One More Thing: The Trio

Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV) “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.”

I wanted to share just one more thing before you all move along with your summer activities and get too busy to check up on lil old me. I feel like my most recent posts have been me 'grumbling' about my pain when really I wanted to share with you the reality of my day to day life in the best way possible.

Phil. 2:14-16 (KJV) Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

The KJVersion of Phil. 2 doesn't say, 'grumblings or arguing' but grumblings is what I feel I've been doing and maybe that shouldn't be so. How can I shine a light of Christ from my soul if all you read is the grumblings of my back pain? There is a light in here and the only reason I share my murmurings are so that you do not get the picture that self-healing is all hunky-dory. It's hard work AND it is pain-filled! THAT is the reality of the situation that I took upon myself and in the end, I will blame no one for my decision but me and by then there will be no purpose in the blame game.

You know the reason for my choice in this route and that is point blank, I don't believe in drugs. I am a RECOVERED drug addict (another self-healing route at a very young age) and the thought of drugs and the process of the tiny pill that is destroying a population to this day scares me to bits! I believe and always have, that God created healing tools here on earth. When He created us, He placed all around us the true nature of healing whether it is physical, mental, or psychological; the earth holds an abundance of healing tools without the necessary means of a laboratory of synthetic drugs to 'miraculously' HEAL you. It just doesn't work that way, in my mind, anyway.

I know what my tumor looked and felt like when I was first diagnosed. After reading and researching I found information that a biopsy (the test that I was FORCED to undergo along with a mammogram and CT scan) were all links to the spreading of this disease. I did not have any idea of this because I ASSUMED that the doctors actually knew what they were doing and that THEY were right; I wrongly trusted them. 

Over the year I watched as the tumor changed shape and color and things were happening that were enough to scare the pants off of me but I held fast to the belief that 'GOD'S GOT THIS' and I settled into accepting things were going to take time. Not MY time but with HIS time. I knew that the biopsy was the damaging test that set all of this in motion. MANY of the women who I've met online in a BC support group have ALL said the same thing, except their outcome, was slightly worse than mine and for that, I'm truly grateful mine wasn't worse.

A lot of these women are not even in their thirties yet. Some are pregnant or have just given birth but all are adamant in treating this illness on their own, of course, against their doctor's wishes. They don't want to be slaughtered cows either and through the same avenues as me, diet and supplements, we are all in this self-healing together! And HEALING is what we are!

Through my grumblings you might not pick up on parts of my healing that I need to share with you, nor do you understand the method of my healing that is taking place but rest assured, I am healing! I don't boast of my hours of prayer and meditation. I don't tell you about the foods I ingest or my long year and a half journey of finding my place in this new world I have in front of me.

The trio: cancer, psoriasis, and arthritis. I've had psoriasis for about forty years (on and off), arthritis I'd say about six years since diagnosis of my lower lumbar joint arthritis, then there is cancer, the cells have been in there all of my life, awakened about eight or nine years ago and only felt and seen in 2015, diagnosed a little over a year ago on diagnosis day 1-25-17. 

The signs:
Cancer:  I saw no signs of cancer except for the lump I felt in 2015. The year my aunt, uncle and, dad died and the year I got married. What a year, huh? That is the very reason I didn't tell my husband of my lump. I had to wait for medical insurance to go through because don't believe what they tell you when they say FREE CANCER SCREENING- mammograms in the month of October. Maybe in YOUR state but this backwoods stuck in the 1800's state of mine, there were no free mammograms, and yes, I looked! I waited for my insurance to go through and I started the doctor visits and the swift cancer diagnosis came without even ONE test, then she put me through THREE tests to verify her assumption. I feel there was an easier route to diagnosing without the threat of spreading my disease, but who am I, just a little woman going up against the 'Big Bad know it all Doctors'.

Psoriasis: Physically visible my skin was as scaly as a fish! I had dry patches on my elbows and knees, my ears, and my back. This is a chronic illness that kept me in jeans and long sleeves for most of my life. There were times that it healed (so I know the signs of the healing) but over the years it has gotten worse. 

Arthritis: This did not surface until the year of the trips to Omaha took place. The too numerous-to-count, to me four-hour trips, that left my back in pain that I'd never known before. It cost me my ability to walk right. While the trips gained my husband his eyesight back, it cost me the ability to walk. I went to an NP (nurse practitioner) who had an office in a little town and she sent me for an x-ray and it was verified I had lower-lumbar-facet-joint-arthritis; an illness the current P.A. (physicians assistant) could not find as a feasible illness. (Shrug me off) But I know different because I am in this broken body. And if truth be told, just because other people have taken trips to Omaha in two-and-a-half hours and can walk, undermines my truth in the reason I can't walk. (Try driving in high winds, two and three times a week to Omaha! Eight-hour round trips.)
{whatever will be will be}

You have the trio, the proof that they exist, and now you need to know the truth that they are healing! I don't know if you've seen the movie, 'What About Bob', if so, you will understand the term baby-steps. I know for a fact that God is in the business of miracles, and I know people who have experienced them (my husband for one, his sight restored) and I know people who think He just blinks them into existence. Let me ask you this, did the miracle of Christ's birth blink into existence? Was it easy for Mary and Joseph? Was the miracle of Christ's death blinked into existence? Was carrying the cross an easy task? You need to seriously read and understand the Bible before you can understand what I say about my healing and it not just 'blinking into existence'. 

Let me first say I trusted God from the very beginning of this diagnosis. I trusted what He was saying and where He was leading. With that, I bring my baby-steps to healing and my continued healing!

Psoriasis: In the beginning when I began this journey my scars were visible and embarrassing, to say the least. Now, my 'sores' look like targets. I have big circles like a ring of fire, where the sore began and the center is in the clearing stages. Smooth skin is resurfacing and yes, it's taking its time, but it IS a work in progress moving FORWARD in healing and not getting worse. No new sores appearing.

Arthritis: The pain subsided for months last year as my tumor seemed to grow. Three levels of healing Psoriasis, Arthritis, and the Big C, all taking turns on the healing journey. The signs ARE there! While the pain may be back for a time...

Big C: The tumor is now in the SHRINKING phase. VISIBLY SHRINKING! I can't say much more without showing you a picture (eww gross) and I only wished I was of this techno world that takes a pic of everything just to document my PROOF. But then again let's go back to the Bible... show me pics as proof. (that is sarcasm, friends) We only have words to go on and as this journey of mine, it's all in my words. 

Go back and read my words from the beginning, it's all there. One day, my family might finally stumble upon my words and they'll finally SEE, CHRIST IN ME! As I take baby-steps toward my healing, I am enjoying each and every breath in the day because let's face it, as we enjoy these summer months, one never knows what the next day has in store. Cherish the day! 

May God bless each and every one of you! Have a beautiful Summer! Godspeed...

1 John 5:4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

And I Wait...

Pss. 59:9 “Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence.”

And I wait…

I don’t know what to think and I really don’t want opinions of what I should do. These past two weeks I’ve had a setback. I mentioned it before with all that’s happened and I feel the setback was the wheat bread and the eating of the toxic grains.

