We are well into week three of the Gerson and I have an unexpected time of quietness so I thought I would do a quick update.
Last week, particularly last weekend, was pretty rough. Friday was our anniversary, we had child care all lined up and we never even made it out of the house. Williams routine is just that intense. Add a toddler, a 6 month old and three dogs... That brings us to answered prayer #1: help. We came to the very clear conclusion last week that we couldn't continue doing this with our current schedule. I used all of my FMLA and paid time off during my maternity leave so me taking time off right now is not an option. William is taking 3 weeks to go to Sudan next month and will, Lord willing, be making two trips to Ethiopia next year to pick up our babe (I WILL do a post on our adoption soon) and doesn't want to take advantage of his boss' understanding and accomodating his trips to Africa. BUT, on Saturday William's Dad called and offered to come and stay with us until he is finished with the therapy! This is fantastic news and we are super excited. He will be going to work with William during the day, doing all of his juicing, and helping me prep in the morning and evenings. Yay!
Answer to prayer #2: cash. I had a really encouraging conversation with the director of our adoption agency, Arise for Children, on Monday. Turns out she decided to reimburse us a fee we paid for the next step of our adoption, because we haven't actually completed that "step" yet. It will cover all of the medical bills and pay for William's crazy expensive 20 lbs of organic food each day for the rest of the therapy!
Sunday evening at church we were feeling better and it was so great to hear Todd teach from the book of Acts on Gods power to answer prayer. In between nursing Meadow and trying to keep her from squealing with delight, what stuck with me most from the sermon, is that God has the power to answer prayer and we should pray like we believe that he does. Amen to that.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Why and More What
So, it's been over a week since we last updated the blog. It is not because we have not had plenty to share but rather we have been consumed by the Gerson Therapy.
Lindsy shared a bit about our routine last week and maybe a little TMI for some with the coffee enema info. This week I wanted to share the "why"...
The Gerson Therapy has been around since the 1920's. You can read about Dr. Max Gerson and his daughter Charlotte if you Google them. The therapy is well established and has healed 1,000's of cancer patients and patients suffering from diseases ranging from migraine headaches to diabetes. I know that many people may not understand why we would chose to go this route, but historically The Gerson Therapy has healed more people with Melanoma than traditional western medicine, and without the long-term side effects.
The basics of the Gerson are:
Chronic illness is caused by a lack of nutrition and built up toxins that have accumulated in the body. Because of a lack of nutrition in the modern diet, our filtering organs such as the liver and pancreas are not functioning at 100%. This makes our bodies vulnerable to the toxins we are exposed to daily. The diet is based largely on raw, organic vegetables combined with 13 glasses of fresh carrot, apple and green juice. The juice helps to replenish the nutrients in my body, but it also creates an oxygen rich alkaline environment in which cancer cells can not grow. I am on a no fat, no sugar, no salt diet, because cancer feeds off of these three things. The coffee enemas stimulate the liver which causes it to purge the toxins while the nutrients from the juices replenish it with new raw fuel.
Thank you to all of you who continually pray for and bless us with items such as organic coffee and produce, for those who have helped us acquire our juicer, etc...
The good news is I feel great!!! The biggest prayer request I have is for us to figure out a way for me to get more rest. A huge part of the therapy is resting while the detoxing takes place. As you can imagine this is very hard to do with a full time job and two kiddos. Lindsy has been a true servant but we are both exhausted and feeling the drain of the routine. (and it's only week two!) This therapy is not just a "diet" - it's an intense treatment.
My options kinda came down to doing this or doing 6 months of chemo. This is "natural" but it's still an aggressive attack on cancer. This is not a choice but rather a necessity for decreasing the odds of Mr. Melanoma's face reappearing somewhere else in my body.
Again, thanks for all of your prayers and support during this. Before I sign off I did want to share that I have had some great time alone with the Lord during certain down times of the routine and have been able to hear some great sermon podcasts during my daily prep in the morning. This has helped to keep my soul rejuvenated. In this very moment I feel physically exhausted and slightly discouraged but the following scripture gives me hope and recalibrates my heart:
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Psalm 91:14-16
Hey ya'll. It's L.
We have been getting lots of questions on the therapy/schedule/juicing/etc. so I figured I would post a bit more of the "what".
This past weekend I put together some numbers based on Williams juicing/meal regimen so we would not have to make multiple trips to the grocery like we did last week. Here is the weekly shopping list:
35 lbs of carrots
32 lbs of apples
21 oranges
6 lbs of potatoes
20 gallons of distilled water
21 servings of veggies
14 servings of fruit
8 romaine hearts
7 lemons
7 green peppers
2 bottles of flax seed oil
1 head of red leaf lettuce, endive, escarole, swiss chard, red cabbage, and water cress each
And that's just for William! Needless to say it's a lot to manage and I am having a hard time figuring out what to eat myself, what to feed Moses and, pray for me, because Meadow will be eating soon! It is also very expensive to buy all of William's food organic but we know God will provide for us. He always has!
The routine is crushing at times and I understand now why people who do the treatment for months travel to the Gerson clinic in Mexico. William and I both get up before 6am to start prepping for the day and we literally don't stop washing/chopping/prepping until after 10pm. His enema/juice/meal schedule is below for those of you who are interested.
