Food

10/10/2016

Food!!!

What’s not to love about food right!? It’s the most important thing we can put in our body to fuel it, nourish it and heal it but with our busy hectic lives we all neglect the REAL food we should be eating. When you deprive your body of the food and nutrients we need, we then become nutrient deficient and then diseases set-in, things such as high-blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, urticaria (hives), lupus, thyroid issues, cancer, etc. etc. – go check out my Links sections of the blog.

You’re probably thinking where do I start? – Well what helped me get started with nutrition were a couple of documentaries I found on Netflix, if you have Netflix I highly recommend checking them out! (Fat Sick & Nearly Dead, Food Matters, Forks over Knives, Hungry for Change, GMO OMG, Sugar Coated, and Food, Inc). If you don’t have Netflix no big deal, you can still head over and check out my Links, I have websites and YouTube channels listed with loads of information! There is so much more out in the internet world than what I have listed so don’t limit yourself to just what I have shown, do your research. Knowledge is power when it comes to cancer and the more you know the better off you are!

Processed food has run our lives for many moons now and it’s just getting worse… Not to mention it’s loaded with GMO’s and it’s severely nutrient deficient due to being so over processed and chemical laden! I’m guilty, I’m one of those people who ate lots of processed food, meats and dairy… heck who isn’t one of those types anymore!? It’s quick, cheap and easy! Everyone LOVES easy! Sure I made some healthier choices than most but that wasn’t enough. What about Vegetables… what are those?! lol I only liked a select few of them and I would rarely include them in my daily life. I even developed a gluten intolerance over the last 5-6 years or so and then developed an intolerance to alot of dairy products as well. I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying the dairy that didn’t bother my tummy, such as cheese and butter. I always said I could never give up meat or my cheese, it’s just too delicious right?! I’m sure most of you will agree with me! I know you’re thinking I’m nuts to say to eliminate those but I’m curious… Could you give up the meat, the dairy, and the processed foods? What if your life depended on it? What if you had cancer and saw dozens and dozens of interviews of people who healed their cancer with nutrition and other natural methods alone without conventional therapies like chemotherapy or radiation? Would you still take chemotherapy KNOWING that it is toxic and ruins your immune system, the very immune system you need to heal?! Well that is my dilemma. I thought long and hard on which route I should take. Once I researched things and learned what I know now… my decision was easy… I said NO to chemotherapy! I’ll say it again since SO many people are going to be shocked by this but I said NO to chemo!

Did you know it is ILLEGAL for any MD to prescribe anything other than surgery, chemotherapy or radiation for cancer? Crazy right?! He/She can lose their license and much worse if he/she prescribes nutrition or anything natural for cancer that isn’t and can’t be patented. Why is that you ask? Because there is no money in a cure, there is no money in Mother Nature since it can’t be patented. Did you also know that oncologists make a profit on chemotherapy drugs because they purchase them directly from pharmaceutical companies and mark them up in price for your insurance company or worse for those that don’t have insurance? It’s the only drug that doctors actually make a profit on, some as much as 60% profits. That doesn’t make sense to me. They make us sick and keep us sick for profit, as far-fetched as that sounds, it’s all too true. There is proof out there that food heals, nutrition heals, but doctors will still claim there is no proof or no studies done. It makes me angry that we are being LIED to about our options. They say so many cancers are terminal yet there are so many testimonials of survivors who were told they were going to die by Medical Doctors but sought help from Alternative Medicine and they survived. I’m not saying ALL MD’s are bad or wrong either at their job. I give SO much respect of those that put us back together when we are broke but they are absolutely horrible at fighting disease. They do not cure or heal you, they only mask the symptoms with drugs, drugs that are toxic to our bodies. I don’t have funds for a naturopathic doctor (Insurance companies do not accept these type of doctors and vice versa many naturopathic doctors do not accept insurance) so I have been researching the internet on how to heal myself. I can’t recommend anything specific for anyone but I can tell you what I’ve found so far and what I’m currently doing to heal myself and my cancer.

