When I wrote last weekend I was tired and didn't add the brownie recipe. Since it's a perennial favorite at the clinic on IPT days, when we get a sweet treat to bring our blood sugar back up, I said I'd send it, so here it is:
An Oasis of Healing's Raw Vegan Chocolate Brownies
3 cups walnuts, previously soaked overnight and dehydrated (this eliminates enzyme inhibitors)
6-8 dates, seeded and soaked 10 minutes or longer. Save the soak water.
1/2 cup raw organic cacao or cocoa powder
Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until mixture forms a ball. If the mixture is too dry and not forming a ball, add some of the date water until it does.
Place mixture in a 9" pie pan and spread level with an offset spatula.
Icing
1/4 cup raw organic cacao or cocoa powder
1-2 tablespoons coconut oil
1-2 tablespoons agave syrup
Place all ingredients in an bowl and whisk until creamy and smooth. Spread smoothly over the top of the brownies. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Serves 8
These are very rich and a small piece is satisfying.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Seven
Since Dave arrived about a week ago I haven't done much blogging. He's keeping me busy. Today, August 27, is our tenth anniversary! It's sometimes hard to believe that it's been so long. They have been good years, with lots accomplished, some challenges, and lots of good times and companionship. We'll be flying home together Saturday, Sept. 4, at the end of my seventh week at An Oasis of Healing www.anoasisofhealing.com.
A couple of you have asked about the food we eat to stop our bodies from making cancer. As you know, I've had a strong interest in nutrition my entire adult life, and I always tried to feed my family well to enhance our health. I first learned about how we could be healthier from Adelle Davis back in the early 1960s, and there is so much new research and information available since those days.
The trouble is, so much of the information is conflicting, which makes it terribly hard to know what to believe. I've finally come to realize you cannot take any nutrition information seriously if it comes from any publication or TV show that advertises either food or drugs. Well, you ask, where do you get information, then? There are lots and lots of books out there, but most of the authors have an agenda, just as the magazines do. They want to sell you on their diet.
The solution seems to be to consider this: Is it really food? I know that sounds funny, but if your great grandmother wouldn't have recognized it, it isn't food. If she wouldn't have known it as food, neither will your body. You have to realize that every bite you put into your mouth is either helping you heal, be healthy, and strong, or it is contributing to your early demise. Period. If it is food, it came from nature. It isn't cloned, sprayed, laced with chemicals, or denatured by being extruded through a machine to give it a fanciful shape to appeal to the kids. It hasn't had its nutrition removed and replaced with artificial colors, chemical flavors, or weird fats not found in the natural world. Every bite of those things you eat helps make you one of the sick, fat or sick skinny Americans you see every time you step outside the door.
So now we've eliminated practically everything in the entire supermarket. And, when you realize that even the fresh looking produce, unless it has been organically grown, has likely been doused with chemicals from its seed origins to its trip to the store, you know it's time to make a commitment to eat only foods that are actually real and that have not been poisoned. Makes sense, doesn't it, not to spray poison on something you're going to eat?
OK, so now we've got the produce covered. What about bread, milk, eggs, meat? As most of you know, I went back to school a few years ago to study nutrition in greater depth and became a nutritional therapy practitioner. I learned a lot during that intensive year of reading and study. The core of my education was based on the research of Weston A. Price, who traveled to the far corners of our round world to find people who had not begun eating what he referred to as the foods of commerce. He found healthy people in remote areas eating extremely varied diets. They didn't have any of our modern killer diseases. No heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or doctor-caused ailments. They didn't even have rotten teeth. Their teeth were perfectly aligned, not crowded, and their bone structures allowed for easy birthing of babies. These people were about as perfect specimens as you could find, and far healthier than their offspring who moved to town and started eating canned pork and beans, white bread, margarine, shortening, and lots of sugar.
While they ate widely varying diets, they all had some things in common. For one thing, they all ate fermented foods daily, foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt and poi. They all ate animal protein, and all ate some of it raw. They all got lots more of the fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E, and K than most of us do today. There were lots of other things they did in common. If you're interested in knowing about them, check out www.westonaprice.org. This is just a little background to tell you where I was coming from before I decided to come to the Oasis.
But, when I began looking for results, that is, for programs where they were actually talking about healing cancer, not just shrinking tumors, I found that they were all either vegan or near-vegan. No animal protein, no animal anything. A few of them use some milk products, such as yogurt or cottage cheese, and that's about it. But now there is compelling evidence that dairy products strongly promote the growth of cancer. Nobody is talking about whether the studies showing this use raw or pasteurized milk, but the milk protein, casein, turns the cancer button on. Remove it and other animal proteins, and you can turn the cancer button off.
