PART 3: YOU NEED AN ADVOCATE

If you’re a Top Gun fan I know what you’re thinking: “But Maverick flies great without Goose at the end!” Yeah, you’re right, but Goose (Tom Cruise’s co-pilot for those who aren’t up on their movie trivia) helped him become good enough to fight the bad guys on his own. The point of my cheesy analogy: EVERYONE needs a strong Co-Pilot when BEATING CANCER HOLISTICALLY. It’s REALLY hard to make it on your own.

No matter how you decide to treat your cancer it is SO important to have someone there listening  FOR you and supporting you at all times. The first time my doctor said the words “Lymphoma” I forgot to breathe for a moment and didn’t hear a single rational thing the doctor said after that. Thank God my husband was there to take over for me.

Weeks later came the hard part: deciding we were going to forgo the doctor’s orders and take my health into our own hands using our own research and intuition.

3 Reasons you NEED an ADVOCATE to Beat Your Cancer Holistically:

#1: Advocates Bring you Back to Reality

When friends and family find out you have been diagnosed with cancer they do all kinds of nice things for you. You will receive tons of cards and people offer to bring you food, mow your lawn, and pray for you.  But when you decide to endeavor on holistic/alternative cancer treatment, people act differently. I remember feeling like the black sheep at times. Its uncharted territory and it makes lots of people uncomfortable and distant. There were times I wanted so badly to just be normal cancer patient, even to get sick, lose my hair, miss work for treatment, and go for all kinds of testing just so that I could be viewed as “normal.” Now, talk about someone needing a reality check! Who would wish for that? MY advocate, my husband Kevin snapped me out of that quickly.

Another emotion I went through were the “I just want it out of me!” moments when I falsely believed that chemotherapy would kill the cancer quickly and then I could move on. This was also a false reality. There was a lot more to it and a plethora of side-effects (including my most dreaded- infertility) that I would possibly have had to deal with. But when you’re in the middle of a cancer fighting nutritional protocol, your reality can seem pretty depressing, especially if you’re not used to eating raw foods all day long. The other side’s grass gets greener and greener. You need an advocate to remind you of the facts that support your desired treatment plan.

#2: Advocates Can Stand Up to the Critics for You

Oh boy, and you will have lots of critics. Most won’t say anything to your face, but somehow you will know who supports you and who doesn’t. Some may even have really tough questions for you. See my later post on Critics and Naysayers for more about how your advocate and you can handle this.

#3: YOU Can’t Do ALL of the Research on Your Own

In “A Day in the Life: 5 Tips For Cancer Confidence” I list the 3 resources for YOU the cancer fighter to read. But your advocate needs to read as much as they can also. My husband was the was the one who began to feel that chemotherapy was not the right choice for us and began to research what our other options were immediately. “Cancer College” became his full-time job for about 2 weeks and he even took days off work to read and research.

Between the two of us (but mostly him,) we read:

“Cancer-Free: Your Guide to Non-Toxic Healing” – Bill Henderson (A MUST READ for the cancer fighter!)

“Cancer: Step Outside the Box” – Ty Bollinger (Another great book that contains many different alternative therapies.)

“Beating Cancer With Nutrition” – Patrick Quillan (Explains cancer and nutrition from a detailed cellular level.)

“Foods To Fight Cancer” – Richard Beliveau (Teaches about the cancer fighting compounds in individual foods.)

“Chemotherapy Heals Cancer and the World is Flat” – Lothar Hernaise (Goes through individual cancers, the traditional recommended treatment, actual survival rates, and suggested alternative protocols.)

“The Cancer Industry” – Ralph Moss (former Asst. Director of Public Affairs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and current cancer researcher/writer/reporter provides behind-the scenes details of how successful alternative cancer discoveries were and are kept from patients. In fact, Moss himself was fired from his job after he blew the whistle on the cancer center’s suppression of its own highly successful studies involving Laetrile in the late 1970s.)

“Crazy Sexy Cancer” – Kris Carr (A holistic survivor who writes in a fun, uplifting way and makes cancer approachable and survivable.)

“The Hippocrates Diet” – Ann Wigmore (She was an amazing healer who helped many “hopeless cases” heal from cancer using dietary changes and detoxification protocols.)

Two of the first websites he found and researched were: www.cancertutor.com and www.healingcancernaturally.com/.

Choosing the Right Advocate:

An advocate doesn’t need to be perfect, but they need to be a close friend or family member who will support  you no matter what. They need to go with you to all of your appointments to listen FOR you.

This person must be 100% on board with what YOU want for your body and mind. They need to BELIEVE just as much or more than you do that the treatment will work and that YOU are capable of following through with its demands.

Come back for my next post, “A Day in the Life: Facing the Critics.”