Archive for cancer

“I feel like I found the fountain of youth!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, April 10th, 2021

By: Sandy Larson

In 2012, my mom died suddenly from a major heart attack after decades of heart disease, diabetes, and being overweight. She was 69 years old, and my five kids were young. They didn’t get enough time with their sweet grandma. Her health had not been good for many, many years. She would get out of breath climbing a flight of stairs and have to stop and rest. It was rare to ever see my mom eat fruits or vegetables. She ate a lot of fast food, drank a lot of soda, and took a ton of medications and pills. It was hard to watch her health get worse over time, and heart-breaking to lose her when she passed away.

A few years ago, in the spring of 2017, I wasn’t sleeping well and felt exhausted during the day. I had gained weight and had a closet full of clothes that didn’t fit. The idea of buying all new clothes in bigger sizes was very depressing for me. Logically, I knew I should eat less and exercise more, but it was extremely hard to avoid or limit my favorite foods, and I didn’t have the energy or desire to exercise. I found myself getting out of breath climbing stairs too, just like my mom, which was scary.

I felt like I needed to get in shape and start eating better, but it was really hard to do. We were eating lots of meat with every meal, plus lots of cheese, butter, eggs, ice cream, and desserts every day. Cutting down on portions or trying to count calories didn’t seem to work, and I felt like a failure. While we cooked most of our meals at home and we did eat fruits and veggies, we loved to get pizza or fast food several times a week and go to restaurants and ice cream shops to celebrate birthdays and any kind of special occasion.

I wanted to lose weight and have more energy, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. Everyone I knew was on a different diet, and I felt confused about what was healthy and what was not. There were just too many conflicting opinions. It reminded me of Joseph Smith’s words, as he was searching for the truth about religion. He said, “In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?” (Joseph Smith History 1:10.) I started praying for guidance and understanding. I needed to know how to get healthy and help my husband and kids be healthy.

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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“Even the doctors joked with me about my superhuman ability to recover”

By Jane Birch · Comments (4)
Saturday, November 14th, 2020

By: Emily Olsen

Growing up I was always overweight. I still have quite the sweet tooth. There was a time I ate a bowl of ice cream every night. I’m also sure I was addicted to cheese as I would put cheese on anything, and a lot of it. I was raised with the belief that a meal is not a meal unless it revolved around some form of meat. 

Other than being overweight, I was lucky to not have many adverse health issues. I don’t recall going on “diets” or other fad regimens. 

A few years before my diagnosis with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2018 I became extremely concerned with diet. I wanted to be healthy, and I wanted my family to be healthy. When I look back at that time, I’m sure it was the spirit preparing me for what was about to happen. 

I searched the Word of Wisdom and read up on all the diets I could find that supported it, but I couldn’t find much. Frustrated, I googled Word of Wisdom diet and found Jane Birch’s Discovering the Word of Wisdoms support group on Facebook. From there my studies led me to all the different whole food, plant-based (WFPB) doctors, books, documentaries, etc. I was convinced this was the right path for me.

I quit milk right off. That was easy. And we’d already been cutting down on meat.  It was a slow process, but I cut out different foods and products and over the space of several months. I went from 186 lbs to 163 lbs.

Then in 2018 we all came down with a cold, except when everyone got better my cough never went away. I also became itchy. Both symptoms became worse over time and nothing worked. I visited the allergist and the dermatologist and even my doctor for answers. Finally after suffering for about six months, and a round of antibiotics that didn’t work, I had an x-ray that showed a mass in my right lung.

After more tests and a lymph node biopsy, the diagnosis was Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. I was sad, thinking how I had found a way to eat to be healthy and now I had cancer. But of course I realize that you typically have cancer for years before you find out. This is when it dawned on me that it was the spirit who led me to a way of eating so that I could have the healthiest means of enduring and surviving the treatments I was about to get.

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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“Nothing need die, that I might live!”

By Jane Birch · Comments (13)
Saturday, December 7th, 2019

By: Tom Rodgers

I grew up on dairy and poultry farms managed or owned by my father in the Bountiful, Utah area. I thought I ate a healthy diet, which included meat, eggs and milk. I obeyed the Word of Wisdom as I understood it, but contrary to the promise, my health was failing.

In February of 1990 I was 49 years old. Here I am with my wife Betty (left) and daughter Cindy (center) just days before serious cancer detection, surgery and treatment work began. Far exceeding 250 pounds (I stopped getting on the scales out of embarrassment and denial) and no longer feeling like I was the invincible, unstoppable, independent entrepreneur and functional man I had labored to be for decades.