The China Study by T Colin Campbell, talks a lot about how they discovered this, and the mechanisms involved, including the fact that cultures eating more than 10% of their food from animal sources have much higher rates of all the killer diseases we are so familiar with today. That includes the biggies: heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, as well as the autoimmune diseases that are so prevalent nowadays. And you can see on the charts in his book, the more animal protein they eat, the more the disease rates spike. And I had to realize that I, too, had been eating more beef, because I found a source for well raised, pastured local beef.
So I've been a bit conflicted about this 180 degree turnaround in dietary thought, but when I came here I saw right away they were getting results. People were being healed of cancer. I also found the staff to be professional, busy, slim, vibrant and healthy. When I had to go to the hospital for a little procedure I saw nurses who were nice but seemed to be a bit foggy about the details, moving slowly, and carrying a lot of extra poundage. You sure can't say that about the nurses at Oasis! They are attentive and on top of things. They know what they're doing and they do it in friendly good grace.
If a raw vegan diet heals cancer, then count me in! The food here is interesting, tasty, varied, full of lush veggies, berries and a little fruit (not much, since cancer thrives on sugar), nuts and seeds. The only sweet treats we get are to bring our blood sugar back up into a normal range following IPT, where it has been artificially lowered with insulin in order to feed poison to the hungry cancer cells. Even then, our treats are sweetened not with sugar, but with fruit. The raw brownies are a special delight everybody looks forward to. They are made from only five ingredients, and that includes the icing! They are sweetened with dates and there is a tiny bit of agave in the icing. Mmmmm, delicious! Maybe next time I write I'll give you the recipe.
But for now, it's after midnight and time to hit the sack!
A couple of you have asked about the food we eat to stop our bodies from making cancer. As you know, I've had a strong interest in nutrition my entire adult life, and I always tried to feed my family well to enhance our health. I first learned about how we could be healthier from Adelle Davis back in the early 1960s, and there is so much new research and information available since those days.
The trouble is, so much of the information is conflicting, which makes it terribly hard to know what to believe. I've finally come to realize you cannot take any nutrition information seriously if it comes from any publication or TV show that advertises either food or drugs. Well, you ask, where do you get information, then? There are lots and lots of books out there, but most of the authors have an agenda, just as the magazines do. They want to sell you on their diet.
The solution seems to be to consider this: Is it really food? I know that sounds funny, but if your great grandmother wouldn't have recognized it, it isn't food. If she wouldn't have known it as food, neither will your body. You have to realize that every bite you put into your mouth is either helping you heal, be healthy, and strong, or it is contributing to your early demise. Period. If it is food, it came from nature. It isn't cloned, sprayed, laced with chemicals, or denatured by being extruded through a machine to give it a fanciful shape to appeal to the kids. It hasn't had its nutrition removed and replaced with artificial colors, chemical flavors, or weird fats not found in the natural world. Every bite of those things you eat helps make you one of the sick, fat or sick skinny Americans you see every time you step outside the door.
So now we've eliminated practically everything in the entire supermarket. And, when you realize that even the fresh looking produce, unless it has been organically grown, has likely been doused with chemicals from its seed origins to its trip to the store, you know it's time to make a commitment to eat only foods that are actually real and that have not been poisoned. Makes sense, doesn't it, not to spray poison on something you're going to eat?
OK, so now we've got the produce covered. What about bread, milk, eggs, meat? As most of you know, I went back to school a few years ago to study nutrition in greater depth and became a nutritional therapy practitioner. I learned a lot during that intensive year of reading and study. The core of my education was based on the research of Weston A. Price, who traveled to the far corners of our round world to find people who had not begun eating what he referred to as the foods of commerce. He found healthy people in remote areas eating extremely varied diets. They didn't have any of our modern killer diseases. No heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or doctor-caused ailments. They didn't even have rotten teeth. Their teeth were perfectly aligned, not crowded, and their bone structures allowed for easy birthing of babies. These people were about as perfect specimens as you could find, and far healthier than their offspring who moved to town and started eating canned pork and beans, white bread, margarine, shortening, and lots of sugar.
While they ate widely varying diets, they all had some things in common. For one thing, they all ate fermented foods daily, foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt and poi. They all ate animal protein, and all ate some of it raw. They all got lots more of the fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E, and K than most of us do today. There were lots of other things they did in common. If you're interested in knowing about them, check out www.westonaprice.org. This is just a little background to tell you where I was coming from before I decided to come to the Oasis.
But, when I began looking for results, that is, for programs where they were actually talking about healing cancer, not just shrinking tumors, I found that they were all either vegan or near-vegan. No animal protein, no animal anything. A few of them use some milk products, such as yogurt or cottage cheese, and that's about it. But now there is compelling evidence that dairy products strongly promote the growth of cancer. Nobody is talking about whether the studies showing this use raw or pasteurized milk, but the milk protein, casein, turns the cancer button on. Remove it and other animal proteins, and you can turn the cancer button off.
