Living Without Carcinogens

A couple of months ago,I had a personal loss that made me rethink my priorities, as losses will do. In fact there was a”perfect storm” of events. It all started when my daughter decided to do a documentary about the cancer patients she helps with Covering All Care for Kids, her non profit. Without exception, in the last 3-4 years, everyone’s cancer came back. I found this shocking because every kid I’d ever known growing up had lived (and is living still!). I couldn’t help obsessing about “why”. Almost immediately, my daughter got these gnarly bruises, like she’d been beaten, all over her body. Literally, 6 to 7 thousand $ later, (one blood test at St. John’s Hospital, just a blood draw to check her platelets, cost 1500K!) she was diagnosed with an idiopathic blood disorder. Idiopathic means they don’t know where it comes from or why, you fucking idiot. The third incident, the loss of her father, has been more devastating than I ever imagined.

Anyway, I told you to purge the “pain” (ha-ha), I went on a rigorous cleanse, which I’m still on. I have to chronical in a separate blog my daily progress, which has been crazy. I have never been on any diet where I could have unlimited potatoes, oatmeal and rye bread. This is a diet for cancer patients, I reiterate, because I find it too good to be true. Ofcourse, I say this now that the nausea, like I was pregnant, the achy muscles and tight joints from detoxing,  have subsided (at least at the moment). If weight loss is what you’re after, this is a fabulous way to go because you are floating, you are so full of goodness 24/7. Really! If it’s prevention or living toxin-free and without carcinogens, this is it. Trust me, it is NOT for the faint of heart! It is time intensive because you have to prepare and eat every hour of the day! (Did I mention coffee enema’s 3X a day? No?) And, you have to give yourself an enema 3x’s a day. Yes, you do feel lighter and younger after but that doesn’t diminish the fact that you are sticking a hose up your ass! All of this made me get more in touch with my spiritual side and I decided, to get through this,I would have to “up” my spiritual practice orn I wouldn’t be able to keep it up. It’s funny, even though you feel better and you know everything going in your mouth is beyond healthy, there is till that little voice telling you it’s ok to be bad. The other major issue, ifyou’re like me, is you can kiss parties, Thanksgiving and Xmas good-bye, in terms of eating and hanging out…the temptations are too great.

With all this going on, and me packing an igloo full of food and drink every time I leave the house, I decided to go back to school to get my master’s degree. I’m getting my certification in drug and alcohol counseling and I’m getting my master’s in Health Education, because after the last 3 months, a lot of people need education, me included. It’s been a LONG time since I enrolled in anything academic. You’d think that with the internet the application/registration process would have become streamlined and easy. HELL, NO! There are still the long lines, people in advisory capacities that know next to nothing. It was as though I was from a foreign country. In fact, I felt sorry for foreigners. Nothing was synching up! So when I realized I would probably have to go back to school a sixth time to get some answers, I was dismayed and second guessed my decision. I decided I had to go to my department major, Health Sciences, to get some advice. (The night before, I happened to see on the website that I may need to take the GRE, and I about keeled over!) I had not signed up for this!!!!! Of course the person I was meeting, was not there. Before long, a very young, jovial man bounced in to the office and jokingly asked me if I was his 2:30.I opened my mouth to say something and he held out his hand, “I’m Mario.”

It turns out Mario aka The Messiah, was the head of the Dept, a PHD, and possibly the only  helpful person on my journey to date. Keep you posted!

I had the choice of taking crop rotation or human waste reclamation and recycling today. Because this farming system is a “closed” system i.e. once up and running you are completely sustainable and don’t have to get anything (and I really mean ANYTHING) off your farm property postage stamp. Considering this, and knowing that human waste is the highest and purest form of compostable material, I stopped “thinking” about it as pee and poo (GAG) and sat down. The first thing I learned, is that pee has the highest form of organic potassium that you can put on your soil. There are no known forms of organic potassium that you can supplement your soil with. Because pee also comes out sanitary and supposedly sterile, it’s an ideal composting resource. Poo is a different thing because of worms and other gross things  people have creeping around their toxic bodies.

As I was learning about the various ways to recycle excrement and because I’m OCD, I started making a list in my head of who’s pee and poo I wouldn’t mind using in my garden, if mankind gets to that point in my lifetime. First on the list, my best friend’s Karen and Chris. I know their diet. And truthfully, I don’t mean to be gross, but their pee and poo is practically edible. They are vegan, organic and the purest eaters I know. Next on the list would have to be Susan and Mindy. They are also vegan and don’t drink alcohol or coffee. I would want their “stuff ” on my compost heap. I was surprised how short the list is. The last three people whose (you know what) I wouldn’t mind putting on my growing food is Marilu’s and the sister’s who own my gym, RPM, Cynthia and Karen. Not only do these three eat light, everything is judiciously thought about before eaten. The bottom line with everyone on “My Pee and Poo Composting List” is these people would rather starve than put anything in their mouth that doesn’t conform to their diet regimen. I don’t know anyone else like this. They are the definition of CONTROL!

