I am usually not one to feel sorry for myself. I am so thankful that I was raised to live in this mindset: It is what it is. You do what you have to do. On most days it is easy for me to rest in that. Why drown in your sorrows? It’s not going to make the situation better. In fact, it will likely make it worse. But every now and then, something will happen, and it will trigger the reality of my situation. I have a brain tumor. This thing could take my life, leaving my family without a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister.

Yesterday was my day of being thrown back into reality. My college volleyball coach contacted me to let me know that our team is being inducted into our school’s hall of fame. After we finished our conversation, I was hit with this profound sadness. I started reminiscing a bit about those college days. The good ol’ days. The days before I had, or knew I had, this brain tumor growing inside of my head. I often refer to them as the pre-brain tumor days. Life was easy. Each day’s agenda included things like sleeping in, going to class if I felt like it, hanging out with friends, sports practice….fun stuff. The reality of our life right now really hit me. Life isn’t easy. We have a lot to deal with, more than most people our age. Doctor appointments, treatment, etc. is a part of our everyday life. It’s like we have this amazing life, yet there is this whole brain tumor thing that keeps invading it. But after wallowing in self pity for a bit, I was able to sit back and smile. I was able to smile because we are so blessed. God has given us two healthy little boys who constantly fill our lives with joy and laughter. We have a loving family that is always there to help us out when we need it, which has proven to be quite often. This tumor definitely keeps me humbled, especially when I am feeling weak physically. I deal with seizures as a result of this tumor, which is always a painful reminder of the formidable foe I am fighting. It’s also a constant reminder that I am not my own. I’m alive by God’s grace only. There are so many people who have it so much worse. A girl in our neighborhood, who was a few years younger than me, just recently passed away from the same type of tumor that I have. Five minutes ago, I received an email saying that a friend of ours just received news that his tumor has spread and there is nothing more they can do. I recently went to a brain tumor conference and it was filled with people that had bald heads from doing chemo, which exposed the all too familiar scar that outlined a prior craniotomy. A good majority of these people have a grade 4 tumor. Mine is a grade 2. The difference in prognosis is huge. These are the things that remind me how blessed I am. When I start to think about this, my thought pattern almost always follows down the same path. Why has God blessed me with a very manageable tumor? What is his purpose for my life through this? I don’t want to go through this journey without knowing that lives have been impacted. If lives weren’t touched through it, and it was just something that ‘happened to me’, then how depressing! Why can’t a broken leg just have been the thing that ‘happened to me’?
Because I’m looking for purpose through all of this, I am always on the prowl for somebody that needs my help, whether that is through encouragement, information, a hug, whatever. I love that. I love that my pride is constantly kept in check because I’m not on top of the world. I love that I am in a position where I have to look past myself and focus on others. My personality is to achieve, achieve, achieve. It’s so easy for me to grab every detail in my life and set it in order. I have plans A through Z, and then back-up plans for when A through Z don’t work out the way I had planned them to. While it can be a good characteristic, it’s often done at the expense of those around me. I am so focused on my plans, that things around me get pushed aside. “I’ll get to that after I accomplish this. Oh, they need me? Ok, just a second. I’ll be there in awhile, but I have some other things to take care of first.” If God makes time for every one of us and gives us the grace and hope that we need, then we have no excuse not to offer the same to those around us.
So yes, it was a hard day yesterday, but today was a good day. Today I was able to regain perspective. I don’t want to look at my past as the pre-brain tumor days. I want to just be thankful for the past, but look forward to my post-brain tumor days. The days that will happen after I am healed of this tumor. The days when I can look back and say “Yeah, that’s why God allowed that. That is so awesome. God is good.”

Vitamin D has been monopolizing health headlines for awhile now.  Though technically not a vitamin, but rather a  hormone, Vitamin D has now been linked to a multitude of diseases.  This includes the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.  It hasn’t been until the past several years that this vitamin has gained the respect of doctors and researchers, as to how well our bodies can function with it and how poorly it functions without it.  Its metabolic product, calcitriol targets over 2000 genes in the human body.  That figure puts Vitamin D in a position of having some very profound health implications.