The China Study by T Colin Campbell, talks a lot about how they discovered this, and the mechanisms involved, including the fact that cultures eating more than 10% of their food from animal sources have much higher rates of all the killer diseases we are so familiar with today. That includes the biggies: heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, as well as the autoimmune diseases that are so prevalent nowadays. And you can see on the charts in his book, the more animal protein they eat, the more the disease rates spike. And I had to realize that I, too, had been eating more beef, because I found a source for well raised, pastured local beef.
So I've been a bit conflicted about this 180 degree turnaround in dietary thought, but when I came here I saw right away they were getting results. People were being healed of cancer. I also found the staff to be professional, busy, slim, vibrant and healthy. When I had to go to the hospital for a little procedure I saw nurses who were nice but seemed to be a bit foggy about the details, moving slowly, and carrying a lot of extra poundage. You sure can't say that about the nurses at Oasis! They are attentive and on top of things. They know what they're doing and they do it in friendly good grace.
If a raw vegan diet heals cancer, then count me in! The food here is interesting, tasty, varied, full of lush veggies, berries and a little fruit (not much, since cancer thrives on sugar), nuts and seeds. The only sweet treats we get are to bring our blood sugar back up into a normal range following IPT, where it has been artificially lowered with insulin in order to feed poison to the hungry cancer cells. Even then, our treats are sweetened not with sugar, but with fruit. The raw brownies are a special delight everybody looks forward to. They are made from only five ingredients, and that includes the icing! They are sweetened with dates and there is a tiny bit of agave in the icing. Mmmmm, delicious! Maybe next time I write I'll give you the recipe.
But for now, it's after midnight and time to hit the sack!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Six
This will just be a quickie, with two or three things to add, just to keep in touch.
First, I meant to post something last weekend. Some of you have written asking for more information about how to stop making cancer in your body with food. I've put it off because it is such a big, and emotionally tinged subject, but I planned to tackle it last Saturday. Then I woke up not very energetic, so I spent much of the day in a recliner with a nice, easy Sue Grafton novel, nodding off from time to time.
Tuesday when I went in for IPT Michelle, one of the nurses, was rather shocked to find my blood pressure at 70/47! Yikes! I told her that was an all-time record low (previously, in fact when I was in my 20s or 30s, it once measured 80/60). She immediately suspected I had let myself become dehydrated, and immediately started me on a saline drip.
While on the drip I went off to the colon hydrotherapist, Carol, who began pumping water in from the other direction! Oops, probably more than you wanted to know.
Michelle checked with Dr. Lodi and he told her I was needing electrolytes, so she brought in a glass of salt water, from a good sea salt, with apologies. To tell the truth, it actually tasted great, reassuring me that the doc was correct - I needed the minerals!
By the time I got back on track for IPT, my blood pressure was up to 110/68 or so and my problems with not feeling energetic had evaporated. Wow! What a lesson!
Now I'm once more energetic and I won't be letting that happen again.
My second piece of news is that Dave is flying in this evening, to stay until I go home. I was so concerned that his born-and-bred-in-the-Northwest body would never adapt to Arizona heat, and knowing how he loves working outdoors every day, I thought he'd be like a caged lion stuck indoors in the clinic every day. But he's convinced he'll do ok with the situation, so here he comes!
The third thing I'm excited about is meeting Anna yesterday. Anna is her real name (well, since she grew up in China, it really is probably something else, but Anna is what she uses these days). On the clinic website, www.anoasisofhealing.com, there are video testimonials of patients. In hers, from two years ago, Anna, at 80 pounds, is a very sick young woman whose doctor in Hawaii had given her a very dire prognosis. She looked like she would just fade away into the chair. Her voice was weak and she couldn't project it because she had fluid in her lungs. To tell the truth, she looked like she wasn't long for this earth.
Toward the end of her stay she did a second testimonial, This time her strength was returning, she spoke out, and she looked wonderful, because she was healing.
Yesterday, Anna was a force to be reckoned with! She is almost 50 pounds heavier, and very proud of it! Many of us have struggled to keep from gaining too much weight over the years, or to lose and regain it over and over, but the flip side, gaining weight, for people who can't seem to, can be much more daunting. And, she has managed to gain the weight while eating a largely raw food diet of veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds.
Anna is walking enthusiasm for all she learned at An Oasis, for her seemingly miraculous healing, for embracing her new, totally healthy lifestyle, and for telling the world her story. Her husband has joined fully in the project, and they happily spend time together, in the kitchen and out, joyously sharing the good news: you can heal cancer and share love with the world, through alternative healing means, and your newly restored life can be abundantly full of happiness, energy, enthusiasm and vigor.
I'll be doing more writing about Anna and her husband. She has agreed to let me tell her story to the world, and I'm pumped!
So now I'm off to the clinic for another round of IPT, EWOT, Sauna, and more healing. I'm headed in to kill some more cancer cells! Back to you soon!