So what do you eat to heal? – It’s super simple actually! It seems overwhelming at first but once you get into the swing of things you’ll laugh at how easy this lifestyle is! I eat raw organic fresh vegetables, organic fresh fruits, organic nuts/seeds and I added potatoes into the second month. Why organic? – Because there are no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides and it’s non-GMO. This exact thing I’m doing may or may not work for you, it may have to modified depending on your cancer or how your body responds. During my research I found many survivors that said any nuts or fats did not work for them and their cancer got worse then they removed them and the cancer regressed, then other people who stated they had 1-2 servings nuts a day with no slowed results. What about meat? – No meat! But where do you get your protein? – From the vegetables, nuts/seeds, beans and legumes, along with tons of fiber and all the nutrition your body needs to heal. Worried about your protein? Let me ask you this… Where do cows get their protein? Where do elephants get their protein? Where do gorillas get their protein? See what I’m getting at here? There is plenty of protein found in those options that you don’t need meat. Most meat is GMO anyways, if the meat isn’t GMO itself it’s being fed with contaminated GMO corn and other GMO feed so then the meat is now contaminated, unless you buy organic meat, but meat in general is harder for your body to digest which takes energy, energy your body needs to heal itself. So if you’re fighting cancer, give up the meat for now. You can always add it back in later if you really feel you have to have it right? I gave up all meats including beef, chicken and pork for several reasons actually. It causes cancer (our bodies have the abilities to turn on/off our cancer genes by what we eat, the more meat we eat the greater the chance of this gene being turned on), but I gave it up more for their welfare. After everything I’ve watched, I’ve seen how they are treated as a ‘common practice’ within these farms and I’m not okay with that at all. Common practice means that as long as most of them are doing it, it’s okay then. If you really care about your health you won’t ignore the videos or information you find out about this topic. I ignored it too for far too long because I loved my meat and cheese, then I was woken up to the reality of things.

I mentioned it earlier but I don’t like vegetables. Yeah I know, I kind of flipped out at first switching to this raw organic life because of my issue with the foods I needed and should be eating. I really worried I would not be getting enough of what I needed.  Because of this I found it easier to use my blender to blend some of the veggies and fruits together, I also juice them which is an amazingly fast way to get nutrients and give your digestion tract a rest. I found juicing and the raw organic lifestyle to be the number 1 most common protocol people followed when healing their cancer and illnesses naturally. So I figured this was a must for me if I wanted to get started on the right path, the path to rid my body of all the years of toxins and cancer. How can you rid your body of toxins if you keep feeding it toxic food? Toxins are in more than just our food but that’s a whole separate can of worms there.

I’m keeping my choices boring and simple for a reason. It’s easier for me, might get alittle boring but I throw some things in the mix to switch it up. I will incorporate more variety and even some cooked plant based foods as I go along in my journey. I’m still fairly new to this and trying to get into a routine to get my rhythm down since this new lifestyle is a complete 360 degree change. A typical day for me consists of 2 or 3 smoothies which contains a veggie/1-2 fruits, chia seeds and ground flax seeds mixed together with distilled water, 2-4 juices (not bottled juices!), snacks of fresh fruits/nuts/veggies as whole foods (not blended or juiced) and usually a salad as well. In a typical smoothie I use baby spinach as my base, then I used fruits such as pineapple, mango, raspberries, strawberries or blueberries, I mixed them up for variety so I had different flavored smoothies each time or the same if it was really good the first time! For juicing I did only 1 kind of juice mostly but sometimes also added in a carrot/apple juice. My everyday juice consisted of kale, cilantro, parsley, ginger root, cucumber, celery, carrots, beet root, apple and a lemon. I’ve grown somewhat fond of this and look forward to it daily now!! I’ve felt amazing since I’ve changed my eating habits. I have a strong faith that this is one of the best keys there are out there for disease. (There are more out there than just food for nutrition, which I will blog about as I go.)