I’ve eaten all these wonderful foods all of my life and never in a million years would I imagine something so good for you could be one of the elements causing this disease in me. I’m not even fifty-five years young and already I’m being affected by the strong-arm of an illness that has laid its hands on me, gripping me, expecting me to ‘submit’. I can’t do it. I won’t give up on God like others have done, I just won’t!

I hear people say they care about me but in all honesty, I don’t feel it. How can months (sometimes years) go by and people say ‘I care about you’ and nothing more? How is that caring? You thought about me? Because you think about me and my suffering, that’s caring? I just don’t get it. 

I’m trying to be okay with people passively thinking about me when it’s convenient for them. I’m trying to understand why I sit alone crying my eyes out and no one to listen to me or hug me and say it will all be all right. Just a comforting hug could go a long way in my isolated world.

I notice people give up too easy too. If they’re trying to lose weight, and it doesn’t happen instantaneously they give up. If they pray, and the prayer goes unanswered they give up on God for not being quick with a response. I’ve seen people give up on God who has received miracles, then just gave up with all that hokey stuff and lived life for themselves now that the miracle is over; enough time has passed, they should be safe, right? I guess so, if that is what you believe.

I myself feel I received a miracle of the regaining of my walking ability. For a couple of years the pain was so bad I was relinquished to using a cane and allowed onlookers to pity me with their eyes. People don’t realize their eyes are like speakers when sizing people up the volume is set to high and the bass is felt loud and clear from the person you draw eye contact from. I don’t need the eye contact to feel the faces of pity looking at me.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve come a long way in regaining my strength and the ability to walk, so much so I proudly traipsed around feeling invincible. No one is invincible; a few slices of bread and overconfidence will knock you on your butt and take it all away with one night of sleep. Let me tell you if you don’t have those backup supporters who say, ‘they care about you’ the fall hurts even more.

I’m a mess this week. I had a bad day that led to a couple more bad days and now I try to pick myself up from the rubble I’ve left strewn about the place. I’ve needed a good strong physical hug but even that is scarce because my pain is so bad, it hurts to have a hug. I’m straining to see the light at the end of the tunnel that I know is there. When the pain is so overwhelming it is hard to see or hear anything.

I love the fact that people turn to me for strength, direction, assistance, aid in helping them but in times of my hurting, those tasks are impossible so I shy away from the very venue of that portion of love I receive. I’m hurting, how can I help someone when I’m in the throes of a setback and no one can visually see how bad my days are, again because ‘they care’ but not enough to consider I might be having a hard time or bad day myself.

I want to gently show my friends that while I’m having this hard time, I still can see the light way off at the end of the tunnel. My tears stream, my pain unbearable, my cries to the Lord louder than ever and the echo, the echo of my voice is haunting. In the days of these struggles, the scripture that stands out to me is from Isaiah 40:31

 “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

I have a birthday coming up and I’m not even looking forward to the day. It’s just another day. That’s what people say when they get older, y’know? A good thing my son, who is young, says it now so he has no false illusions about the world around him. It’s just another day. I should get a plaque stating that and hang it on the wall! 

Along with my setback comes grumpiness, bitterness, and downright insensitivity. This is the point where I’m supposed ‘to think’ but I don’t. I put no rein on my thoughts or insensitive blurts. I fail. I don’t think of others and how they might be feeling when I boast of my weight loss when they can’t lose a pound to save their life, or my lack of pain when there’s has them bound to drug relief, or my rejoicing in how great I’m doing walking with a bounce in my step and light in my life. Maybe they want to hear the hard-grained steps I have to bear to wake up each day in the light of optimism. Maybe they long to hear of a setback so they can say ‘aha, I knew you should’ve gone another route’. I’m on the edge about to fall over the cliff and can’t find the upbeat rhythm of words they need to hear to get through their bad day. So there, I’m having a momentary lapse.

I have a loving relationship with God and I know we’ll get through this band of pain together. I wonder sometimes if people think that God has a special light set to shine just on my face but let me tell you, God’s love has no perimeter, His love for us is as personal as any loving relationship we’ll ever have in life. He has no preferential treatment for just me. He loves us all the same. Do we all love Him the same? I don’t know. I think we all try but we all have that period of ‘now we wait’, how each of us handles this period of patience is most definitely different! 

1 John 4:13 “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”

What They Don't Say

Job 8:14 “Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.”

What They Don’t Say

Did you know that arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto's diseases and more are all auto-immune diseases? Not much unlike cancer, these diseases most of the time can all be safely treated without drugs but that is not what your doctor says. What they do say is here’s a drug and it is the only way to find relief from continuous pain. What they don’t say is that changing your diet and exercise has a profound effect on your longevity with a pain-free existence. They steal your hope.

I’ve said over and over again to change your diet, relieve your pain and illness and over and over again I hear people not having any success because they don’t have the willpower to save themselves, they’d much rather think a drug can do all the work for them.

Why is there a war on health? Why have doctors made healthy eating a back-burner portion of your visit? Why don’t they hold knowledge of what actually heals a person instead of basically killing people with drugs? Had doctors been taught this information to begin with many of our parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren would not have died. I hear all too often that a doctor saved a life because the drug kept momma stable, alive for a few more years. Baloney!

Maybe drugs are a necessity, maybe they can help, but does the doctor offer you the change in diet FIRST as a level of defense to fight what ails you? If he told you that you had to give up dairy, meat, or caffeine would you take a drug over changing? I believe you would. We live in a self-satisfying world addicted to sugar, oils, meat, fat, and drugs.

I believe when I gave up alcohol all those years ago, on my own, without a twelve step program that was, to me, proof that I had the willpower to fight anything that was thrown at me. Granted, that this wretched disease is a little bigger than an alcohol addiction.

It pains me to see friends sick on a daily basis. Every day it seems I’m bombarded with news of people with the flu, stomach virus’, colds and everything in between. I have to stay away from the social arena for days because of the negative invasion of illnesses and the unhealthy eating habits and no one willing to change. Stay in bed, pop some pills, go to the doctor, remain sick for days or weeks. Change? That’s not an option, they’d rather whine and pop pills, it’s a safer route than change.

I often think of how far I’ve come and how tempted I am when around people who are living it up in the toxin-filled world. It’s not easy choosing vegetables over a cheese-smothered pizza, it would be so easy to choose a Pepsi over a glass of water, a chip over a grape, the list goes on and on. It’s not easy staying alert and watching every single thing that goes in my mouth. A crash is basically inevitable as long as I allow the negative influx of my surroundings to have an impact.

This calls to mind the disciples when Jesus went to pray, were asked to sit and watch, each time Jesus returned they were asleep. Each time I tell someone to help them change their diet and keep sickness at bay, they eat and eat and eat everything that is making them sick to begin with. It’s as if they’ve fallen asleep and my words fall on deaf ear. They don’t have time to change, they can’t or won’t change or it’s just too hard to change. If they’re going to die, they’re going to die happy and unhealthy. You can’t take a healthy body with you, right?