First, I meant to post something last weekend. Some of you have written asking for more information about how to stop making cancer in your body with food. I've put it off because it is such a big, and emotionally tinged subject, but I planned to tackle it last Saturday. Then I woke up not very energetic, so I spent much of the day in a recliner with a nice, easy Sue Grafton novel, nodding off from time to time.
Tuesday when I went in for IPT Michelle, one of the nurses, was rather shocked to find my blood pressure at 70/47! Yikes! I told her that was an all-time record low (previously, in fact when I was in my 20s or 30s, it once measured 80/60). She immediately suspected I had let myself become dehydrated, and immediately started me on a saline drip.
While on the drip I went off to the colon hydrotherapist, Carol, who began pumping water in from the other direction! Oops, probably more than you wanted to know.
Michelle checked with Dr. Lodi and he told her I was needing electrolytes, so she brought in a glass of salt water, from a good sea salt, with apologies. To tell the truth, it actually tasted great, reassuring me that the doc was correct - I needed the minerals!
By the time I got back on track for IPT, my blood pressure was up to 110/68 or so and my problems with not feeling energetic had evaporated. Wow! What a lesson!
Now I'm once more energetic and I won't be letting that happen again.
My second piece of news is that Dave is flying in this evening, to stay until I go home. I was so concerned that his born-and-bred-in-the-Northwest body would never adapt to Arizona heat, and knowing how he loves working outdoors every day, I thought he'd be like a caged lion stuck indoors in the clinic every day. But he's convinced he'll do ok with the situation, so here he comes!
The third thing I'm excited about is meeting Anna yesterday. Anna is her real name (well, since she grew up in China, it really is probably something else, but Anna is what she uses these days). On the clinic website, www.anoasisofhealing.com, there are video testimonials of patients. In hers, from two years ago, Anna, at 80 pounds, is a very sick young woman whose doctor in Hawaii had given her a very dire prognosis. She looked like she would just fade away into the chair. Her voice was weak and she couldn't project it because she had fluid in her lungs. To tell the truth, she looked like she wasn't long for this earth.
Toward the end of her stay she did a second testimonial, This time her strength was returning, she spoke out, and she looked wonderful, because she was healing.
Yesterday, Anna was a force to be reckoned with! She is almost 50 pounds heavier, and very proud of it! Many of us have struggled to keep from gaining too much weight over the years, or to lose and regain it over and over, but the flip side, gaining weight, for people who can't seem to, can be much more daunting. And, she has managed to gain the weight while eating a largely raw food diet of veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds.
Anna is walking enthusiasm for all she learned at An Oasis, for her seemingly miraculous healing, for embracing her new, totally healthy lifestyle, and for telling the world her story. Her husband has joined fully in the project, and they happily spend time together, in the kitchen and out, joyously sharing the good news: you can heal cancer and share love with the world, through alternative healing means, and your newly restored life can be abundantly full of happiness, energy, enthusiasm and vigor.
I'll be doing more writing about Anna and her husband. She has agreed to let me tell her story to the world, and I'm pumped!
So now I'm off to the clinic for another round of IPT, EWOT, Sauna, and more healing. I'm headed in to kill some more cancer cells! Back to you soon!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Changing names to protect...
Friends, I've been uncomfortable with the fact that, when I first began this by sending an email to friends and relatives, I used some of the patients' first names. Then I turned it into a blog, opening it to a larger readership, and asked them if they mind my writing bits about what they are experiencing. The answer from all was yes, but don't use our names. Well, I finally figured out the editing procedure and made some changes to protect the wonderful folks here healing cancers. From now on, the stories will continue being real, and I'll have fun making up names!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Avoid chemicals in skin products
http://home.ezezine.com/221/221-2010.08.08.07.00.archive.html
Every Sunday morning I receive a great little blog from Freni Gurd, of Vancouver, BC. Today she wrote about toxins in beauty products and ways to avoid them.
Think about this: when you take something by mouth, the liver has the opportunity to detoxify it, but when you put it directly on your skin, it goes straight to the bloodstream without filtering. Many of today's products interfere with hormones, or behave similarly to estrogen, causing all sorts of bodily havoc.
There are better products out there, and you can even make some of your own if you wish, but first you need to be aware of what to look out for. And, by the way, take a magnifier to the store, because the ingredient lists are often miniscule.
Every Sunday morning I receive a great little blog from Freni Gurd, of Vancouver, BC. Today she wrote about toxins in beauty products and ways to avoid them.
Think about this: when you take something by mouth, the liver has the opportunity to detoxify it, but when you put it directly on your skin, it goes straight to the bloodstream without filtering. Many of today's products interfere with hormones, or behave similarly to estrogen, causing all sorts of bodily havoc.