As my own boss in my some-times animal husbandry and all-the-time mechanical repair business, I was never short on exercise. My work was always physically demanding and strenuous. I could “throw” a cow, “drop” a cantankerous horse, pull wire or break thread on the largest rusty pipe or bolt without difficulty. I did unfortunately believe, as I had been thoroughly taught, that I needed to sufficiently consume, for the “good” of my health, teeth and bones, the products of my own dairy and animal husbandry industry. I had no shortage of milk, eggs or meat. I should have been as healthy as my old horse Frisky – but it was not so!

One day as I was working on a washing machine, I leaned over it and bumped into a little mass in my chest that gave me a sharp pain. I thought, “Wow what is going on here?”

I went to the hospital. After several tests, I learned that I had tumors in my chest and abdomen. I had one very large tumor in my upper back with tentacles reaching into my chest cavity and brain. Additionally, a black mass was found on my shoulder about the size of a pencil eraser. It turned out to be stage 4 malignant melanoma.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“My divine tap on the shoulder”

By Jane Birch · Comments (11)
Saturday, February 2nd, 2019

By: Marjorie Rice

On March 3, 2015, at age 76, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, a 8mm mucinous carcinoma in the right breast. It was especially devastating news because almost nine years earlier my husband George had suffered a massive brain bleed that left him completely paralyzed on one side. He was in a wheelchair with the use of only one hand, and I was his full-time caregiver; he needed me 24/7.

Five days after my diagnosis I watched a 10-minute video by Chris Wark, a young man who beat stage 3 colon cancer at age 26 by switching to a primarily plant-based diet. Ten years later he was still healthy and cancer free. That same day, my husband and I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives and were convinced of the scientific evidence of several physicians in the film showing that most, if not all, of the life-threatening diseases that afflict us can be prevented, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods and eating a whole-food, plant-based diet. Further, every nutrient our bodies need for optimal health is found in plants—vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, seeds, and nuts. I believed what I saw and heard.

I went to Doctrine and Covenants 89 and read again the Word of Wisdom and other scriptures that counsel us concerning food. Those scriptures confirmed everything I had just heard in the documentary. George and I were both convinced that we should follow this whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) way of eating.

Since my husband’s stroke I had been religiously following the American Heart Association’s diet: low-fat dairy, very little lean red meat, skinless poultry and fish, whole grains, and fruits and vegetables. Included was some processed foods, canned soups, etc. I felt it was a fairly healthy plan, but WFPB eating was a whole new concept.

The next day I went through my pantry, cabinets, freezer, and refrigerator and got rid of everything that didn’t comply with a WFPB diet. I was excited about it, but there was so much to learn—a whole new way to plan meals, shop, and prepare food.

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“I was at my wits end and stressed out beyond anything I have ever been before”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)
Saturday, July 14th, 2018

By: Brian Beck

It all started nearly 14 years ago. I had been working at this great job that kept me in good shape physically. You see, my job was to maintain the buildings and fix the equipment for two locations of a local gym, and some days I’d help out with projects on the other 15 locations. I’d joke with everyone that I walked at least 3-5 miles per day (from the front of the building to the back, up ladders and scissor lifts) to get a tool or a part to fix a stair stepper, and then to the roof to find out why the AC wasn’t working. I hauled everything from light bulbs to treadmills . . . even hauled those up flights of stairs. It would take 4 of us to do it, but we did it. The ‘gym rats’ (body builders mostly) would give it an honest try, but 4 or 5 steps up the stairway was all they were good for. We would laugh because they had bigger muscles than we had, and we would move the rest of the treadmills ourselves. We even moved the giant weight machines. We did everything from painting to plumbing as well.

During my employment at these gyms, I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia. You see, it turns out that when I ate something with any sugar in it, my blood sugar would spike up with little control from my pancreas (which produces insulin). My body would put out too much insulin, too late from a slow reaction to the rapid rise of sugar in my bloodstream, and I would ‘crash’ (extreme drop in blood sugar). The worst part of this was that I would get really angry right before I would crash. I only saw it as though I had a really good reason to be annoyed. Sadly, it didn’t look that way from the outside looking in, and my family suffered.

I’d heard about Atkins, and I thought, “Hey let’s look into that. These guys here at the gym seem really healthy.” So our whole family started eating all the meat, dairy, and cheese we wanted, just no carbohydrates and no fruit because I was told that “eating sugar makes your body store fat.” Carbs became evil really fast.

But I had missed a little thing . . .

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB
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“Max told me to go home and read the Word of Wisdom 20 times”

By Jane Birch · Comments (9)
Saturday, September 17th, 2016

By: Ryan Egbert

My health journey started when I was 13. My best friend and I challenged each other to go one month without carbonation. After succeeding I realized there was no point in starting again when everyone knows it is healthier to not drink carbonation. It was a small challenge for me but before long I had fully adapted, and I had no desire to drink carbonated drinks.