While I was not very specific on what to eat exactly, you can find more information on the Links page, with more exact recommendations. Plus go with what you like, experiment or find some recipes you think you’d like and go from there. I found 1 recipe and modified it to my own and have stuck with that.

I hope this post has at least helped to open your eyes to some of the truth. Truth I did not know before I got cancer or before surgery. Had I known about this route I would have been able to save my uterus and one day have children of my own. God had other plans for me. So I will adopt in my future and give some deserving children a home they deserve! So please please do your research… what can it hurt to know more!! Knowledge is power! Share information you find with anyone you know or that is interested in this approach to a better life. You could actually save a life!

While food is by far the most important thing you can do to fight your cancer, I also did other things along my journey to help rid my body of toxins so my body could heal but this post was just so long I will make a new one with the additional things/supplements I used. Please bear with me, I have SO much information crammed into my head from these last 2 months that it’s hard to get it all out in short posts.

Please follow me as I continue to post new blogs about my journey to fight this disease. I also have a Facebook at www.facebook.com/GirlFightWin and an Instagram if you’d like to follow me there as well under ‘girlfightwin’.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

♥ Melissa

About Me part 2

8/24/2016

(continued from 8/10/2016)

So here I am scheduled for surgery on June 21st 2016. I went back to work until that day came. We had to be there by 6:30am and the drive was over an hour. We got there on time and I got all registered with admissions and put into the pre-op room.

My first surgery ever and I’m scared to death but surprisingly calm at the same time, weird how that works huh!? I was wheeled into the operating room and they put a mask on my face and I was out in seconds. When I woke up it was around 5 or 6:00pm. I started asking questions and my parents informed me I already asked these in the recovery room but I did not and still do not remember any of my recovery room conversations, I only remember being in my room after surgery doped up so I would not feel pain. So I asked my questions now that I was fully awake.. “So what happened, was it endometriosis or what?” my mom replied “It’s cancer.” My heart sank, I just knew I lost any chance I had to have children and proceeded to ask what they took out. My mom replied “Everything.”

The doctors came in to check on me shortly thereafter. I was informed it had already started to spread and they could only remove the mass of the tumors/cancer. They said I basically have little seeds of cancer all inside my abdomen. It’s everywhere they could see, including little seeds on my bladder. I was told my next step is to heal and then we will start Chemotherapy. So here I lay with 5 laparoscopic incisions in my belly and a large vertical incision from the bottom on my belly button to the top of my pubic hair-line and glued shut so it looked gruesome. I was not allowed to walk or move until the next day and then they removed my catheter and I had to start getting up to prevent clots and to help get my insides moving and back into place. They informed me that because of this exploratory surgery all of my insides were pushed around and it would take some time for them to settle back into place and that’s why I must move/walk as much as possible. It was hell to get up and lay back down because I had no stomach muscles to use, the pain was excruciating no matter how I moved, even with morphine and the other pain meds I had! As the days went on it became easier to move and I found ways to get in and out of the hospital bed without assistance and with the least amount of pain possible. My parents came everyday to see me and I even had a nice surprise visit with one of my cousins which was refreshing given the circumstances!!

So Friday comes and I’m discharged, yay! My recovery time was set for 6 weeks, 6 weeks of not lifting more than 5lbs and a whole bunch of other stuff I could not do. This is not easy for someone who was completely independent to then needing help for the simplest of things but it had to be done so I sucked it up. My mom was my saving grace, she has stayed with me for all this and was my caregiver during all the times I needed help with stuff.

I decided to take my first shower after a day or so of being home. Left my bandage on my incision during my shower, once I was done with that chore I laid on my bed because I was in pain. I had to change my bandage so I took that off very carefully and that was my first good look at my big incision. I panicked when I saw it, all I could think of was Frankenstein!! I cried and went into an anxiety attack because it was all hitting me at once that this is very very real but felt like just a bad bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. It took me a few weeks of seeing my incisions before I was able to look at them and be more proud of them than I was upset with them.