There are better products out there, and you can even make some of your own if you wish, but first you need to be aware of what to look out for. And, by the way, take a magnifier to the store, because the ingredient lists are often miniscule.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Five
Yesterday a friend emailed after learning I'm here in Arizona for alternative cancer therapy. She mentioned the importance of stress in cancer and other modern ailments. It's true, modern stresses are the kind that stay with us, that don't go away after the tiger fails to catch us. Instead of a short-lived burst, our stresses go on and on. We meet one deadline only to be faced with the next one.
I haven't talked about this, but An Oasis of Healing is about the most stress-free place I've ever been. If the therapies weren't specifically aimed at healing, especially cancer, it would be a lot like spending time at a spa. Yesterday was typical.
My day began at 8 with yoga. Since the morning was mild, Amber, our positive, smiling, and lovely instructor, placed the mats on the shady grass so we could connect with Mother Earth a bit. We breathe and do our positions at an easy pace, and everybody is encouraged to do only what they are able. No lotus position for most of us. Amber asks each of us to set our intention for the day, perhaps healing or loving or whatever feels right. It sets the tone for a day of healing, positive energy, reflecting on the divine within, and feeling the love of God in nature around us.
After getting off to this positive start, Dr. Lodi held a class, one of an ongoing series about the human body, what makes it work, what gums up the works, and how to heal ourselves and never need to see another doctor. Hmmm, I wonder if that means I'll be able to cancel my expensive health insurance...
His focus was on the heart, and he talked about cholesterol and how most doctors see it as a sort of enemy. Yet cholesterol is made in our livers because it is required for life. It is an integral structural part of every cell in our bodies. Without it we would perish. When the body is working perfectly, cholesterol never becomes a problem. Yet doctors by the thousands prescribe Lipitor and other statin drugs to lower cholesterol without ever once questioning what is really causing the problem with clogged arteries in the first place.
He talked about how these drugs destroy Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), a substance also required for life. In Japan, he pointed out, when a doctor prescribes a cholesterol-lowering drug, he or she also prescribes CoQ10. When the levels of this coenzyme go too low, muscle breakdown occurs, and it is often irreversible. And guess what, folks? The heart is a muscle! So, while you think the drug you're taking is going to help your heart, it is actually leading to your demise.
Dr Lodi also pointed out that there is no research showing that taking these drugs lengthens life. Indeed, there is research which shows they not only do not lengthen life, but that people taking them die more often from cancer and violent deaths. Yet they are blithely prescribed by the tons to unsuspecting patients all over the Western world.
None of this was news to me, but I imagine it was to some of the other patients in the audience.
Next I went for a session with Dana, our acupuncturist, who mostly works on side effects and other issues we at the clinic may have. I've had only one side effect from the treatments. As part of the IPT, they give us a drug to fight inflammation. A side effect is waking after a few hours and being unable to go back to sleep. So Dana placed a needle or two to help with sleeping, others for the chronic itching, which I've experienced my entire life, and a few others for various odds and ends. I went peacefully off to sleep while the needles did their energetic magic.
Off next to see Kathleen, who does Structural Integration. I was wide awake for this session, which can hurt briefly, but then releases the body structure from incorrect forms it has taken on over years of bad postural and other habits. I'd never heard of this therapy before coming here, but when I described it to Dave he grew excited to tell me about 12 sessions of SOMA, a similar practice, he had had years ago. "I can show you before and after pictures!" he enthused. It's true, I could see differences in my body alignment after the first session. Everybody loves the results of this work. Structural Integration grew out of the original Rolfing, but Kathleen explained that it has evolved beyond the original work of Rolf.
That completed my morning, so I went in for my IV of vitamin C - 100 grams - which, in such high doses, kills cancer cells, but without the side effects of drugs.
Every day is like this, with many other therapies throughout the week, all designed to help us improve immune function, kill cancer cells, relax and balance our bodies, minds and spirits, grow stronger, healthier, whole.
The atmosphere at the clinic is always relaxed, positive, and kind. Every aspect is for our healing.
This morning I awoke earlier than I wished, so I simply lay in bed peacefully, reflecting on the blessings of being here, listening to desert rain on the skylight, and an occasional clap of thunder. I turned off the air conditioning and opened all the doors to refreshing outside air. The Canada geese on the little lake outside the condo were honking in joy at the cooler morning. I can't remember ever being so relaxed.
Peace and blessings to you all.
I haven't talked about this, but An Oasis of Healing is about the most stress-free place I've ever been. If the therapies weren't specifically aimed at healing, especially cancer, it would be a lot like spending time at a spa. Yesterday was typical.
My day began at 8 with yoga. Since the morning was mild, Amber, our positive, smiling, and lovely instructor, placed the mats on the shady grass so we could connect with Mother Earth a bit. We breathe and do our positions at an easy pace, and everybody is encouraged to do only what they are able. No lotus position for most of us. Amber asks each of us to set our intention for the day, perhaps healing or loving or whatever feels right. It sets the tone for a day of healing, positive energy, reflecting on the divine within, and feeling the love of God in nature around us.