Around the same time a school teacher showed us a video of the ironman triathlon held in Hawaii. I remember seeing people in their 80’s accomplishing this amazing physical challenge. For weeks after I thought to myself, “I want to be that healthy when I am a grandpa.” I wondered how someone became that healthy. I thought mostly about the exercise program and hadn’t considered that diet might be the primary issue.

At the age of 16, a friend’s father mentioned meeting someone who competes in the Ironman. I jumped all over the opportunity and arranged a meeting.

Max Burdick (known as IronMax) was a 76-year-old man who didn’t just shake your hand; it became a tug of war to pull you over. Max started our conversation by telling me his story. He was dying of cancer around the age of 40. An acquaintance from his high school came to visit him in the hospital. He told Max that his father had been diagnosed with cancer. His father prayed and fasted and went to the temple. He believed that God knew how to cure his cancer. Finally he had a spiritual experience in reading that “the destroying angel will pass them by” (D&C 89:21) and knew that the Word of Wisdom was God’s answer to how he could overcome his cancer. Max’s friend had used the same diet to overcome his cancer and now he was telling it to Max. He told me he realized what an “outrageous” claim he was making, but that he was living proof that it is true.

He told Max to read D&C 89 twenty or so times before he came back to visit him. Max read and upon meeting again Max learned the diet. After a few months on this diet, Max said the doctors claimed it was a miracle because he was cancer free.

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“The most horrible, wonderful experiences of our lives”

By Jane Birch · Comments (22)
Saturday, April 2nd, 2016

Randy and Olga CamporaBy: Randy Campora

Dat, dat…, da dat dat dat – dat daa dat dat dat daaaa dat.

That is the opening phrase of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet. As the bass trombonist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the past thirty years I have heard those violin notes hundreds of times, and in December 2014, the notes were the same as always. We were playing in the orchestra pit of the Lyric Theater in Baltimore for an entire week of Nutcrackers with the ballet corps of the Baltimore School for the Arts.

But this year, those notes did not sound the same. Or I should say, my mind as it heard those notes was not the same.

This year, I had cancer. My mind struggled to focus, though the familiar music and setting were a nice distraction for me. But as soon as the music stopped the thought came immediately back: I had esophageal cancer, stage yet to be determined.

I was fifty-three years old, at least a hundred pounds overweight, a recent inductee of the Type II Diabetes Club. I was also the possessor of more blessings from God than I knew what to do with: Olga, my wonderful yoga teaching wife; Dominik, our trumpet playing oldest son on a mission in Poland; and Raffi, our math wiz youngest son with the dry sense of humor. I was a member of the best ward in the church. I had a job I liked, with great health insurance. The complete list would assault you with its length.

That September I had choked on a piece of food at dinner. My wife had just completed a CPR course, so she successfully executed the Heimlich two-step and I could breathe. But a few minutes later I realized that something was stuck down near the stomach because I could not drink or eat anything. A trip to the ER took care of the problem: Dr. Solaiman removed the piece of chicken stuck in the valve at the top of the stomach.

He was surprised to find Barrett’s Esophagus—a pre-cancerous condition usually caused by chronic acid reflux that changes the tissue to something more resembling an intestine. He performed biopsies, which came back clear. He wanted to be sure nothing was hiding there, so another round of biopsies was done three months later. This time the cancer cells were found, along with some aggressive markers.

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“Man is not made to eat flesh”

By Jane Birch · Comments (25)
Saturday, March 5th, 2016

Albert SchindlerBy: Albert Schindler

Roughly three years ago—I was 81 years old at the time—I was diagnosed with kidney cancer. My right kidney was so cancerous that the doctors gave me zero percent chance of saving it, so it was surgically removed. The cancer spread to my bladder. Consequently, over about a period of a year and a half, I had 12 chemotherapy sessions and several non-surgical probes to get the cancer in remission. Several of these chemo sessions left me with a bladder infection that took antibiotics to cure. Needless to say, my health was in a very precarious situation.

It was the twelfth, and last chemo session, plus an infection that really got the best of me. My entire body, from the neck down, ached terribly. The experience lasted for roughly two days. I say “roughly” because for the most part I was in a daze and had no recollection of time. Because of the pain, I couldn’t sleep, and I could barely stay awake. I ached if I sat up, and I ached if I tried to lie down. Near the end of this time, I suppose because I was so lacking sleep plus so weak from the pain, I started to experience hallucinations.