Things I’m sorry I missed on this trip are the Redwoods, which are an hour away and Fort Bragg, which is on the coast. I am actually so sorry I didn’t drag my girlfriend Karen, a few dogs and drive up here…it is so beautiful. If I didn’t have commitments at home, I would have definitely stayed a few more days.

It has also been oddly relaxing not having service here and being unreachable.

Driving to San Fran Airport at 4 am.

An extra bonus to being in this beautiful place is that the class is being held at the farm where Seabiscuit lived. The house is covered with memorabilia, his saddle and bridle. So along with understanding why my beans never cultivated over the summer, getting new “open pollinated” seeds, and getting some quinoa seeds from one of the teachers to try in our warmer climate (quinoa is a perfect protein…unlike other grains and legumes it doesn’t need to be combined with anything to make it complete), I’ve been able to stand next to Seabicuit’s grave. There are a few of us who love horses here and we’re outside looking at the likeness of him at his gravesite whenever there’s a free minute.

Today was such a long day, from 8 until 8, that I had to cut out early. I have this weird idiosyncrasy that was, unfortunately, passed onto my daughters; I can only crap in my own toilet! The great thing about my detox (except when you’re out of town), is with all the vegetable juice and apples you’re eating, you have to GO all the time! Big problem with 2 more days-so I had to leave before the “networking”  dinner because I had the worst gas. I had to tell everyone that I was leaving because I have night blindness and wouldn’t be able to drive back to the motel after the sun set!

The good news is I have lots of new ammo for the parents of  the cancer patients I deal with who think protein only comes from meat or dairy.  If nothing else, I know I can at least convince them to plant an organic vegetable garden. John Jeavons who runs this program says it takes 40 years for a new idea to  permeate the fabric of our lives. Hopefully, it won’t take that long.

I’ve been planting a small summer garden for the last several years. This year I actually took a course in organic gardening and failed miserably at it. My crop was worse than when I knew nothing. I planted 3 crops of various beans, for instance,  and got one bean. When I became interested-last January-in the detox I’m ATTEMPTING to do right right now, I ordered a book from the Gerson (my detox and diet for cancer patients) website called “How To Grow More Vegetables-on less land than you ever imagined” by John Jeavons. I gave the book to my best friend because It was wayyy too technical for me. I’m the kind of person that if I have to read the manual to make something work or build it…I won’t do it-Not Interested!

My organic gardening teacher, Marta Teegen, suggested various seed catalogues. Among them was Bountiful Garden, which also had classes in mini-farming, which is where I am right now. If you’re interested go to www.growbiointensive.org. The class takes place in Willits, Ca, which is the gateway to the Redwoods and the closest I’ve come to Swiss Alps in the US. My interest in taking the class is not just for me, but to teach the parents of CAC’s young cancer patients that they can grow organic, even in a container, involve their kid’s and be more healthy.

It took me 5 hours to drive a 2 hour trip  yesterday because my GPS went haywire, but I wasn’t unhappy. I saw so much of the Russian River and Mendocino County that by the time I got to Willits, I thought I could live here and be extremely happy…a sentiment that is more pronounced after the first day of this course.

John Jeavons himself is teaching. A Yale grad, he has dedicated his life to teaching people across 5 continents how to turn sand into “the loaves and the fishes”, literally. I learned today that by 2025, we will be out of land to sustain the world population. With this method your garden becomes it’s own eco-system. You raise, with no space, crops to compost, as well as, enough “diet crops” to fulfill all your dietary needs throughout  a year. I have 2 more days and intend, if I have the strength(because I almost teetered down the terraced hillside this afternoon with this detox), to start double digging my yard when I get home. Did I also say you also make your own seeds?

I’ve heard a lot about how the Gerson Protocol can cure cancer. I started seriously considering taking the step to detox after my daughter interviewed several of the recipients of her non profit, Covering All Care. Without exception, all of their cancer had come back, which I thought was unusual, considering kids’ recovery rate is so much higher than adults. I started thinking about why this was. Besides the obvious, all I could think of was diet. You can pull the weed, but unless you change the fertilizer, the weed is going to come back.