After reading yesterday’s post, you see I hit a roadblock. I’m as human as everyone else and I fall too. I only had a pizza, and it would’ve been very easy for me to cave in and drink a Pepsi, or guzzle some alcohol. I chose the lesser of two evils and had pizza. It’s bound to happen but I was not ready for the emotional roller coaster that came before the crash.

My mind plays tricks on me as I imagine each and every one of you fight with before indulging in something you know isn’t good for you but you do it anyway as a form of comfort. I needed comfort from my toying thoughts. As time passes by I wonder about things. I guess it’s normal since I’ve chosen this path without the medical field supporting me. But rest assured, I wonder.

So I hit a speed bump in my journey. Nothing new there, we’re all bound to come across one or two when fighting addictions, diet change, or on a health-filled journey. I need to brush myself off and get back in the saddle again and ride onto victory. It can be done and won.

I rode my stationary bike like there was no tomorrow and I went on a journey of riding down a sun-laden country road with blooming trees and a melody keeping me focused. It felt great to get away and when I looked out the window and saw more intense snowfall and shivering temps in the teens, I kept peddling. My bike ride took me away from the negative world into a wonder-filled palace that I’ll be visiting quite a few times until I get myself out of this funk.

The winter in life is almost over and spring is just around the corner. A time to shed clothes and peel away layers of inhibitions and be proud of making it through the dormant season into the blossoming Springtime of life! I haven’t made it yet but just a few more weeks and I’ll be well on my way to victory. Are you going to say the same thing? Are you at least trying to change?

What they don’t say is that there is HOPE for some change! If your doctor or your path isn’t brimming with hope and possibilities, it’s time to find a path that will lead to success. If lil old me can do it, I do have hope that you can too! 

Job 6:11 “What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?”

The Month I LOVE

Col 2:16-17 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."

The Month I LOVE

The beginning of Lent starts, ironically on February 14th, the day of LOVE! You might ask why I care if I’m not Catholic, well I blogged about this over the years, Lent is a Christian holy season, not just a Catholic season. Ash Wednesday begins the Catholic celebration of Lent on the same day. 

Matt. 4: 1-4 "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.   And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”  But he answered, “It is written,

“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,

    but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

For the past ten years or so I’ve fasted for Lent, not always giving up food, usually giving up meat, but this year I can’t do that because I’ve basically given up meat completely because of this disease.As in years past, I prayerfully ask for what I’m to give up this year, this is MY honor and respect to Him. This is MY ritual that you can laugh and tease me about. Every one of us praise, honor and worship differently, and this is one thing I somewhat have control over. Either I fast or I don't. It is totally my choice.

I feel I’ve been given my answer. With Google strong-arming the web searches I used for researching alternative treatments, and with their compadres Facebook being the schoolmarm, waving their ruler around correcting me with their sidekick Snopes (phony) fact checker, I feel more bullied than ever.

I think I’m being led by the Spirit into the wilderness, unknown terrain. It’s not unknown that I have a disease of a lifetime. I have my Spiritual family with their supporting arms all around me so the bullying tactic of the elitist might raise my blood pressure a bit, but it will not break me! I am not swayed by money, I cannot be broken by power, but my words are being noticed by someone to go as far as to flag an informative post, while other 'for the government' post get by with no problem. What a joke facebook has become. No longer a place for family and friends to get together.  

For Lent, if I give up posting my blog or sharing my journey on Facebook that will give the higher-ups the appearance that they’ve won. I don’t think Goliath knows me but they will. I may be small but my God is mightier than any earthly power, (and unearthly power for that matter.)

After February 14th I will retreat, an unnamed sabbatical will begin. I just need my friends to understand and respect this journey of mine. As they have always done in the past, they have given me nothing but the utmost respect, and support that’s why I keep them close. They make me laugh, smile and feel comfortable about this craggy journey. They let me know I’m not alone and never will be. 

While Lent will be signified by the day of love, Easter Sunday will be signified by the day of fools. How ironic is that? Lent begins February 14th, Valentine’s Day, Easter is on April 1st, April Fool’s Day! Now the jesters and jokesters of the world can have a field day mocking Christ, yet again.

Me, the little one, will be celebrating my New Year on April first. It is my marked significance of new life, a new beginning. I will rise from my dormancy healthier, wealthier and wiser. All praise and Glory to God, my God, whom hopefully I share with you.

I will not run, I will not stray, I most definitely will not fear!I am so done trying to mold my protocol to the likes of the naysayers who don't believe in anything but false idols. I may be quiet for a bit, a much needed time of reflection, a time to put in perspective the long journey I’ve left behind me and the new unchartered journey I walk forward into. My body has been put through the wringer. It doesn’t show to those who only read my words, it doesn't show in the smiles I give to people, but it shows when I look in the mirror or when I lay my head down for a long deserved nights rest. I feel it crawling slowly through my pained tendons and I’m left exhausted at the end of the day. When negativity seeps in, my tumor literally throbs! This is why I need negativity, and all of the harsh disagreeing with me as far away from me as possible.

Each morning I wake, refreshed ready to make the most of every breath in the day, and tackle whatever is thrown at me, with the slingshot in hand. This week it was mud where I never expected it to come from, Google, Facebook, and Snopes. I have to ignore the bullies, for now, I have too much work to do to be bothered by the negativity of the Giants of the world. 

I will move forward never looking back at what I leave behind in my dust. I’m on the right path and my Father has assured me, daily, that He is with me all the way…as well as my Spiritual Family cheering me on from a distance but always close in heart!

2 Tim. 1:3 “I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;”

Gateway to Health: Spring Cleaning Your Diet

1 Tim. 3:5 “(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)”

Spring Cleaning Your Diet

I know it’s a little early being January and all, but it is never too early to clean up your health. I know with January first everybody made resolutions to lose weight but do they realize you don’t just stop eating and wait for the pounds to melt off? You need to clean your system out if you want a healthy weight loss that will actually work and last.

By cleaning up, I mean detoxification! You need to meticulously clean out the toxins in your body that have your liver, bladder and other essential organs not responding because of your unhealthy eating.

Tamara St John, who NATURALLY successfully healed her cancer has a great website for the Big C patients and the non-C patients. Allow me to say that not all cancers are the same and thus are not holistically healed the same. We all have to do what works for us!

But if you want to lose weight, it is advisable to do a detox. first. This will help you clean out the mechanisms that keep you going day in and day out. A probiotic will assist you in cleaning out and keep the house kept up. Because once you clean out your system, you don’t want to clog it right back up with toxins and junk.

If you don’t want to go the diet route then it is possible to just clean up your ingested food. You see, you might think that buying ground beef in bulk saves money, or buying really pink ground beef is safe to eat but know your grocer. A lot of times they spray freshness additives (toxic to your cleaned out system) to make the meat stay fresher on the shelf longer.

Some people feel they NEED meat but I can guarantee, it isn’t a NEED it’s a want, I totally get carnivorous amongst us. All I’m saying is buy the least toxic food available to you to keep your system clean and functioning properly. I found some really good recipe sites for you to try out. No, I haven’t made any myself YET, but I am surely going to try. If you absolutely NEED meat, add some. This is a lifelong journey of health for me, not a do and fail option.

