. But it sure would have been worth a try and I have NO doubt that it would have made his last weeks or months on this earth less horrific than the chemotherapy did. But the things that I have learned about cancer from these films has removed that horrible, nagging fear that was always there in the back of my mind placing a shadow over every day of my life.
Just a few of the things that I learned from these films.
1. Everyone has cancer cells in their body. The question is why does it grow and become deadly in some people and not others.
2. Animal protein is far and away cancer's favorite food, especially dairy.
3. Deny the human body animal protein and cancer cells stop growing. Yes. It really is that simple. Why hasn't the public been made aware of that fact with trumpets and whistles and dancing in the streets? Politics and money baby. Meat and dairy lobbies are HUGE in Washington, not to mention big pharma. Do you think the big 3 want people to know that giving up meat and dairy and NOT taking poison from the multi-billion dollar cancer drug industry is the real answer? Think that is "conspiracy theory?" Would you like to buy some ocean front property in Oklahoma? Seriously, does anyone out there still doubt that the big money industries pull the strings in Washington? Really?
4. Chemotherapy is poison. It is my personal belief that many of the people who supposedly die of cancer actually die with cancer but they die OF chemotherapy.
5. There is a reason that clinics like The Gerson Institute are in Mexico or Europe. In the good old U.S. of A, doctors will lose their license and go to jail if they even suggest there is an answer to cancer other than surgery or drug protocols.
6. The AMA is just as much a criminal organization as the FDA. When one of the ladies in Healing Cancer from the Inside Out said that her doctors informed her that if she refused chemotherapy, they would refuse her disability claim, I just about dropped the jug of juice I was making and I thought Harmoni (my 18 year old) was going to choke. "You have stage 4 cancer and mere months to live but if you refuse chemopoisoning, we will deny your disability claim." Yes. That happened.
There is SO much more but you just really really really owe it to yourself and your family to at least watch these videos. Be open-minded. Don't allow the crap that has been fed to us by the FDA and marketing experts over decades to stop you from at least thinking about what they have to say. Is it really scarier to think of giving up your barbecued ribs and milkshakes than it is to think of chemotherapy and radiation?
Cancer is a tricky thing. There are many, many carcinogenic agents in the world we live in today so nobody can say for certain that they will never get cancer. I'm not saying that I have suddenly become certain that I can never be diagnosed with cancer. I did pretty much everything wrong for 50 years so a year on a new diet lifestyle is not insurance. But I fully believe my risk factor goes down every day. I know that I am creating an environment in my body that facilitates it's ability to defeat cancer cells as all our bodies are meant to do. And I promise you, I will NEVER undergo chemotherapy. If I ever did have to battle cancer I would do it on my own terms with my dignity and quality of life as intact as possible. I'll take the Gerson protocol over chemo hands down. And the thought of the mere word cancer doesn't terrify me anymore now than the words car wreck. Sure those things happen but I am doing everything in my power to avoid them. I am giving my body the tools it needs to win that battle.
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