First Appointment

We are praising God for a very good first appointment at Fox Valley Wellness Center!  Both Bob and I thought it might be difficult emotionally, but it actually wasn't.  Every person we met, from the front desk staff to the nurses to the doctors, was very kind and positive.  There was no "doom and gloom" at all; Dr. Coleman is confident that they can help me while, of course, acknowledging there are no guarantees.  At the end of our time with Dr. Coleman, Dr. Meress (owner/head of the clinic) came in to meet us and give us a bit more information and encouragement.  By the way, both doctors give hugs.  :)

The first thing they did was take vitals, body mass index, iodine test, a vision test, and blood--LOTS of blood!  The nurse filled at least a dozen vials.  Some of the bloodwork will be sent to the labs by them, but I also have another whole list of bloodwork to get done at my family doctor's office.  I need to get an EKG through my family doctor as well.  The clinic really does a good job of letting patients do as many tests as possible through their regular doctors, so it will go through insurance.  They are testing for much more than just cancer--nutrient and mineral levels, parasites, viruses, yeast/fungus, hormone levels, etc., etc.  The body needs to be treated as a whole to find out where the problems/deficiencies are that are hindering the immune system from working properly.  This is the big difference between allopathic or Western medicine and holistic medicine:  allopathic medicine treats symptoms; holistic medicine finds and treats the causes of the symptoms.  Cancer is a symptom of a sick immune system.

I will be getting a PET scan, because we need to see exactly what's going on.  PET scans are cancer specific full body scans.  A toxic, radioactive glucose solution is injected into the patient, and then, since cancer cells LOVE sugar, the solution will accumulate wherever there are cancer cells gorging on it, and those areas will light up.  Even though the scan involves radiation and other nasty stuff that I typically want to avoid, I will get specific treatments following the scan to detox and eliminate the harmful stuff.  The office will order the scan and get it pre-authorized through insurance, so I'm just waiting to find out when it can be scheduled. 

I will also be getting another full-body thermography scan which can be compared to the first one I had a few years ago.  Thermography can't penetrate bones, but it will show other things.

I came home with around eight new bottles of supplements...and I'm now the proud owner of one of those handy-dandy giant pill boxes so I can separate them by time of day and days of the week.  Oh, joy!  There are a few more supplements I still need to get, also.

Next week Tuesday is my next appointment, and I will be at the clinic from 8:30 a.m. till 5:00 p.m.  I have a hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatment first thing followed by an IV high-dose vitamin C treatment, then a two-hour appointment with another doctor who deals with blood microbiology and nutrition.  After that all-day appointment, the rest should just take place in the mornings, so I can maintain a pretty normal work schedule.  We will definitely have to get creative with our homeschooling schedule, but that's one of the advantages of homeschooling:  flexibility.  :)

Right now I am scheduled for about 30 hyperbaric oxygen treatments in all--one a day for four days per week for six weeks or so.  I will also be having the IV vitamin C treatments, IV ozone therapy treatments, and some IV chelation therapy treatments.  In six weeks I have my next appointment with Dr. Coleman to go over all the blood work results (some take a month to get back) and evaluate any progress from the treatments.  In a nutshell, the hyperbaric and ozone treatments are concentrated oxygen, which is so effective because cancer cells cannot survive in a highly-oxygenated environment--they are anaerobic.  Vitamin C, of course, is crucial for immune function.  Chelation removes toxic heavy metals.

Although the doctors give us their ideal treatment plan, the number and frequency of treatments are completely up to the patient.  Both doctors expressed their understanding that time and money can cause limitations.  Their advice was to do as much as I can as soon as I can, so that's what we plan to do.  After the first six weeks, we'll see where we go from there.

At home I will be on a strict diet and supplement regimen as well as doing coffee enemas (liver detox) and Epsom salt baths (whole body detox).  I can do light exercise, stretches for my hip, and continue making sure I'm getting adequate sunlight and sleep, and avoiding as much exposure to toxins as I can.

I have to keep track of a heavy treatment schedule, supplement schedule, and diet plan, plus make appointments for more bloodwork and the scans.  It's probably good that I have the rest of this week open before I start treatments to take care of some of those things.  It is a lot, but just shy of being overwhelming.  I can email or phone the nurses at the clinic whenever I have questions, so I'm feeling pretty good about being able to keep my ducks in a row.

My devotions in Exodus 14 today discussed how the Lord deliberately placed the Israelites in peril when they left Egypt.  He led them into a trap:  "...a cul-de-sac between two hostile hills at the edge of a sea too deep to ford and too wide to cross" with enemy soldiers at their backs.  He deliberately put them in an impossible place.  He did the same to the apostle Paul, often telling him to go to specific places where Paul ended up being beaten, imprisoned, etc.  The lesson concluded with this:  "When you are in a difficult place, realize that the Lord either placed you there or allowed you to be there, for reasons perhaps known for now only to Himself.  The same God who led you in will lead you out."

On the way home today, Bob was commenting on how it doesn't make sense how some people who lead grossly unhealthy lifestyles never get cancer while people who live much healthier lifestyles do.  I replied that I think in some cases people get illnesses or diseases as consequences of their lifestyle choices, but in other cases it may have little to do with that--God may just allow or even cause people to get sick or die because that is how he chooses to work in their lives.  Most likely we won't know why I got cancer until it gets answered when I get to heaven.  Until then, we have to rest in the fact that God is working out His plan, and he will lead me out of this one way (healing) or another (death--which for me results in eternal life with my Savior).