During my recovery I had lots of time to think and for someone who is an over-thinker that is not necessarily a good thing. I was still in my first week of recovery but something in my head told me there has to be something out there besides Chemotherapy to cure/kill cancer, I don’t know what but I just knew. I reached out to friends and family on social networking asking anyone who knew anything about holistic/natural remedies to let me know that I was considering that route instead of Chemotherapy and they all said I should consider Chemotherapy.

I started watching documentaries, researching the web and YouTube over the next 8 weeks and I had no idea the things I would find would change my life forever!

I’ll share the links for some of the sites/references I used and have found in another post so stay tuned.

Please follow me as I continue to post new blogs about my journey to fight this disease. I also have a Facebook at www.facebook.com/GirlFightWin and an Instagram if you’d like to follow me there as well under ‘girlfightwin’.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

♥ Melissa

About Me

8/10/2016

Hello World and Welcome to my page!

I decided to start a blog to share my journey and let others know about this silent killer of a disease.

A little bit about myself… I’m 32 years young and I was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Ovarian Cancer in June of 2016. I work full-time from home and love it. I was born and raised in a fairly small town in Florida, never married/no children except my fur critters. I’m very close with my parents of which have celebrated 47 years of marriage. I was home-schooled from middle school forward and don’t regret it one bit. I had an active childhood always outside, riding bikes or climbing trees with my friends from my neighborhood and we’re still friends almost 20 years later, a rarity in this day and age! Big credits to my awesome friend Beth for helping me set this up… she’s been my friend for nearly 20 years now and I’m so blessed to have her in my life! ♥

How I found out about my cancer was a blessing from God, otherwise I would have never known until it was too late. The beginning of May 2016 I got strep throat and it progressed fast, within days my throat was completely white. I went to an urgent care walk-in and they gave me an antibiotic of Amoxicillin. After a few days I felt better and my throat cleared up a bit… then I started getting nauseous every morning around 3-4am. I would throw up several times and it would last almost all day. I stopped taking my antibiotic after the 2nd day of throwing up. This went on for roughly 4 days then my mom suggested we go to the Emergency Room. Once we were seen I had mentioned I also had a headache (probably from throwing up) so they did a CT scan on my head and my abdomen. I had no idea they’d come in the room later and said they saw masses on both my ovaries. They also tested my CA125 which is common blood-work for monitoring some female cancers but we had not got those results back yet at the time. They gave me several possibilities of what these masses could be including endometriosis, PCOS, cancer, etc. They also scheduled an ultrasound, which did not show any better results. Some of my blood-work came back and my white blood count was extremely high so I was admitted and given strong antibiotics. A few days passed and they scheduled an MRI of my lady parts. After this 3rd test they still could not determine what these masses were. After 6 days I received a Picc-Line to continue antibiotic treatments via IV at an infusion center and was discharged from the hospital. I continued daily antibiotic infusions for 5 weeks before my infection was finally gone!

I was referred to an OBGYN/Oncologist in Tampa. June 1st I met with him and he explained all the possibilities of what this could be and what could happen while in surgery and the possibility of never having children. We discussed some things from my lady symptoms over the years we both felt confident endometriosis was a high possibility. Whoa I thought to myself… this is a lot to take in for someone who has never been sicker than just a cold/flu. Surgery was scheduled for June 21st 2016, my first surgery ever and it had to be this!…. (to be continued)

Click Here for Part 2!

Please follow me as I continue to post new blogs about my journey to fight this disease. I also have a Facebook at www.facebook.com/GirlFightWin and an Instagram if you’d like to follow me there as well under ‘girlfightwin’.

Thank you for visiting!!

♥ Melissa