Food Revolution 

Wisebread 

Also, find alternatives for your sugar cravings. I use 100% organic maple syrup in my oatmeal and it is delicious instead of stevia or processed sugar. There are so many other ways to a healthy diet. I buy a big organic sweet potato, chop it up put it in a lidded casserole dish. I ‘paint’ the sides and bottom with organic coconut oil first so nothing sticks. I sprinkle, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and a hefty dash of cinnamon, drizzle the maple syrup on top, toss in some FRESH pineapple chunks, cut up an apple also and throw that on top, toss it in the oven (350 degrees) for forty-five minutes! It is better (to me) and just as filling as any meat dish you can throw in your face!

There is a healthy alternative cheese also. It’s not as good as cheddar or processed cheese but I love the creamy grilled cheese sandwich my coconut cheese makes! A diet does not need to be restrictive; it just needs to be tweaked with better for you ingredients.

I know how people are addicted to chocolate too. For some reason, they don’t want to try the healthier raw cacao powder to make their brownies or cookies, but this way they could eat without the guilt of the chocolate being bad for them! I don’t like chocolate but I am tempted to try the raw cacao in a smoothie! 

There are healthy eggs out there, healthy chicken, healthy sausage, and even, yes Benning, a better for you healthy BACON! It isn’t a matter of going on a diet, it is a matter of changing your unhealthy eating to HEALTHY alternatives. I know, I know, no one likes change; not many like healthy either.

If we all became aware of what unhealthy food goes down the tube, we’d surely not be an overweight nation. Fast food restaurants would lose business, restaurants would change the way they cook and offer healthier foods to the patrons.  Papa Johns is testing an organic and gluten-free menu and we’re definitely going to see a rise in awareness of what we’re doing to our bodies. I don’t know how long Papa John’s will stand to the pressure of going organic if the founder was made to quit after comments about the money grubbing NFL and their protest ‘people’.

The crazy world we live in is really weird in not wanting people healthy and opposing anything the people do to better their health! Take the FDA, for example, wanting to ban herbs that they call DRUGS because these freakish people don’t know what they’re doing. I think they all WANT us to die, not thriving and healthy, they want us sick and on drugs! REAL drugs like opioids and oxycontin.

Sadly, you say you don’t want to change. I guess you like going to the doctor and handing them your money month after month? You like the pills they offer yet won’t call yourself a drug addict because they’re legal drugs prescribed by a doctor who has had eight hours of training in nutrition? There are a few doctors out there willing to hear you and listen to your plan of healing and will work WITH you to see you to good health. They are out there but if you come from a small state, don’t count on it, they are out for themselves. Do some research and make your health a priority! How can a manicure/pedicure, getting your hair done, buying ‘stuff’ set precedence over your health? It makes no sense to me. How will you enjoy all the stuff if you’re hospitalized or worse, dead?

Do some spring-cleaning for your health! Not just as a passing fad, not as something you’re thinking about, not just a do and fail trip; make your HEALTH your lifelong journey to survival! Illness shouldn’t be about sickness and the endgame; the surfacing of a disease is about HEALTH and a new way to LIVE!

Gateway to Health: Food

Isa. 3:11 "Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him."

Gateway to Health: FOOD!

Can’t means you won’t!

Feed a cold starve a fever. 
Google definition:
“The belief is that eating food may help the body generate warmth during a “cold” and that avoiding food may help it cool down when overheated. But recent medical science says the old saw is wrong. It should be “feed a cold, feed a fever.”  Science-based facts listed here.

A natural way to healing the common cold and flu!

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” ~ Hippocrates

With illness running rampant and the flu in forty-six states leaving people bedridden, you’d think more and more people would be changing their toxic diets into healthy ones to ward off the virus’. Granted when a floating virus is in the air and you breathe in, it is pretty hard to ward off that illness once inside your body.

It’s apparent that not only was my immune system compromised and allowed this Big C to make its stand in my body, but the nation is under attack of the viral community. Doctors offices are filling up in record number as everyone checks in for antibiotics to fend off this illness that has them homebound and bedridden. Flu shots that don’t work are continuously offered, antibiotics handed out like a  candy vending machine, and people so seriously sick, some die.

All of 2017 I aimed people in the ‘changing their diet’ direction to ward off sickness, but did anyone listen to me? Nope, they all succumbed to the holiday indulgences of sugars, food, and people where the virus’ thrive, hence an abundance of people are now sick. So to me, it is apparent, you don’t value your immune system no more than I did, and thus life as we know it becomes altered and all you can do is lay in bed sick and complain.

In my healing process, I have had many traumatic memories flooding back to me that need releasing as I move on. They are all part of the healing process and the only way I actively work to release them is to write about them. One (non-traumatic) memory surfaced yesterday as I was discussing the rarity of my situation and the active change that I’ve embraced. Someone had said, they can’t change, they’ve tried but can’t. 

The memory of a nun in fourth grade pulling me aside saying, “Joni, when you say you CAN’T do it, it means you WON’T!”

Can’t means you Won’t has stuck with me since fourth grade and I’m wondering if when I was diagnosed if that wasn’t front and center in my mind. Can’t change my nasty diet/illness means I won’t. I turned can’t into WILL change! I WILL do everything in my power to take on change. Every time the thought came into my mind, ‘I can’t do that’, I remembered can’t means won’t, and I changed, quite drastically I might add all because of the nun and her statement in fourth grade? Well, thank you, Sister Margaret Mary! 

Oh how I wished I had a branding iron and could burn into to your skin those words, Can’t means Won’t, and every time you think you can’t do something, the mark is there to remind you that you CAN do it!

Maybe it would help if you watched the movie, ‘Yes Man’, with Jim Carey. He goes through life saying no to everything until an old friend sees him and asks if he is still at the same dead-end job he was in thirty years ago. His friend goes on to tell him how HE has changed his life by saying YES to everything. He takes him [Carey] to a convention that changed his life forever.

Then there’s the movie, ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, where the character is the real-life version of a fictional character who is destined to be killed off. He has to change his destiny. That movie resonated with me as a writer.

What does any of this have to do with your health? It has everything to do with saving your life and changing your diet to ward off these viral infections with a stronger immune system. What you eat has everything to do with your damaged immune system. You damaged the poor thing, you’ve let your body down and you WON’T change to save your own life. That is the sad fact of the matter.

I want to help by encouraging you to change. While I’m out here feeling GREAT with a disease that’s killing millions of people you all are in bed throwing Kleenex (or more) at the computer screen telling me to shut up already. I can’t/won't shut up, I want you to live as much as I myself wants to live.

Remember this, doctors stay in business with you sick. If people started getting healthy they’d have no business, they might be forced to learn new things about the health of a patient. I’m going to aim you to Vitamin C. Not a processed pill you pop from your over inflated pharmacy, a 5000 mg powder purchased from a reputable source online. Solaray (non-acidic is my choice) but the acidic will work better for the non-cancer patient.