After getting off to this positive start, Dr. Lodi held a class, one of an ongoing series about the human body, what makes it work, what gums up the works, and how to heal ourselves and never need to see another doctor. Hmmm, I wonder if that means I'll be able to cancel my expensive health insurance...
His focus was on the heart, and he talked about cholesterol and how most doctors see it as a sort of enemy. Yet cholesterol is made in our livers because it is required for life. It is an integral structural part of every cell in our bodies. Without it we would perish. When the body is working perfectly, cholesterol never becomes a problem. Yet doctors by the thousands prescribe Lipitor and other statin drugs to lower cholesterol without ever once questioning what is really causing the problem with clogged arteries in the first place.
He talked about how these drugs destroy Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), a substance also required for life. In Japan, he pointed out, when a doctor prescribes a cholesterol-lowering drug, he or she also prescribes CoQ10. When the levels of this coenzyme go too low, muscle breakdown occurs, and it is often irreversible. And guess what, folks? The heart is a muscle! So, while you think the drug you're taking is going to help your heart, it is actually leading to your demise.
Dr Lodi also pointed out that there is no research showing that taking these drugs lengthens life. Indeed, there is research which shows they not only do not lengthen life, but that people taking them die more often from cancer and violent deaths. Yet they are blithely prescribed by the tons to unsuspecting patients all over the Western world.
None of this was news to me, but I imagine it was to some of the other patients in the audience.
Next I went for a session with Dana, our acupuncturist, who mostly works on side effects and other issues we at the clinic may have. I've had only one side effect from the treatments. As part of the IPT, they give us a drug to fight inflammation. A side effect is waking after a few hours and being unable to go back to sleep. So Dana placed a needle or two to help with sleeping, others for the chronic itching, which I've experienced my entire life, and a few others for various odds and ends. I went peacefully off to sleep while the needles did their energetic magic.
Off next to see Kathleen, who does Structural Integration. I was wide awake for this session, which can hurt briefly, but then releases the body structure from incorrect forms it has taken on over years of bad postural and other habits. I'd never heard of this therapy before coming here, but when I described it to Dave he grew excited to tell me about 12 sessions of SOMA, a similar practice, he had had years ago. "I can show you before and after pictures!" he enthused. It's true, I could see differences in my body alignment after the first session. Everybody loves the results of this work. Structural Integration grew out of the original Rolfing, but Kathleen explained that it has evolved beyond the original work of Rolf.
That completed my morning, so I went in for my IV of vitamin C - 100 grams - which, in such high doses, kills cancer cells, but without the side effects of drugs.
Every day is like this, with many other therapies throughout the week, all designed to help us improve immune function, kill cancer cells, relax and balance our bodies, minds and spirits, grow stronger, healthier, whole.
The atmosphere at the clinic is always relaxed, positive, and kind. Every aspect is for our healing.
This morning I awoke earlier than I wished, so I simply lay in bed peacefully, reflecting on the blessings of being here, listening to desert rain on the skylight, and an occasional clap of thunder. I turned off the air conditioning and opened all the doors to refreshing outside air. The Canada geese on the little lake outside the condo were honking in joy at the cooler morning. I can't remember ever being so relaxed.
Peace and blessings to you all.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Four
The miracles I see unfolding at An Oasis of Healing are all science based and well researched. The methods simply aren't much used in the oncology world. It isn't that people get a good PET scan and blood work showing no tumor markers, then go home never to have to be concerned again about their cancer returning. What happens here goes far beyond simply doing everything possible to zap tumors.
There is solid research showing what kinds of diets, and even individual foods, promote cancer and which diets stop the body from making cancer. Every bite of food all of us eat, every drop we drink, either contributes to cancer formation and spread or helps heal us. At An Oasis, every morsel that passes our lips helps our bodies stop making cancer and promotes healing. We learn about this in classes from Dr. Lodi and from others on the staff.
Colleen, our chef, teaches us how to make healing foods delicious and appetizing in classes and demonstrations. We go home with easy recipes for the foods we've been eating. We learn where to shop and what kinds of foods to buy. At home on the weekends we practice our new knowledge and skills, preparing our own food, and during the week we are served delicious, healing meals and juices. We read books on the subject. We become totally dedicated to eating only healing foods in the future, to strengthen our immune systems, to enhance every aspect of body function, to remain well.
Yes, Dr Lodi uses chemotherapy. And yes, he does it differently, to minimize damage to the body and the immune system, while doing maximum damage to the tumors.