It’s no surprise that Vitamin D deficiency is so common in our nation.  It has been ingrained in our heads by the medical community that the sun is bad.  “Stay out of the sun because it can cause cancer!” While this is true, one only needs to use common sense:  bask, don’t bake.  Moderation is key.  If you are an average American, you live most of your life indoors;  inside the office, inside your car, inside your home while sitting on the computer, watching tv, playing video games.  We are becoming products of our society and it’s taking a tremendous toll on our health.

So what can you do?  To find out if you’re deficient, ask you doctor to order you a blood test called 25-hydroxyvitamin D.  Your doctor should be willing to order this for you based upon all of the research that is being done and published in the medical journals.  If you’re not able to get one from your doctor, then you can order an inexpensive Vitamin D test kit here that you can do at home.  If your blood level is less than 50 ng/ml, you are considered deficient.  The optimal level is between 50 and 65 ng/ml.  If you are going through some serious health issues, though, your levels should be between 65-90 ng/ml. 

If you find that you’re deficient, Vitamin D is easy enough to get.  Spending 20-30 minutes out in the mid-day sun produces approximately 20,000 IU of Vitamin D.  The government recommended daily amount (although probably too low) is only 400IU.  Vitamin D is also available through supplementation.  When supplementing, it’s important to take it in the form of Vitamin D3 (please note that this is not the form in milk, which is D2).  This is the natural occuring form of Vitamin D.  Your local health food store will have this supplement available, or you can order it here.

This is what one prominent researcher has to say about Vitamin D: 

“Because vitamin D is so cheap and so clearly reduces all-cause mortality, I can say this with great certainty: Vitamin D represents the single most cost-effective medical intervention in the United States. ”

So what are you waiting for?  Get off this website and go outside!

If you pay any attention to medical headlines, you’ll see the word ‘inflammation’ come up quite frequently. Inflammation has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, Alzheimer’s, essentially all chronic diseases. It seems that so many in the medical establishment are now just waiting for the next drug that can make inflammation *poof* disappear.  Here is a quote that summarizes this perfectly from Time Magazine circa 2004. “As scientists delve deeper into the fundamental causes of those and other illnesses, they are starting to see links to an age-old immunological defense mechanism called inflammation — the same biological process that turns the tissue around a splinter red and causes swelling in an injured toe. If they are right—and the evidence is starting to look pretty good — it could radically change doctors’ concept of what makes us sick. It could also prove a bonanza to pharmaceutical companies looking for new ways to keep us well.”

Wow.  Let’s place the responsibility of ‘keeping us well’ into the hands of the pharmaceutical companies.  When is it ever going to be an individual’s responsibility to take care of their own body?  There is an arsenal of natural ways to reduce inflammation out there which won’t cost you much, unless you place high value on being able to do whatever you want to your body.

The most important and effective way for a person to reduce inflammation in their body is diet.  The implications for an anti-inflammatory diet are enourmous, but it does require a good deal of discipline.  You can google inflammatory and anti-inflammatory foods to get a thorough list of each.  Here is a short version of what you will probably find emphasized on these lists.  The following foods promote inflammation:  Sugar, virtually all processed/refined foods, red meat, full fat dairy, caffeine, alcohol.  Foods that fight inflammation:  fruit and vegetables (yes, this will always be a broken record), grass fed meat and dairy, wild fish, raw nuts and seeds.

There are several natural supplements which can be added to your diet that have very potent anti-inflammatory properties, as well.  Most of these are herbs that you can purchase online through places like Iherb.com, or through your local health food store.   Curcumin is one of the most recognized natural anti-inflammatory agents.  There has been a plethora of studies that have proven it to be a very strong fighter of inflammation.  Some other herbs that have these same properties are  Boswelia, Quercetin, Ginger Root, White Willow Bark.  Omega-3 fatty acids are also very strong inflammation blockers which are found abundantly in Fish and Flaxseed oil.

WARNING:  All of the above listed items can cause an increased risk of serious health events, which may include the following: increased energy, weight loss, euphoria, enlightenment, abatement of existing diseases, and a much higher level of wellness. These events can occur at any time during use and without warning symptoms.
Give it a week.  Try it and see if you experience some of these serious health events.  I guarantee that you will be amazed at how much caring for your own health is so much more effective than the ‘healthcare’ system that we have become so dependent upon.