If your doctor warns you off of vitamin C, think about that, our immune systems can be fixed with vitamin C, why would a doctor tell you NO? I can tell you that once your immune system starts fighting for itself, the less and less medication you will need. A probiotic will get your organs functioning properly because let's face it, if you’re popping pills, are overweight, are fighting sicknesses too many times in a year, you’re damaging your organs along with your immune system. Get them all (organs and immune system) on the same page, BUT, and this is MAJOR, if you WON’T change your diet, none of these supplements will work for you. It was nice knowing you. My heart and love to you.

People think all I eat is grass and they’d be wrong. Since I’m creative with my writing, I am also creative with my cooking. Non-toxic foods taste BETTER than the processed carbohydrates you shovel in, or the GMO meat you fill your bellies with, or even the lovely sugars you kill yourself with.

Take for example two eggs (for me) add more for more mouths to feed. I use the brown farm-raised chicken's eggs. I add an abundance of nutrition to just two scrambled eggs. Different days, different variations so as not to get bored.

2 eggs, scrambled
2 slices of onion finely chopped
slices of red pepper
garlic
I have a bag of organic spinach (I use for salads too) and I take a handful and like wringing out a rag wring the spinach and shred it in my eggs when eggs are almost done and veggies are soft and tender.
Flaxseed tossed in (ample amount, optional)
Green pepper
Mushrooms
Pepper (to your liking)
Cayenne pepper (to your liking)

I just add ingredients to my liking (veggies) until the eggs are merely a speck among the clouds. It’s a delicious dish with (organic) carrot/orange juice by Knudsen, or pomegranate/cranberry, they have very nice selections or the V8 Berry Bliss juice on occasions. They too have a nice variety but read the labels to see if sugar is ADDED and the carbs!

To put it quite simply my salads I make a feast out of by adding more and more colors and variations. My spaghetti is of the gluten-free variety noodles and sometimes I add chicken sausage (along with my peppers and onions and mushrooms). Be creative! When creativity comes alive when you’re cooking, the vegetables are rarely tasted but ingested and fed to your system in abundance! I also use Bertolli Organic tomato and basil spaghetti sauce. I prefer the glass jars over plastics for obvious reasons.

Change is not that hard when the taste is good. I drink purified water or organic juices. Even something as simple as organic oatmeal I make filling and full of fruit! I add raisins, banana or strawberry (or any berry) cinnamon, and use Organic 100% Pure Maple Syrup (to your liking), and I drizzle coconut milk over it (to my liking) along with two slices of toast with Almond Butter. Voila! A meal! And if I get hungry for a snack later, I go right for grapes or chunks of pineapple or baked apple and pineapple with cinnamon and maple syrup! No wonder I’ve lost so much weight. Everything I eat, my body utilizes! 

So when you say you can’t change because (fill in excuse here) you really won’t change because (fill in the blank.) Think about it, change is in your grasp and you won’t do it. It only takes one small step to lead to leaps and bounds but you won’t take that first step out of FEAR of Change, face it. 

God bless you all on your living journey!

Gateway to Health: Change

Job 30:18 “By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.”

Gateway to Health: Change

Everyone thinks about change, little actually do something about it. In other words, change is just something people think about doing but if you put no action behind it, it is then just a word you throw around. This week is the week resolutions will be broken. The promise of change scared you back into your lazy habits.

You can’t just say you’re going to change your habits you have to actively seek out the best way to make your life better and cut those nasty, toxic routines down a couple of notches! 

When I was first diagnosed I knew a change was in order and one of the major protocols. I didn’t realize just how drastic the change had to be, but I dove right in, researching what needed to change first and foremost. I went from eating mac and cheese, pasta crazy woman who loved her milk and cookies and her unfathomable amounts of bad for me foods and sugar, to zero!

I cut out dairy, meats, carbs, sugar, you name it, I more than likely couldn’t eat it or was leery of it feeding the sick cells in my body. Let me tell you, just because you’re not diagnosed with the Big C doesn’t mean it isn’t sitting inside you right now festering and waiting for the right time to be caught. I know you’re saying, “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” and I pray it never finds you. If it does are you going to be ready?  Yeah, I wasn’t ready either. I too would much rather be eating junk food, drinking Pepsi and living like I just don’t care but God handed me a second chance. Not everyone is as lucky as me. Yeah, the diagnosis was shocking but it didn’t end me. God might not give you, your kids or your grandkids a second chance so why not change now, or at least TRY to change?

I think people in the world are disillusioned. They tell themselves lies to justify why they do what they do or maybe they really don’t care and the YOLO attitude is in charge. That’s still no reason to drink a beer because it helps you fall asleep, or drink aspartame even though you’ve read that it causes cancer. People lie to themselves all the time and justify each step of their wrongdoing.

From the link above:
“...this is due to the fact that tumors were extremely rare in the past. They only became common and rampant in recent times due to people’s poor diet habits, laziness, and excess technology.”

Do you see/read that and realize what it is saying? Our bad eating habits, our laziness has CAUSED cancer? You probably don’t believe that as you’re sitting there biting into a chemically laden burger, or drinking the toxic soft drink, with french fries soaked in grease then ingested. Oh, I know it tastes good, but when you’re popping numerous pills because of an illness, day after day, is that easier and cheaper than CHANGING your diet?

Change isn’t all about food. When you change your diet a lot of times everything else falls into place like exercise, less need of drugs to keep you going, your clothes size, and your health transforms. You no longer want to lie to yourself, you no longer are a person who whines and cries about every ache and pain, you’ve challenged the pain to go away and by changing, it goes away. Change is everything!

With this disease front and center in my life, I changed more than my diet, I changed the toxic water I drink, the soap I use, the shampoo, pots, and pans and with that change, I am no longer a prisoner to chemicals being ingested. We live in a world where no one cares about the round-up being used on our food, the chemicals to keep our food fresh for DAYS and maybe weeks, or the plastics that we radiate our food in a microwave and then eat the food. We have made ourselves sick because we have allowed ourselves to be simplified not knowing it’s what is basically killing us.

We live in a hurried and rushed world not ready for the change. Change is too hard, too challenging, too out of reach. We want our steaks bigger, so they’re shot up with GMO’S, we want our food bigger lasting longer and cooked faster. We don’t want challenges, we like being overweight and lazy. And what is so weird is if we’re not lazy we still gain weight. It’s the chemicals and drugs that have tampered with your metabolism and no matter how hard you try, the weight stays, you keep growing and nothing changes.

I challenged you on January first to give up just carbs and sugar. That’s it. I don’t think anyone took me up on the challenge and that’s okay. If you won’t give up those two, at least become a label reader and become aware of all the carbs and sugar you put in your stomach. Just by changing the way you buy food, can change your waist size, and everything else will follow suit. ACTION causes a REACTION! Guaranteed! It is scientifically proven!

I’ve changed for my health because I want to live yet I can’t figure out for the life of me why. I’m still working on that one. I’m going to live while everyone around me dies? I think I’m being transformed. I’m being prepared. My body is becoming the purity that was born into this world. I’ve only just realized now that I was a tainted lifeform and now my transformation will bring me back to the beginning. It makes no sense to you but all the sense to me.