In standard chemotherapy the dosages are high, and the drugs travel freely throughout the body, wreaking havoc wherever they go. A small percentage of the drugs go to the cancers, but the greatest portion spreads throughout the system. Most chemotherapeutic drugs are designed to kill all rapidly growing cells, since cancer cells can grow fast. But your hair follicles also produce rapid growth, so they are killed and your hair falls out. Rapidly growing healthy cells in the mouth and throat also take a beating, and patients on chemo often suffer terribly from sores throughout the mouth and throat, making it hard for them to eat, just when the body needs all the nutrients it can get to keep going as best it can.
Blood cells can be terribly compromised, again, just when you most need them to do their jobs and aid your immunity. The immune system itself may be the worst casualty of standard chemo. The immune system is needed now more than ever to help rid the body of cancer. But instead, it becomes disabled, wiped out, unable to perform normal functions, and often opportunistic infection comes along to weaken and even kill a compromised patient.
Some manage to live through those hazards, only to suffer toxicity to the heart muscle, weakening them further when strength is most needed. Often the brain is affected, and sometimes the ensuing brain fog never lifts, even after the cancer has been dealt with as best it can be with those methods.
The differences at An Oasis of Healing are tremendous. Insulin Potentiation Therapy, or IPT, takes advantage of cancer's voracious appetite for sugar. Sugar feeds cancer. While other body cells thrive on oxygen, indeed, produce energy through oxidation, cancer grows and replicates through fermentation, and that fermentation cries out for sugar and refined starches like bread and cookies made from white flour. In fact, cancer's anatomy satisfies its sugar appetite easily, because it has 17 times as many receptors for insulin as normal body tissue, and insulin usually sucks the sugar right into the tumor. It's like feeding liver to a lion!
Cancer's bad habits make it vulnerable to low dose chemotherapy given when the blood sugar is low. So, on IPT days, we go into the clinic fasting and get a dose of insulin. The nurses carefully monitor the fall of our blood sugars and, when they are at the perfect level (definitely not a dangerous place of diabetic coma), they know the many insulin receptors on cancer cells are wide open and hungry, and they administer a dose of chemo, or a combination dose, amounting to 1/10 the standard dose. This smaller dose goes mostly to the cancer. Its' hungry cells lap up this poison, and the rest of the body is spared the toxic effects. If a patient hasn't had previous chemo at another center, they don't suffer the terrible side effects. No hair loss, nausea from poisoning the entire body, no brain fog or cardiac toxicity. The drugs are reserved primarily for the thing we are aiming at destroying: cancer cells.
Everybody is different, and every cancer is different. Some respond beautifully to one drug, while their cancers are actually fed by another. Yet most oncologists use a sort of cookbook approach, treating all of one type of cancer with drugs suggested by a manual. This doesn't allow for our innate biological individuality.
There are a very few labs in this big world that test cancer tissue and circulating blood to find out exactly which chemotherapeutic agents, or combinations of them, work best to kill an individual's cancer. The tests are expensive, but they can be life-saving when a patient isn't responding quickly enough to a drug routine.
Yesterday a patient at the clinic related his experience. His cancer is quite serious and advanced, and he was treated with chemo at home for a short while. The drug combination was killing him, and definitely not slowing down the growth of his tumors. When his doctor told him he had three weeks to live, he and his wife flew to Phoenix the next day. She pushed him in a wheelchair. Tumors on his liver pressed against his spine and the nerves to his legs, and that and his weakness made walking impossible.
At An Oasis, before being given any chemo, he received transfusions to help rebuild his compromised blood, which was weakened by both the cancer and the drugs. He was then started on an IPT routine and got some help. He's been here five weeks and can walk unaided a bit, or with a walker. He is stronger, and his spirit is very alive and strong, but his cancer wasn't responding quickly enough or sufficiently. So he had a biopsy last week to be examined by one of those rare labs, Rational Therapeutics, in Long Beach, California. The result? It turned out that one of the drugs he had been given in Canada was toxic to his tumors, but, when the second drug went into the mix, it cancelled the results of the effective drug!
Now his IPT only contains the effective drug, and his tumors should respond quickly. I'll let you know.
The third focus of treatment at An Oasis of Healing is the important rebuilding of our immune systems, to keep us strong when we go home. I've never heard of an oncologist who addressed this important function. I won't go into that now, but I will talk more about it in upcoming posts.
So for now, on a drizzly Sunday morning in Phoenix, I'll say goodbye and God bless you all.
There is solid research showing what kinds of diets, and even individual foods, promote cancer and which diets stop the body from making cancer. Every bite of food all of us eat, every drop we drink, either contributes to cancer formation and spread or helps heal us. At An Oasis, every morsel that passes our lips helps our bodies stop making cancer and promotes healing. We learn about this in classes from Dr. Lodi and from others on the staff.
Colleen, our chef, teaches us how to make healing foods delicious and appetizing in classes and demonstrations. We go home with easy recipes for the foods we've been eating. We learn where to shop and what kinds of foods to buy. At home on the weekends we practice our new knowledge and skills, preparing our own food, and during the week we are served delicious, healing meals and juices. We read books on the subject. We become totally dedicated to eating only healing foods in the future, to strengthen our immune systems, to enhance every aspect of body function, to remain well.