This article I’m pasting below came into my inbox today from a newsletter that I receive from the National Brain Tumor Society. Temodar is the chemotherapy that I am currently taking. It’s quite disturbing for me to read things like this, but it makes me even more confident that pursuing multiple ways to kill this tumor is a good idea. Check it out.

THURSDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) — Temozolomide (Temodar), a standard treatment for brain cancer, may boost the aggressiveness of surviving cancer cells, making tumor recurrence more likely, a new study suggests.The research team, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, have identified cells in brain tumors called gliomas that have stem cell-like qualities and are able to survive chemotherapy with the help of a particular protein. These surviving cells become drug-resistant, and may be the reason treatment for brain cancer is usually unsuccessful.

This study identifies the mechanism by which this happens, he said. “When you treat mice with temozolomide they develop recurrent diseases even quicker, so temozolomide make the cells that survive act in a more aggressive manner,” Benveniste said.

I have been trying to post a blog for over a week now.  My browser kept kicking me off when I would try and create a new post, so I finely conceded to use IE (I normally use Mozilla), and I can finally post!  We had such a great, relaxing time in Maui.  It seems like we’ve been home for months, already, but yet I can’t believe I’m leaving this weekend, already, for Oklahoma.  

I’m going to go ahead and paste an email that was sent to us by the clinic, explaining the treatment that we will be receiving.  A lot of you have been asking for specific information about what we’re doing exactly, so here it is:

For the first four days they are given formula A, which consists of high dose vitamin C+B17 (formerly known as Laetrile) in combination with a full dosage of DMSO, to carry it into the malignancy better. Then on day 5, they are switched off to formula B, which consists of sodium bicarbonate in D5W. The patient usually has a Herxheiber reaction during this time, which is your hard evidence that the treatment is hitting the target. At the end of the 8 days on formula B, we switch the patient off onto formula C, which consists of DMSO bound with sterile dextrose, which acts as the “bait” for any malignancy which might be remaining. They finish out their round of 20 treatments on the DMSO/dextrose formula.

We have been successfully treating prostate cancer, as well asglioblastoma multiforme and astrocytoma, for over ten years and counting. Although DMSO is our primary chemotherapy agent(natural, non-toxic, yet powerfully effective) we also have incorporated Dr.Simoncini’s Sodium Bicarbonate, as well. DMSO,being highly alkaline and fungicidal, is a potent cancer killer by itself, as well as being a great carrier solvent, which will bind with and deliver anything of a similar molecular structure. Thousands of patients have received it, going back over 30 years, in many published clinical trials. Yet you will never hear about it, because it is a natural, botanically derived substance which is unpatentable, and therefore in direct competition with costly chemotherapy chemicals which are the standard of mainstream medicine. Despite all the evidence for efficacy of DMSO as an effective nontoxic chemotherapy agent, the FDAhas never approved it for that purpose. Because of DMSO’s special properties as a carrier solvent, it can bind with any other substance of a similar molecular structure and carry it across the cell membrane, right into the tumor.  When it is given intravenously, it crosses out of the circulation and totally saturates the soft tissues and even penetrates the blood/brain barrier, which is why it is so effective against brain malignancies. It will gently and painlessly eradicate a brain tumor without causing any collateral damage to nearby healthy structures, unlike surgery. And because it can also penetrate deep into the bone marrow, it is effective against myeloma and late stage prostate cancer, which typically goes into the deep pelvic bones.