While I write to try and help you to want to change, I realize no one really wants to change they want to stay the same. Change takes time and since I was in line with a ticket and it came that my time was up, it made the matter more urgent and change was necessary or I’d die, plain and simple.

I have seen testimonies of Stage 4 brain/ colon/ lung cancer patients heal with alternative protocols, I have read testimonies of Stage 3 Breast Cancer patients healing with self-care, I have also seen testimonies of the tragic Stage 1 patients being led to slice and dice slaughter and down the immune life damaging path because they were told they were going to die. One word – CHANGE. Change changes everything! Are you up to the challenge?

Job 14:14 “If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.”

Quotation Saturday ~ Change

Jer. 33:6 “Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.”

HEALING

“Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” 
― Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.” 
― David Richo

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” 
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it but also the father who wipes away the tears.” 
― Criss Jami

CHANGE

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” 
― Rob Siltanen

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” 
― Margaret Mead

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” 
― Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” 
― Paulo Coelho

DIET

“People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary.” 
― Charles Eisenstein

“No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.” 
― Maimonides

“He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” 
― Thomas Fuller

CHOICE

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.” 
― Robert Frost

“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.” 
― Roy T. Bennett

“In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.” 
― Jodi Picoult

“Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses, and start making changes.” 
― Roy T. Bennett

“We’ve always had a choice, and we always choose what will potentially kill us. Why not make the choice to live and choose wisely?”
~ Joni Zipp

Holistic Healing

“Food and medicine are not two different things: they are the front and back of one body. Chemically grown vegetables may be eaten for food, but they cannot be used as medicine.” 
― Masanobu Fukuoka,

“Calling holistic medicine "alternative medicine" is no longer appropriate. The best approach now is "integrated medicine" in which we take the best of both worlds.” 
― Candess M. Campbell

“Holistic self-realization is the realization of your heart’s desire. Why holistic? Because it involves your entire being. ” 
― Stefan Emunds

“A non-GMO Mom is an avid researcher, a conscientious protector, and the most effective teacher of natural health.” 

“Disobey God and you are forgiven. Disobey Nature and you get disease.”

― Nancy S. Mure

Contemporary medical technology is not an advancement in medicine- it indicates the failure of Caucasian medical science and is a sign of ignorance. Technology cannot replace the human ability to diagnose disease by looking, touching and smelling to perform treatments without drugs.” 
― Llaila Afrika

“The year 2018 I am choosing healthy living instead of choosing to die unhealthy!”
~Joni Zipp

God Bless one and all in the New Year! 

Quotation Saturday ~ Health

Pss. 105:35 “And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground.”

ILLNESS

“Whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because, if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we've been longing for than to be stifled by our longing.” 
― Thomas Bernhard

“The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.” 
― Joseph Conrad

“I seem to myself, as in a dream,
An accidental guest in this dreadful body.” 
― Anna Akhmatova

“A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.” 
― Criss Jami

DIET

“People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it.” 
― Tricia Cunningham

“No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.” 
― Maimonides

“He who cures a disease may be the skillfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest physician.” 
― Thomas Fuller

HEALTH

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” 
― Hippocrates

“People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.” 
― Wendell Berry

“If we are creating ourselves all the time, then it is never too late to begin creating the bodies we want instead of the ones we mistakenly assume we are stuck with.” 
― Deepak Chopra

“Usually, we believe that our pain is a misfortune that needs to be fixed, but in fact, all pain (physical, mental, and emotional) is a necessary step towards becoming conscious.” 
― Mada Eliza Dalian

Transforming

Rom. 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Transforming

There are numerous scientific studies that show the way we habitually think changes our physiological makeup in our brains. To me, it shows that the biblical verse telling us to be transformed means so much more than just follow Christ. I read so much more into scripture and it is never a clear-cut literal meaning to me when I read something from the Holy Bible.

God wants us to be transformed. He didn’t want us following the ways of the world because He knew even back when he was creating, that this world would be corrupted and we needed to be strong in our minds to stand up against the wiles of the world.

2 Cor. 11:13-15 “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

When I write about healing this dastardly disease, I in no way think I’m doing this all on my own. I know there are many out there that think I’m crazy, “change your diet and heal” how silly is that. If that were the case doctors would be prescribing healthy food change instead of the poisons they so often dish out, right? Wrong. Doctors are trained to dish out pharmaceuticals. They’re not in the health business nor will they promote it. They to me are no different than drug dealers, they just have legal means to get through the red tape.

While I’ve always been a follower of Christ, being transformed is a whole different matter. When you think of someone who has gone through a transformation what is the first thing that comes to your mind? That they’ve changed in their entirety right? Not just something as physical as a nose job or facelift. Facial physical features usually conjure the words, they’ve had work done. Think about that, there is a difference in a physical transformation and a spiritual metaphysical one.

Rom. 2:19 "And art confident that thou thyself are a guide to the blind, a light of them which are in darkness."

I myself am not conformed to this world but there is always room for growth within the realm of transformation. While I may have physically appeared to be transformed on the outside, this illness has caused me to transform on the inside as well. If I were to look at an x-ray of my insides I more than likely would be looking at the transformation this disease has wrought on all the cogs of this machine I call my body.

Now if a doctor looked at my x-rays, as they have, seeing everything askew, the first thing they offer is drugs, not health and diet changes. They want to physically chop me up and radiate me and I just don’t feel like conforming to their method when God Himself tells me to ‘be transformed’. Again, a transformation is nothing physical to ME!

If I thought in my mind for a minute that the slice and dice method was for me, I’d go that route with no hesitancy. Instead, my mind is conformed to the way of God and I’m being transformed physically, mentally and spiritually! 

It’s ironic, have you ever wondered why you need a doctor in the first place? You botched up your health (temple) and you need the doctor to pacify you. You NEED the drugs. To transform your health is quite difficult so the road most frequented seems like the right road to take. It is quite obvious to me that I screwed up taking care of my health, so when the doctor offered a pacifying method, I chose to go to God and see what He says. I need to clean and take care of my temple (body) and treat it as the sacred place of God if I’m ever to survive this disease.

1 Cor. 3:16- 17 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”

Here I am today, in a transformation stage. I feel like a butterfly inside the cocoon wriggling and squirming, waiting to be set free. Then it happens, I wake one day and look in the mirror and don’t see the same ol’ unhealthy person that used to be there, I’ve been granted wings to FLY.

Isaiah 40:31 "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

He’s arrived. I waited; He showed up and gave me wings to fly, to be transformed, to heal, inside and out. He gave me the ability to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. He’s allowed me to soar and not be conformed to this world. I am transforming!

All praise and Glory to God!

Shopping For Food

Pss. 105:35 “And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground.”

Shopping For Food

Shopping for food has become quite an adventure. In the beginning of my diagnosis with this dreaded disease, I would leave the food store in tears. Well, our food store is really a Super WalMart so there is more than food I’m contending with there.