Yes, Dr Lodi uses chemotherapy. And yes, he does it differently, to minimize damage to the body and the immune system, while doing maximum damage to the tumors.
In standard chemotherapy the dosages are high, and the drugs travel freely throughout the body, wreaking havoc wherever they go. A small percentage of the drugs go to the cancers, but the greatest portion spreads throughout the system. Most chemotherapeutic drugs are designed to kill all rapidly growing cells, since cancer cells can grow fast. But your hair follicles also produce rapid growth, so they are killed and your hair falls out. Rapidly growing healthy cells in the mouth and throat also take a beating, and patients on chemo often suffer terribly from sores throughout the mouth and throat, making it hard for them to eat, just when the body needs all the nutrients it can get to keep going as best it can.
Blood cells can be terribly compromised, again, just when you most need them to do their jobs and aid your immunity. The immune system itself may be the worst casualty of standard chemo. The immune system is needed now more than ever to help rid the body of cancer. But instead, it becomes disabled, wiped out, unable to perform normal functions, and often opportunistic infection comes along to weaken and even kill a compromised patient.
Some manage to live through those hazards, only to suffer toxicity to the heart muscle, weakening them further when strength is most needed. Often the brain is affected, and sometimes the ensuing brain fog never lifts, even after the cancer has been dealt with as best it can be with those methods.
The differences at An Oasis of Healing are tremendous. Insulin Potentiation Therapy, or IPT, takes advantage of cancer's voracious appetite for sugar. Sugar feeds cancer. While other body cells thrive on oxygen, indeed, produce energy through oxidation, cancer grows and replicates through fermentation, and that fermentation cries out for sugar and refined starches like bread and cookies made from white flour. In fact, cancer's anatomy satisfies its sugar appetite easily, because it has 17 times as many receptors for insulin as normal body tissue, and insulin usually sucks the sugar right into the tumor. It's like feeding liver to a lion!
Cancer's bad habits make it vulnerable to low dose chemotherapy given when the blood sugar is low. So, on IPT days, we go into the clinic fasting and get a dose of insulin. The nurses carefully monitor the fall of our blood sugars and, when they are at the perfect level (definitely not a dangerous place of diabetic coma), they know the many insulin receptors on cancer cells are wide open and hungry, and they administer a dose of chemo, or a combination dose, amounting to 1/10 the standard dose. This smaller dose goes mostly to the cancer. Its' hungry cells lap up this poison, and the rest of the body is spared the toxic effects. If a patient hasn't had previous chemo at another center, they don't suffer the terrible side effects. No hair loss, nausea from poisoning the entire body, no brain fog or cardiac toxicity. The drugs are reserved primarily for the thing we are aiming at destroying: cancer cells.
Everybody is different, and every cancer is different. Some respond beautifully to one drug, while their cancers are actually fed by another. Yet most oncologists use a sort of cookbook approach, treating all of one type of cancer with drugs suggested by a manual. This doesn't allow for our innate biological individuality.
There are a very few labs in this big world that test cancer tissue and circulating blood to find out exactly which chemotherapeutic agents, or combinations of them, work best to kill an individual's cancer. The tests are expensive, but they can be life-saving when a patient isn't responding quickly enough to a drug routine.
Yesterday a patient at the clinic related his experience. His cancer is quite serious and advanced, and he was treated with chemo at home for a short while. The drug combination was killing him, and definitely not slowing down the growth of his tumors. When his doctor told him he had three weeks to live, he and his wife flew to Phoenix the next day. She pushed him in a wheelchair. Tumors on his liver pressed against his spine and the nerves to his legs, and that and his weakness made walking impossible.
At An Oasis, before being given any chemo, he received transfusions to help rebuild his compromised blood, which was weakened by both the cancer and the drugs. He was then started on an IPT routine and got some help. He's been here five weeks and can walk unaided a bit, or with a walker. He is stronger, and his spirit is very alive and strong, but his cancer wasn't responding quickly enough or sufficiently. So he had a biopsy last week to be examined by one of those rare labs, Rational Therapeutics, in Long Beach, California. The result? It turned out that one of the drugs he had been given in Canada was toxic to his tumors, but, when the second drug went into the mix, it cancelled the results of the effective drug!
Now his IPT only contains the effective drug, and his tumors should respond quickly. I'll let you know.
The third focus of treatment at An Oasis of Healing is the important rebuilding of our immune systems, to keep us strong when we go home. I've never heard of an oncologist who addressed this important function. I won't go into that now, but I will talk more about it in upcoming posts.
So for now, on a drizzly Sunday morning in Phoenix, I'll say goodbye and God bless you all.
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