Ok, folks. Here are some excerpts to back up my belief that cancer and fungus can be intimately intertwined. If you have cancer, or just want to be preventitive, PLEASE adopt an anti-fungal lifestyle, and if you’re sick, take some natural anti-fungals. Check it out:

Carrots and garlic are the most potent anti-fungal foods on the planet. Check out this article from sciencedaily.com. You can google this information, too, and you will find a million other medical publications about the same thing:

1. Scientists have given us another reason to eat carrots - a compound found in the popular root vegetable has been found to have an effect on the development of cancer. Falcarinol protects carrots from fungal diseases, such as liquorice rot that causes black spots on the roots during storage. The scientists investigated the compound after a previous published study suggested it could prevent the development of cancer. The team found that, after 18 weeks, rats who ate carrots (the popular orange variety) along with their ordinary feed and the group which consumed falcarinol with their feed - in a quantity equal to that contained in the carrots - were one third less likely to develop full-scale tumours than the rats in the control group.
2. In a recent study published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science paired the active ingredient of a garden remedy with advanced bio-technology to deliver a powerful punch against cancer. The cancer killing effectiveness lies in their technique of arming a cancer-targeting antibody with the destructive potential of the dietary molecule otherwise known as “allicin.” Allicin is the product of an interaction between an enzyme, alliinase, and the small chemical alliin, which occurs naturally in plants such as garlic and onion as a defense mechanism against soil fungi, bacteria and parasites. Within three days, almost all of the human lymphoma cancer cells were destroyed in those mice treated with the conjugate and alliin, while hardly any cancer cell destruction occurred in the control mice who received the conjugate alone. This excerpt is from www.medicalnewstoday.com: Swapan Ray, Ph.D.(MUSC Neurosciences/Neurology associate professor), Naren Banik, Ph.D. (MUSC Neurosciences/Neurology professor), and Arabinda Das, Ph.D. (MUSC Neurosciences/Neurology post-doctoral fellow) studied three pure organo-sulfur compounds (DAS, DADS, and DATS) from garlic and the interaction with human glioblastoma (Grade 4 of my tumor) cells. All three compounds demonstrated efficacy in eradicating brain cancer cells, but DATS proved to be the most effective. The study will be published in the September issue of the American Cancer Society’s journal, Cancer. Cancer cells have a high metabolism and require much energy for rapid growth. In this study, garlic compounds produced reactive oxygen species in brain cancer cells, essentially gorging them to death with activation of multiple death cascades.”This research highlights the great promise of plant-originated compounds as natural medicine for controlling the malignant growth of human brain tumor cells.
3. You know all of the hype that you hear about how red wine can protect/fight against cancer? The ingredient in red wine that is being studied is called Resveratrol. Here is an excerpt from Clinical Cancer Research: Resveratrol is produced by grapes and other plants to protect the plant against fungus, and disease. Conclusions: Resveratrol caused significant glioma (brain cancer) cell cytotoxicity and apoptosis, exerted antitumor effects on the s.c. and intracerebral gliomas, and inhibited angiogenesis in s.c. gliomas. Thus, resveratrol might be considered a possible treatment strategy for gliomas.

This is just a tiny bit of information about this topic. If you do your homework, you will learn that most chemotherapies were plant-derived, until the last 10-15 years. Many of these chemotherapeutic plants that were used, have been used in ancient medicine because of their anti-fungal properties. Pharmeceutical companies have just created synthetic chemicals that function in a similar, but extremely toxic, manner. You can’t make billions of dollars on a nursery full of Periwinkle plants. Periwinkles can’t be patented.

Ok, I’ve rambled on long enough. I hope that gives people a little bit of insight, and some encouragement to realize that you really can take your health into your own hands. Conventional medicine is a gift from God and I’m not trying to bash it whatsoever (Big Pharma…different story)…I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for all of the doctors who have helped me along the way, the medications that kept me from having seizures on a daily basis, etc. I’m just saying that you need to be careful not to believe everything you are told, read and watch on a daily basis. Be an informed consumer. We need to know that we are responsible for our own bodies. A pill isn’t going to address the underlying cause of why we are sick. Sure, it will mask our symptoms, but as one of my favorite sayings goes “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten”….Change it up!

Check this out:

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the same ingredient used in dandruff shampoos to fight the burning, itching and flaking on your head also can calm overexcited nerve cells inside your head, making it a potential treatment for seizures. Results of the study can be found online in Nature Chemical Biology.