I stopped food shopping completely a few years ago because of my arthritis in my back and the inability to walk very well. Since I’ve been diagnosed with my THIRD illness, my exercise and supplement intake have been upped, relieving a lot of my arthritis pain and slowly healing my psoriasis. Is what I’m doing healing all three illnesses? I have no idea and can only watch and listen to my instincts and what my body is telling me.

WalMart is filled with scooters, in-a-hurry people, a me-first society, and the unhealthy foods that line the grocery section of the store. Why would anybody struggling with an illness put themselves through the torturous experience of wading through a store like that? Me, I like to challenge myself so I can physically feel and see the healing that needs to take place. Sitting at home on the computer sure isn’t going to have me find a healing place in my life.

The first days of my diagnosis I kicked into a life-saving mode and altered my diet immediately. My niece had told me no sugar, carbs, dairy, grains, so those elements were eliminated immediately as I researched the why’s of the no sugar, no carb diet for the C. She could only tell me so much via messenger. While I went into life-saving mode she started the fund to help me with the supplementation I would need over, basically, the rest of my life.

These were the days filled with tears for obvious reasons and at my food shopping excursions. I couldn’t find anything healthy to eat so I just grabbed organic fruit and carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. My friends kicked into save-Joni’s-life mode and were sending me money to help with supplements. (so grateful) 

Looking back, I started off with minimal supplementation of two or three and now I’m taking twenty supplements a day. For those concerned with the toxicity of my supplementation intake, nothing is more toxic than chemo and drugs, and the vitamins I’m taking are only toxic when combined WITH pharmaceutical drugs. I take nothing from pharma so I’m good! I have done my research on every single vitamin in my arsenal and ALL are used to combat the Big C along with the drastic change in diet. I am working on a post of all my supplements and I want to provide links to them so you can imagine what is taking so long in putting THAT post together.

This week when I went to Wal Mart, I not only had to contend with food purchases I had to buy me shorts and shortie pajama’s because NOTHING fits me anymore. I now fit into a small (Wally World caters to the 2x and 3x crowd) and that was hard digging through to find something that fit. Many of my summer clothes are from my days in Texas well over eight years ago. As for my jammies, many were brought from back home fourteen years ago and to my surprise (not really) after not being used for such a long time, I found them quite brittle (dry rotted) to the touch.

I was at a comfortable 147 lbs. (size 7-8) on Jan. 25 and am now weighing in at 115 lbs. (size 4)! Who knew exercise and eating right could shed pounds like flaky dry skin? Oh and I’m shedding THAT too! 

I now look forward to food shopping as I scan for the frozen berries to make a morning smoothie, or dig through the tiny organic produce section, I use coconut milk for my smoothies and coconut oil for cooking my food. I now allow grass fed chicken and eggs, (hubby’s work has a grass fed oregano chicken sausage), salmon topped with onions, peppers and sauerkraut, fruits and veggies galore and I also allow a low carb gluten free flatbread to make me chicken wraps! I’m feeling the best I have in years!

I’ve recently learned of the healing qualities for my psoriasis in Tea Tree Oil. I’ve had to purchase (costly to me) new shampoo and conditioner and just after the second day of use I could see and FEEL the difference in my scalp. It isn’t only the Big C I’m fighting using supplements and diet, I also need to tend to my psoriasis and arthritis so that meant a change in EVERYTHING. I now use Aloe Vera body wash, I’ve changed my deodorant to a chemical-free variety, and my drinking water is now the purified variety. The water is only .39 cents a gallon so that isn’t too costly. V-8 Berry Bliss for a sweet morning drink and green tea as a nightly regimen.

I’m slowly eliminating all stress in my world. One step was I eliminated over a hundred emails I’ve already read through as they started to cause a wave of confusion in this battle as I’m learning something new every day. The do this, do that, try this, try that days are calming down and now I’m just coasting with what knowledge is in front of me.

My husband wanted to buy me a cute shirt with the American flag on it and I said, “No, I’m not really proud of my country right now at this time.” Apparently, Flag Day went unnoticed by the majority of my Facebook friends who normally flood the walls with pride in their country. With so many holidays, you never know WHAT to celebrate these days.

As of right now, I celebrate LIFE and the love of God. I cling to hope of a future. I don’t see myself as sick, I always see myself as HEALTHY and AWARE and maybe with that mindset, that is my saving grace. I WILL obtain the Sacred Plant when God is good and ready for me to have it, right now, God and I are happy with my health and supplements and moving forward to healing pastures. 

Matt. 13:32 “Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”

I am grateful for friendships old and new. I am gratified for the chance to work with God in healing myself. I am honored to be a part of a Spiritual community of love surrounding me and I will never forget the endearing love they exhibit toward me as I go on. 

Thank you all and God Bless!

Isa. 18:4 “For so the LORD said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

A New Way Of Living

Prov. 28:1 (KJV) “The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.” 

A New Way Of Living

When I first went to the doctor in January (and successive doctors) they all seemed to ask the same questions of me and one of the main symptoms of this disease surfaced, “Have you experienced rapid weight loss?” 
“Nope, I sure haven’t; I’ve been a pretty steady weight person not rapidly gaining or losing."
“Bleeding?”
“Nope.”
“Leakage?”
“Nope.” Nothing about me said I had this disease but here I am, four months later battling the disease of a lifetime. 

Everything changed on January 25, 2017. That was the day of my diagnosis; the day my world flipped upside down and everything changed for me. I would never be the same person again after this day. I would be a new tried and true transfiguration of the old me in the coming months. I would be the same me but physically, spiritually and mentally everything would be thrust into overdrive and I’d be in the race of my life, for my life.

While people are out there in the world trying every weight loss concoction imaginable from Slim Fast to Weight Watchers, to Jenny Craig, so you can spend hundreds of dollars on their product to lose the weight you’ve struggled your life to lose. From pills to shakes to patches, everything under the sun is used to promote these products. Do you know the one thing that is cheap and isn’t readily accepted? Change in the diet! A new way of living.

While I don’t know or understand the struggles of losing weight I am not one to inform you on the nutrition craze of the race I’m in. Promote nutrition? When doctors across the world are promoting drugs and pills, surgery, and lifelong commitments to their ‘programs of pharma’, the people who promote nutrition and health are laughed and scoffed at, only because we live in a world of quick fixes.

Yesterday I faced and overcome a battle I knew would take place. I did not allow fear to have me flee, instead, I faced a Q&A from the family. My hubby’s aunt and three uncles were in town from different parts of the U.S. for their yearly get together on Memorial Day and while I didn’t want to be a part of a Memorial Day cookout, his aunt had told me at the wedding a couple of weeks ago, that she’d come out to my house to see me if we didn’t come to the cookout. We went to his moms on Sunday instead where we chatted.

His aunt asked all of the questions, from what are you eating, why no nuts, to my stance on no chemo. I was okay with it, I didn’t feel intimidated or persecuted instead I felt love and compassion. This is the awesome family I never had as a child and I am blessed to even be in their lives. 