I had several different hallucinations, but of interest to this story is near the end when I saw before me a large grid that resembled a giant-sized, brown “Weetabix,” like is found in a Weetabix cereal box. I had a bucket in my hand and I was trying to dip out the pain I felt in various parts of my body from one square of the grid and pour it into another square. I was becoming more and more frustrated. This didn’t work! My pain was still one hundred percent there, only I kept shifting it around!

After what seemed like an eternity of fruitless dipping to end my pain, something within me said, “You have to get rid of the pain, not just mask it by trying to hide it somewhere else.” In other words, dipping it out of one Weetabix square and pouring it into another square wasn’t the answer. What was of special interest after that “Aha! moment” was a very clear, audible voice that said to me, “Man is not made to eat flesh.”

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“I have the goal of never needing medication”

By Jane Birch · Comments (18)
Saturday, December 5th, 2015

Debi ReynoldsBy: Debi Reynolds

I grew up in California. We were a health-conscious family, although I didn’t know it at the time. It was just how we lived—lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, and my parents were good examples of being active. But we also ate plenty of hamburgers, milk, ice cream, and treats. The Word of Wisdom was introduced to me when I was 17 and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although my parents are not members, they learned a bit about the Church at that time and were interested in the Word of Wisdom. I remember that they said to me, “The Church members may not smoke or drink, but they have their vices. You are joining a fat church. If this information is in the scriptures, and the members believe the scriptures are true, why don’t they follow the counsel?” And that’s a very good question. Why aren’t we LDS people a healthier example to the world?

My husband grew up on a potato farm in Idaho. They were a “meat and potatoes” family. His grandparents, who lived a few hours away, owned a dairy farm, so butter, cream and whole milk were plentiful when they visited. Some of their family’s favorite foods were creamed peas and new potatoes, Sunday roasts with potatoes and gravy, big farm meals to keep the workers filled. Bread and butter were on the table at every meal. There were always lots of sugary desserts and treats. They grew a big garden and canned everything. This diet was typical for that small, farming community.

Randy and I met in college, married, and had four children. Early in our marriage I had major surgery to correct an unknown birth defect and lost the use of one kidney. After recuperating, I was determined to be healthier than ever, eat well, and exercise. But as our family got busier, I turned to convenience foods— pizza, cold cereal, burgers, like everyone else. I always loved fruits and vegetables, but my finicky kids did not eat many vegetables and I’m sorry to say that I gave in to them rather than fight.

At age 32, I went back to college, taking 1-2 night classes each semester. This was a very stressful time as my husband was called up to serve in Desert Storm with his Navy Reserve unit. I was on my own with four young children for nine months while he served. I continued on with college, finally having to commute to USU in Logan for my last five years. I started to have feelings of anxiety that I did not understand. They were horrible and lasted for over ten years. I don’t remember what my family ate. I could barely swallow food during this time, but I battled through, finally receiving two college degrees at age 42.

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“I went on my knees and asked for His help”

By Jane Birch · Comments (15)
Saturday, April 4th, 2015

Elodie Picard FamilyBy: Elodie Picard

I am a 34-year old native of France, currently living in Austria. I was born into the covenant. I am blessed with a loving and supportive husband, Paul, and we take great joy in rearing our three children in the Gospel: Eva, 13 years old, Jérôme, 11 years old, and Lynn, 5 years old.

For a long time, I believed that my family was eating healthy. I always cooked from scratch with lots of fruits and vegetables. We ate meat once a week, some form of dairy products daily, and I limited our consumption of sweets. I took great pleasure in preparing tasty meals for my family and friends that I thought were nutritious.

In October 2011, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I followed the normal procedures and had it surgically removed a week after my diagnosis. Unfortunately, I experienced surgical complications. My laryngeal nerve was severed (I have now a paralyzed left vocal cord), and I also suffered from “permanent hypoparathyroidism.” As a consequence, I started to experience serious hypocalcemic attacks. The specialists responded by administering massive doses of calcium (12 times the daily recommended dose) along with vitamin D. They told me that it was the only way to avoid the attacks and that I should also eat lots of dairy products to get as much calcium as possible. However, they also warned me that those supplements would eventually damage my kidneys permanently. Nevertheless, they could offer no other treatment.

Then I did what any child of God does in this situation—I went on my knees and asked for His help. I knew our Heavenly Father is the maker of our bodies, and He would know what to do. So day after day I prayed.

The months following my cancer treatment, I was not doing well physically. I was vomiting a lot. I lost the sense of taste (every food I ate had absolutely no flavor), and I was extremely tired and nauseous . . . To add to all that, the tumors came back right were my thyroid was. Since I was in no shape to go through the treatment all over again, I refused it.

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