That ingredient they are talking about is called Zinc Pyrithione, which is an anti-fungal.  Wikipedia defines dandruff as this:  Common older literature cites the fungus Malassezia furfur (previously known as Pityrosporum ovale) as the cause of dandruff. While this fungus is found naturally on the skin surface of both healthy people and those with dandruff, it was discovered that a scalp specific fungus, Malassezia globosa, is the responsible agent.

So could fungus be one of the causes of epilepsy?  My epilepsy is obviously caused by my brain tumor, but how exciting is this for somebody that has epilepsy, but no structural cause can be determined?  If Johns Hopkins says that an anti-fungal shampoo can help with my seizures, not only am I going to start using dandruff shampoo, but I’m going on an anti-fungal diet, as well, to see if that will help control my seizures.  Why wouldn’t I??  As many of you know, seizures have plagued me throughout the past several years.  We are hoping that this surgery will take care of those, but it’s very possible that it won’t, so I’m going to do what I can to prevent them. 

More on the cancer and fungus link to come….

    The stitches are out!!  All 58 of them came out today, along with 1 staple.  After my last surgery, there were several random staples on parts of my head.  I’m not exactly sure what purpose the holes served, but it was an interesting task for my doctor to try and find them all.  This time, there was just one random hole.  I’m glad, too, because that one did not want to come out…

Many are asking, so here is a summary of what my diet looks like right now, while I’m trying to deal with this remaining tumor in my head.

Breakfast - Fruit Smoothie  (1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup blackberries, 1/2 cup strawberries, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup Organic plain yogurt, 1/4 cup flaxseed oil, 1/4 cup of  Garden of Life Perfect Food (greens powder))

Everyday, I juice a combined 20 ounces of the following: Carrots, celery, garlic, 1 green apple.  I add 1/2 cup of Garden of Life Perfect Food to this, as well.  I split this into 3 different servings.  One usually at lunch time, one mid-afternoon, and one at dinner.  Spreading it out helps my body to assimilate all of the nutrients I’m giving it, at the time.  When you give your body too much, all at once, it will pass it through your body because it doesn’t need it all at the same time.

Snacks - Dehydrated apple rings, roasted almonds.  If you don’t own a food dehydrator, I  highly recommend getting one!!  I dehydrate apple rings on a regular basis.  They are the most amazing snack, especially when you have a sweet tooth.   Get a good apple variety(Sonata apples are my new favorite), peel them with an apple corer/slicer (they’re like $10!!), sprinkle some cinnamon, cloves, etc… on them, and throw them on the dehydrator.  I have about 20 quart bags of them in my freezer.  They are so good frozen, as well, but just pull out a bag and let them thaw, when needed.  I roast my own almonds.  Costco has a huge bag of raw almonds that you can buy.  I lightly coat those in olive oil.  I sprinkle sea salt and garlic powder on them, to taste.  I then spread them out on a cookie sheet and roast them in the oven on 200 degrees for around 3 hours.  The key is to not put too much oil on them or they won’t dry, and keep the heat down so that they don’t burn.  Low and slow is best.  They are a very filling snack and they are loaded with Co-Q10, which is a great cancer fighter.  Olive oil is an Omega 3 fatty acid, which is an even greater cancer fighter.

Dinner - Some kind of meat and vegetable.  I’m trying not to eat a lot of calories, so I will eat some of whatever kind of meat I make for dinner, along with whatever vegetable I’ve made.

Beverages - Aside from the juice I make, I now keep a pitcher full of green/white/peppermint tea combo (Long Life Tea brand…mmm….) in the fridge.  I try to drink several glasses a day of that.  I will also drink that tea hot, at least once.  I also drink a lot of water with freshly squeezed lemon in it.  Lemon water is great for flushing out your system and has an alkaline effect on the cellular PH of your body.  And it’s just amazingly refreshing!!

So that is my diet.  Recent studies have shown that dietary caloric restriction has been shown to control brain cancer.  Check it out:  http://www2.bc.edu/~seyfridt/braincancer.html

So, because of this, I try and keep my caloric intake somewhat limited.  This does not mean I am depriving my body of calories.  Quite the opposite.  I feed it less, but what I do feed it is nutrient-dense in every way, so I’m better nourished than I was before. 
Still awaiting that pathology…..thanks for your prayers!!  Good night…