We’ve been busy at “Helping Hands” this summer, but not too busy to publish our NEW BOOK, “Your Life Your Choice Let the Healing Begin A JOURNEY OF DIS-EASE TO EASE Healing Holistically of Pancreatic Cancer”! The book is Kelly’s seven-year all-natural health journey, from age 18-25. Take a LOOK Inside at Our New BOOK!
17
Implementing Changes
Kelly
JE (Journal Entry) November 18th, 2013
I’m frustrated, tired, and weak. I’m nauseated a lot of the time. I was told from Dr. Ann that the state of my liver is VERY bad. Basically, it is on the verge of collapsing. Wow, I’m too young for this. Lord, give me the strength to go on because I certainly can’t do this on my own. I don’t know the exact reasoning as to why I’m going through this Lord, but obviously you have something bigger and better in store for me.
While working with Dr. Ann, the holistic Dr., there were a LOT of changes that needed to be made in my life. Some of the changes were easy, and others a little more time-consuming, and maybe even difficult, or should I say “patience-testers”. Nevertheless, her guidance and direction were appreciated.
I was eating my 4-6 cups of steamed greens each day. I was eating fully-cooked hot foods, cooked to the point of mushy, as she’d told me to. I liked not having to chew my food, but I won’t lie, mushy food eventually got old. This was mind-over-matter, and I did overlook that aspect at most mealtimes. I ate home-made soup once a day. Truth be told, I’d actually remembered saying to my mom one day at lunch in my last year of high school, “I could eat soup every single day.” Little had I known that only a few years later I would be doing just that!
In addition to eating warm foods, Dr. Ann had recommended eating spicy foods and spices such as: jalapeño peppers, red peppers, horseradish, paprika, cumin, and cayenne pepper. The hot foods and spices were intended to address my sluggish metabolism. Cayenne pepper has a property called “capsaicin” in it. Capsaicin increases heat in the body to burn more calories per day. I needed heat inside my body. Each of the spices suggested could, and would, help me in different ways.
I had completely quit exercising just prior to my very first appointment with Dr. Ann because I didn’t have the energy for it, and besides it hurt my left side. Now she was telling me that I needed to move and sweat. Why? Because she said I had muscle dystrophy, muscle weakness and degeneration—a breakdown of the muscle fibers. Since I didn’t have much energy to exercise, she said it only needed to be 15-minutes a day to begin with, then to gradually increase the length. Because I was so ill (and prior to this time, prone to over exercising) I needed to find balance with exercise. Each day I would make myself do a short workout that got me to sweat. I’d remind myself of Dr. Ann’s words, “Sweating is important to help get rid of the build-up of toxins in your body, Kelly. This will also help warm up your core body temperature.”
Another area that Dr. Ann addressed was my liver, which was on the verge of collapsing. To address this, I was not only taking herbal supplements but was told to drink dandelion tea every day. Truthfully, I can look back and chuckle at some of my reactions to hearing things I was being told to do. Dandelion tea? Who drinks that? I thought. Well, I learned to, and you know what, I actually LOVED it. In addition to drinking medicinal teas, I was instructed to drink warm water throughout the day to warm me up, and to help in the gentle detoxing process for the liver while taking supplemental herbs and the medicinal dandelion tea. Increasing my daily water consumption was important.
Green tea was another tea that I was told to drink daily. Green tea is loaded with antioxidants, is a great cancer cell killer, improves mental performance, and improves brain function (dramatically with some people). Truly, green tea is one of the best “go-to” teas I continue to drink!
Raspberry tea was also a daily tea to help balance hormones, decreases inflammation, support faster metabolism, regulate hormones, boost/support the immune system, addresses female reproductive health such as cramping before menstrual cycles and toning uterus muscles, and aided in preventing nausea and other gastrointestinal issues that I had. Raspberry tea is loaded with nutrients, vitamins, and antioxidants.
In addition to drinking various medicinal teas, I had started drinking bone broth purchased at a food coop, intended to help heal the walls of my intestines from the damage done from leaky gut. I tried the bone broth for a while, but found that due to certain ingredients, onion and tomato in the pre-made broth, it was making me feel ill after drinking it. So, I stopped. Eventually, in a few months’ time, Mom embarked on the journey to making our own homemade bone broth.
I quickly grew to enjoy my daily cups of tea. I also enjoyed the quotes and encouraging messages that some of the tea bags had written on the ends of the strings attached to the bags. Tea gives me a feeling of “joy in the simple things” every day.