Then, Gaby came back from vacation this summer with a rare blood disorder called Idiopathic Thromboceptipenic  Purpura. She had never been sick so when she showed up with a platelet level of 20K (normal is 150-450K), I was scared and alarmed. Probably the best decision I made was to take her to two homeopaths. One is an MD, the other a chiropractor with spirit guides…and the only one to connect all the dots. Gaby also went to a world renowned hematologist. She was furious that I had taken her to someone who was speaking to people that weren’t in the room (PS Dr. Carl has never spoken to a spirit when treating me!). She has always been more of a skeptic about eastern medicine, so when the world renowned hematologist suggested steroids, she said she would try them. Armed with $150 medication to simmer her stomach down which was NOT covered by her Anthem/Blue Cross PPO, she took the steroids for exactly 1 day. In that day, she said she could feel the weight (8lbs. to be exact) attaching itself to her frame. Since she hadn’t eaten anything akin to a  whole chocolate cake, in fact she had judiciously watched what she ate, she decided to drop the steroids like a hot potato. She had already started the drops, herbs and teas put together with a mortar and pestle by the doctor with spirit guides and they were working.

Armed with a set of Medic Alert jewelry, she returned to college. I’m not an idiot-I know she took the holistic meds catch as catch can, but her platelets did come back slowly at the rate of 10K a week. What I do know is that the ,side effects of steroids, one of two therapies for ITP, are far reaching, carcinogenic and effect all the organs. The other therapy is homeopathy and using your noggin about what you eat and how you live.

Once she had gone to school, I signed up for bio-intensive farming course in Northern California. Last summer I had attempted to grow all of my vegetables in the back yard. Everything had grown, but lots of things didn’t fruit, like my beans and broccoli. I wanted to become more sustainable and live more off the land. Over the summer the DWP sealed my fate when it dropped water usage to 2 days a week. My grass turned into straw and I started to wonder, why couldn’t I turn the backyard into a mini farm?

When Gaby’s father died at 77 on October 13th, I had always thought he was older. His sister died when she was 90. I don’t want to have regrets but I do regret not acting on my impulse to see him 2 weeks before he died when the urge had come. Unfortunately, every time I got the urge I became distracted by a phone call or something, so I hadn’t seen him. My friend Susan told me once that when you have unfinished business with someone who dies, you carry on talking to them in the grave. my unfinished business was that even though he was not the man I concieved this child with, I was still in love with him. Even though he looked way older than his years, he still moved me.

So a week after his memorial, I started this rigorous detox. My original reason for doing it was to be able to help cancer patients, to be able to let them know what to expect. Now, I just want to purge myself of my sorrow. Wash away the last two months like they never happened. Impossible. Nauseous which Dr. Stillings gleefully said, “It’s working!”, exhausted from emotion that I haven’t wanted to show, I will be the first one to say I’m no saint. By the time I master the detox, which is 3 mos for me and 2 years for cancer patients who haven’t compromised their immune systems with chemo, radiation or meds, I will stray a little. For God’s sake, I decided to do this with the holiday’s looming. I’m at m,y farming class, so when I return, I will post (coffee enema’s and all) my daily protocol.

Now, on to the farming!!!

Today Gaby’s father died. It’s not like it wasn’t expected, but it wasn’t. Before I’d heard, I searched for one of his sweaters (he had just given Gab a bunch of old sweaters because they didn’t fit) because it’s raining. You know, it’s oversized, cashmere and swallows you up. I know this has happened to everyone, but last night I couldn’t sleep all night…now I know why. Isn’t it weird how connected all of us are. Gaby is back east and was taking a train to Manhattan and for some reason the thought crossed her mind that she hoped her Dad was OK because she’s in NY and so is her half-brother. A couple minutes later Peter called her.

This morning when I suggested that I’d like to try living off the fruits (and vegetables) of my garden an outpouring of shock and horror came from my facebook friends. My mother died of Parkinson’s (and colon complications), but thoroughly researched how someone (herself), who had exercised on a daily basis, eaten organic, never drank alcohol or smoked-could end up in such dire straits. Her hypothesis (which was not what the MD’s told her) was that she was too protein dominant.

Interestingly, and not unrelated, is how people feel that they get calcium from dairy. On the contrary, dairy products create acid in your system which causes bones to erode like swiss cheese, not build up! How do I know this? My own studies because I have osteoporosis (literal translation…porous bones) and at 43 discovered I had lost 35% of my hips. This came as quite a shock because I exercise vociferously and eat better than most of the americans. The latest studies (which the dairy industry-and our gov’t-doesn’t want us to know about because the selling point for dairy consumption is “but where am I going to get my Calcium?”) conclude that if we want strong bones we should eat like cows (or how cow’s used to eat before the beef industry started giving them their recycled cousins …yeah, cow eating cow…Gross!, which lead to Mad Cow virus, among other things. But, I digress, sorry!)…LEAFY GREENS are the most potent form of calcium, preferably organic.