As William said, please pray that we would find a way for him to get more rest, and please also pray that God would give me the strength to maintain this for as long as is necessary. (at least until William leaves for Sudan. Yes he's going to Sudan next month, more on that later)
6am coffee enema (and yep that's what it sounds like)
8am breakfast (oatmeal and fruit), freshly squeezed OJ, supplements
9am green juice, supplements
9:30am carrot/apple juice, supplements
10am coffee enema, carrot/apple juice, supplements
11am carrot juice, supplements
12pm green juice, supplements
1pm lunch (large salad, baked potato, veggie and fruit), carrot/apple juice, supplements
2pm coffee enema, green juice, supplements
3pm carrot juice, supplements
4pm carrot juice, supplements
5pm carrot/apple juice, supplements
6pm coffee enema, green juice, supplements
7pm dinner (same as lunch), carrot/apple juice, supplements
10pm coffee enema
Lindsy shared a bit about our routine last week and maybe a little TMI for some with the coffee enema info. This week I wanted to share the "why"...
The Gerson Therapy has been around since the 1920's. You can read about Dr. Max Gerson and his daughter Charlotte if you Google them. The therapy is well established and has healed 1,000's of cancer patients and patients suffering from diseases ranging from migraine headaches to diabetes. I know that many people may not understand why we would chose to go this route, but historically The Gerson Therapy has healed more people with Melanoma than traditional western medicine, and without the long-term side effects.
The basics of the Gerson are:
Chronic illness is caused by a lack of nutrition and built up toxins that have accumulated in the body. Because of a lack of nutrition in the modern diet, our filtering organs such as the liver and pancreas are not functioning at 100%. This makes our bodies vulnerable to the toxins we are exposed to daily. The diet is based largely on raw, organic vegetables combined with 13 glasses of fresh carrot, apple and green juice. The juice helps to replenish the nutrients in my body, but it also creates an oxygen rich alkaline environment in which cancer cells can not grow. I am on a no fat, no sugar, no salt diet, because cancer feeds off of these three things. The coffee enemas stimulate the liver which causes it to purge the toxins while the nutrients from the juices replenish it with new raw fuel.
Thank you to all of you who continually pray for and bless us with items such as organic coffee and produce, for those who have helped us acquire our juicer, etc...
The good news is I feel great!!! The biggest prayer request I have is for us to figure out a way for me to get more rest. A huge part of the therapy is resting while the detoxing takes place. As you can imagine this is very hard to do with a full time job and two kiddos. Lindsy has been a true servant but we are both exhausted and feeling the drain of the routine. (and it's only week two!) This therapy is not just a "diet" - it's an intense treatment.
My options kinda came down to doing this or doing 6 months of chemo. This is "natural" but it's still an aggressive attack on cancer. This is not a choice but rather a necessity for decreasing the odds of Mr. Melanoma's face reappearing somewhere else in my body.
Again, thanks for all of your prayers and support during this. Before I sign off I did want to share that I have had some great time alone with the Lord during certain down times of the routine and have been able to hear some great sermon podcasts during my daily prep in the morning. This has helped to keep my soul rejuvenated. In this very moment I feel physically exhausted and slightly discouraged but the following scripture gives me hope and recalibrates my heart:
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Psalm 91:14-16
Hey ya'll. It's L.
We have been getting lots of questions on the therapy/schedule/juicing/etc. so I figured I would post a bit more of the "what".
This past weekend I put together some numbers based on Williams juicing/meal regimen so we would not have to make multiple trips to the grocery like we did last week. Here is the weekly shopping list:
35 lbs of carrots
32 lbs of apples
21 oranges
6 lbs of potatoes
20 gallons of distilled water
21 servings of veggies
14 servings of fruit
8 romaine hearts
7 lemons
7 green peppers
2 bottles of flax seed oil
1 head of red leaf lettuce, endive, escarole, swiss chard, red cabbage, and water cress each
And that's just for William! Needless to say it's a lot to manage and I am having a hard time figuring out what to eat myself, what to feed Moses and, pray for me, because Meadow will be eating soon! It is also very expensive to buy all of William's food organic but we know God will provide for us. He always has!
The routine is crushing at times and I understand now why people who do the treatment for months travel to the Gerson clinic in Mexico. William and I both get up before 6am to start prepping for the day and we literally don't stop washing/chopping/prepping until after 10pm. His enema/juice/meal schedule is below for those of you who are interested.
As William said, please pray that we would find a way for him to get more rest, and please also pray that God would give me the strength to maintain this for as long as is necessary. (at least until William leaves for Sudan. Yes he's going to Sudan next month, more on that later)
6am coffee enema (and yep that's what it sounds like)
8am breakfast (oatmeal and fruit), freshly squeezed OJ, supplements
9am green juice, supplements
9:30am carrot/apple juice, supplements
10am coffee enema, carrot/apple juice, supplements
11am carrot juice, supplements
12pm green juice, supplements
1pm lunch (large salad, baked potato, veggie and fruit), carrot/apple juice, supplements
2pm coffee enema, green juice, supplements
3pm carrot juice, supplements
4pm carrot juice, supplements
5pm carrot/apple juice, supplements
6pm coffee enema, green juice, supplements
7pm dinner (same as lunch), carrot/apple juice, supplements
10pm coffee enema
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