Having to drink daily cups of tea, and increasing my liquid consumption due to the supplements I was taking, meant there was no excuse for drinking or eating less. I admit, drinking and eating were a real struggle because they left me feeling even more ill while my organs digested them. I was nauseated every day. Because my pancreas was not doing its job in making enzymes, I was taking supplemental enzymes to help breakdown and digest food, and I was taking Swedish bitters during meals to help activate digestive juices–bile, stomach acid, so I could digest and ABSORB the nutrients FROM the food. I knew I had to eat and drink to live, so I did.
Mom was a big help in reminding me to eat and drink throughout the course of each day. She “had my back”, always. Mom was a HUGE asset in making sure I was doing everything that I needed to in a day, encouraging me, and making sure I was eating enough. It wasn’t that I wasn’t hungry that I didn’t want to eat, it was the pain that came from digesting the foods that made me not want to eat. I literally had to constantly remind myself that I NEEDED to eat to get the right nutrients into me, that this is what I HAD to do to reverse my health. Some days were a real battle, and Mom helped to gently remind me and encourage me when I struggled. It wasn’t easy for me. And it CERTAINLY wasn’t easy for her to watch, being unable to take the pain away as I struggled. However, there WERE times that I had a good appetite!
The night sweats were addressed with a product called CALM. CALM is a “Stress Management Supplement” and is magnesium based. It includes vitamins B-6 and B-12, folic acid, and chamomile and valerian root. Since I was magnesium deficient, and learned from Dr. Ann that a majority of Americans are deficient in magnesium—90%, which causes anxiety and depression. When I am or we are stressed, we use more magnesium to calm ourselves. If we lack magnesium, being deficient, we are actually causing more stress and inviting disease into our lives. CALM helped to lessen the night sweats, for a time, but they never went away completely while I was ill. This product also helped to calm me, bringing a bit more balance to my daily life.
One of the most influential helps from Dr. Ann that I was told to do was to keep a food journal of what I ate every single day. Furthermore, she said I should write down how I felt after eating, and any symptoms I experienced. This was actually something that helped her in our monthly appointments, to direct her as to what needed to be changed in my diet and what was working for me. Food journaling helped me immensely to figure out what foods were and were not working for me or agreeing with me, too. I continued food journaling for the next four years, until I was truly well and healthy again, or for the first time ever.
Dr. Ann elaborated on the food journaling, telling me that I needed to learn to “listen to my body, to what it was telling me. Your body, you, are your own best doctor… if you are listening to what it is telling you.” She was the one that really helped me to become more “in-tune” with myself, and listen to what my symptoms were saying. This has also helped to calm myself, not panicking when I experience any kind of change that could cause stress.
I’d, too, been told by the good doctor to work on deep breathing, daily. I tried to do this, but honestly it didn’t work due to the even more severe pain on my left side under my ribs and around to my back, a 3-D effect, that resulted from trying to breath deep. This just wasn’t possible to do as often or as much as she, or I, would have liked.
I was doing everything to the best of my ability that I was instructed to do from Dr. Ann. Mom was my biggest cheerleader, walking alongside of me every step of the way. After my third monthly appointment with Dr. Ann, I wasn’t getting the results that I felt I should have at this point in time, and I was frustrated. I had things that I needed to say. Mom was going to get the brunt of my frustration.
-End of chapter reveal-
We hope you enjoyed this little chapter reveal… so-much-so that you would preorder “Your Life Your Choice Let the Healing Begin A JOURNEY OF DIS-EASE TO EASE Healing Holistically of Pancreatic Cancer”. Anyone can preorder the soft cover book before its release on Sept. 8, 2022, but the eBook version is online for sale already! We encourage anyone interested in reading it to preorder the soft cover or order the eBook at these sites:
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Choice-Healing-Begin-Journey-Dis-ease-ebook
Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/your-life-your-choice-let-the-healing-begin-a-journey-of-dis-ease-to-ease
Walmart
Powell’s Books https://www.powells.com/book/your-life-your-choice-let-the-healing-begin-a-journey-of-dis-ease-to-ease-9781667854175
Books-A-Million https://www.booksamillion.com/search?filter=&id=8596316067004&query=your+life+your+choice+let+the+healing+begin
Ingram
Baker & Taylor
Nacscorp
Christian Book Distributors
Bookazine
Diamond Comics
BPDI Corp
Any preordered soft cover book will not be charged on the buyer’s credit card until the book is shipped. We have an Ebook version available online as well with the same distributors noted above, and it is available to purchase and download now!
Thank you so much for any interest in purchasing our book! If you would please share this blogpost on your social media sites to help us get the word out, we would really appreciate it! We will also be available for book speaking engagements in the near future, so if you know of a social, all-natural health, or church group who’d be interested in having us come and speak, please contact us on this website and leave us a message! Thank you!
Your Life, Your Choice 