I told them how I’m utilizing my Frankincense and soon to be added Myrrh, which is still under clinical studies (and will be for many more years) as to the promise in treating this dastardly disease. I told his, sound biblical family, how the wise men brought these things to Jesus at His birth because these elements would be used at His death, they knew because they were Wise Men. *Chuckle chuckle laugh laugh.*

His family sat mesmerized and quite amazed at my transformation in four months and his aunt offered, you’ve really done your research. I mentioned once again that I’m a writer and that is what we do so we can bring you the most knowledgeable information we have. We try to bring you the truth as we know it so our writing holds credibility. She was pleased. His aunt with the cherubic face was pleased. 

It was an informative weekend as I learned that his aunt, who is eighty or nearing it, who drives from South Dakota to visit her family in Nebraska, was also having medical issues of her own, and that she was a STUDENT OF TAI CHI! 

I left feeling good about the visit and the only thing I feel I left hanging was the error of them assuming I’m against medical intervention where health is concerned. I need my writing community to understand I am not against MEDICINE or the medical community because I KNOW people are still alive today BECAUSE of the drugs they are given by the doctor! What I AM against is the doctors closed minds to anything nutritious that would benefit you. There are doctors out there willing to work with you, but where I am? They’re far and few between!

Like his aunt taking Tai Chi. She said that the class was held, ironically, at a Cancer Center and it is offered to patients (cancer and otherwise) at a reduced rate, to HELP them with what they are experiencing medically. Since moving is not an option, I have to try whatever works for me out here in the middle of nowhere.

While people are out in the world struggling with their weight and other health issues, they’d much rather sink hundreds if not thousands of dollars in programs that are essentially a quick fix to what really ails them and that is their HEALTH! It can all be changed by CHANGE in your diet! There are herbal remedies for thinning your blood, there are herbal diuretics, homeopathic remedies that could possibly eliminate your heart medication and so much more is out there waiting for you to harvest. 

I’m not against the medical community, I’m against them not giving you the entire spectrum of what will heal you. I’m against lies and deception. Whether that is the medical community, political community and yes, even the religious community. I’m against the wicked machinations of them trying to relinquish me to a trembling fear-laden woman. I’d rather fight like a LION and come out roaring. If I live or die in the process, I can say I didn’t succumb to conformity. The easiest not-so-easy diet doesn’t cost a lot of money, it cost a new way of LIVING!

Gen. 6:12 “And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth."

Moving Forward

Matt. 8:7 "And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him."

Moving Forward

Every day I think of posts to write and when I rise from a well rested eight-hour sleep, read my morning devotional, I begin to write, usually not what I had intended but something entirely different. I try to squeeze in what I intended to write and it usually works out pretty good for me and becomes an inspirational read for you. 

Today I intended to write of my new Healing Diet but when I woke the words Moving Forward kept playing and replaying so let's see how this mind works as we weave the two topics together. 

Today is the day we are forced to move our clocks forward in the wee hours of a Sunday morning. Yes, I say forced because if we don’t oblige we will be out of sync with the rest of the world. We can’t have that now, can we? This is another one of those instances where the government likes to be in CONTROL and the people are left submitting to another of their demands.

But it is also a day I move forward in my Healing Diet and continue to treat my body as this high and mighty temple that God built for me and I’m just here trying to maintain the spirit and the flesh that houses the body.

My birthday is coming in a little less than two weeks and my mother sent me money ‘to buy myself’ something. I never like to buy myself something because there is so much more that is needed but this year I BOUGHT myself something! 

We went to the mall the other day (yes me!) and I browsed and shopped! I dislike shopping on so many levels but this day was a me day. You know what the hardest part of going out into the world to shop is? Seeing all of the billboards with advertisements on liposuction, and others that blare of the new restaurant in the area. Do they want to suck off all the fat that you get from those unhealthy restaurants? 

Driving by the fast food restaurants is hard too as I think of all the bubbling grease coming to life waiting to toxify the unaware customers. I see Buffalo Wild Wings with what I’m almost 100% certain that those chickens are shot up with growth hormones and preservatives. I see the Burger Palaces, Donut shops all enticing people to come in, let us fatten you up so you can be one more day closer to death. 

Yeah, that’s what goes through my mind now. While I miss all of the unhealthy eating myself, I’m sad to think that I was so naïve and easily misled. Why would I think that restaurants, even the most well-intentioned Chinese Food restaurants, would think of my health and me? 

I really look hard to see one sign that says, WE SELL ALL ORGANIC! WE use the best and safest oils, free range meats, and non-toxic foods because WE care about YOU! That’s almost funny because there’d be no money in that, eh? 

As we the people move forward maybe one day there will be MANY restaurants that will go the healthy route over the dollar making industry. I can bet if there was such a franchise the people who could afford the food offered would keep that business alive. Why? Because we are all really seeking to be our healthiest we can be. 

As I move forward in healing, the very first thing I changed was my diet. No carbohydrates, no sugar, no dairy, no meat. Wow! Two weeks and four pounds lighter I had to add something to this all fruit and vegetable health change. I searched and researched, the common bond was change and healthy eating. 

There are many diets out there to fight and HEAL the BigC (I won’t name it, I won’t own it) like the Gerson Diet, The Budwig Plan, and ChrisBeatCancer, just to name a few. Please don't tell me that this one says this and the other says that, I KNOW, and thus the very reason I am working what works for ME! 

The Budwig Plan says: “Toxins are one of the main factors that contribute to various diseases, so controlling them is essential. A regular intake of fruits and vegetables helps you to actively detoxify your body, which is a fundamental part of our diet plan.”

While the Gerson Diet doesn’t allow what the Budwig diet allows and Chris’ diet doesn’t allow stuff either. Dr. Morse was another man I listened to and as you can imagine, as a newly diagnosed patient, this all can be overwhelming. There was one common thread that tied them all together, healthy eating. As I searched and researched, I had to come up with a plan that worked for me and MY body, including the supplements that will carry me through the healing process. 

I’ve decided to write a book titled Beating Cancer on a Budget! But here’s the catch, unlike all of the other places that are marketing their systems, Chris, TTAC, Budwig, Gerson, Dr. Morse. I plan on giving my book away for FREE! (they pay S&H) or in eBook format and I will only take donations if they wish to do so.

I don’t know how all of this is going to be pulled together but I have faith that God will take control and have me help the needy. I’m poor, I’m as poor as they get. I have a roof over my head, food on my plate (healthy food, I might add) and clothes on my back! The very least I can do is pay-it-forward! Then all of your donations will not only be to help me, it will be to help others who are less fortunate as we all move forward to heal one person at a time!

Quote from the movie Zootopia.  
Bunny Judy Hopps: “I thought this city would be a perfect place where everyone got along and anyone could be anything. Turns out, life's a little bit more complicated than a slogan on a bumper sticker. Real life is messy. We all have limitations. We all make mistakes. Which means, hey, glass half full, we all have a lot in common. And the more we try to understand one another, the more exceptional each of us will be. But we have to try. So no matter what kind of person you are, I implore you: Try. Try to make the world a better place. Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you.”

Try Everything! Listen to this song and think of ME! God Bless!