Back to the original topic. What made my dear beloved friends go doozy-potsy was-if all I’m eating is fruits and vegetables, where will I get my protein? FROM THE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES!!! An interesting side note-One of my best friend’s has been on the Gerson Protocol since December, which is juicing, milling soups and baked potatoes (I’m simplifying) and she looks amazing. She’s thin, which my vet said the only one of my dogs who is in good weight is my Pit Bull (she looks like a Whippet) who I have to beg to eat, making me wonder, wouldn’t it be healthier for us to be thinner as we get older instead of fatter? Back to my friend…she looks better, feels better, her teeth are white, white, white, as are her eyes. Her hair is thicker than it’s ever been and she always happy (she could be a real sour puss on occasion before Gerson). Here’s the rub-she has incredible discipline and self-control; never cheating, never deviating. My mother always told me that discipline and hard work are the cornerstone to success; and I believe that. Really! Every day I wake up and tell myself I’m going to try to be more like my friend. Even though I don’t drink anymore and I find that the less I allow myself, somehow, the more freedom I have-I haven’t gotten over that desire to be bad (The Yum Yum doughnut episode in my previous blog!)… where my dear friend is sheer perfection and a pillar of strength in her conviction. God, why can’t I be more like her!

Todays, harvest yield  was 3 tomatoes and a plethora of grapefruits! Just because I’m curious and I like a challenge, I’m going to see if I can live off the “fat” of my land! So, for my younger friends who told me the Gandhi bit is overkill, I strive  to be more like Gandhi and not just in diet! I’m going to try doing this whilst giving up TV and news for 1 week (I’m a total over the top news junky!)! Keep you posted, no pun intended.

I’ve been primarily vegetarian my whole life. About a year ago I became a vegan. I really hadn’t been a huge cheese eater for years…but the idea that I couldn’t have eggs (or egg whites) Ghee (clarified butter) was more sringent and difficult than I could imagine (not to mention cream, and I mean heavy whipping, and sugar in my coffee).

Because of the whole water crisis in California, I started looking at my lawn like an energy (and money) drain. Literally at that moment, my dear friend, Karen Montgomery told me about a woman who teaches Organic Vegetable Gardening in raised beds or pots…I was in!

If you are interested in growing your own veggies in no space, and I mean it, please go to www.homegrownlosangeles.com.

I have never been able to grow anything from a seed and now I’ve got Lima beans varieties of squash, string beans, lettuces, fennel, pumpkin, onions,and cantaloupe which came out in 1 week (sounds unbelievable, I didn’t believe it myself!) I also have several varieties of tomatoes growing in pots like Purple Cherokee, Green Zebra, etc.

I had lunch with a young friend, Lynne (24) just married 6 months and I had to set my face not to give away the shock at her spike in weight since the wedding (at least 40-50 lbs). The polite thing to do was not to notice. After 3 Diet Cokes and a salad that she picked at, she told me that she’d been trying to get pregnant and couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t. I told her, “Stop drinking Diet Coke.” I’m always amazed that people don’t know that Diet Coke is the worst thing to drink if you want to lose weight. At  100% chemical, caffeine and carcinogen, a Diet Coke will make your liver so toxic, it’s impossible to lose an ounce. In fact, unless your liver is about as free of toxins as it can possibly be, it is nearly impossible to lose weight, at all.  Not only that,  Diet Coke will put your body in a state of acidity, throwing off your PH balance and make it impossible to get pregnant. By her own admission, the only thing she was drinking was Diet Coke period. I asked her to switch to Water Only-no coffee (caffeine will also keep the fat from flying off!), no tea, no juice (it’s sugar and nothing but)-just WATER, and to change absolutely nothing else in her diet. We were to meet in 10 days.

The next time I saw her she had lost 8 lbs. and couldn’t believe it. Toxins and chemicals will make you fat and keep you fat more  than…well, Fats, which are really not fattening.

So, I gave her another challenge. Since pesticides, hormones (don’t get me started about chicken, another food that makes weight loss incredibly challenging) and chemicals are in all our foods, I asked her to eat only organic  and stay away from the middle aisles of the supermarket, which I call “the dead zone” because nothing of nutritional value lives there!

Two weeks later she’d lost another 8 lbs. and we hadn’t even started exercising which just meant she had to consistently walk her dogs 45 minutes in the am and pm. And the weight plummeted, making room for a healthy pregnancy. Interestingly, her husband couldn’t have cared less if she weighed 250 (you’ve got to love him for that).

Which brings me to my problem today. I have a 2 year old Lab rescue who turned into the character CLIFFORD from those kids books. He literally never stopped growing and is the biggest (and most beautiful) Lab I’ve ever seen. Today he went to his vet, the incomparable Ford Suehiro at Beverly Hills Small Animal Hospital (my Lab was vicious when I adopted him. Everyone told me I should put him down except Dr. Suehiro, an amazing healer and optimist!)

He tipped the scale today  at slightly over 107 lbs. Now, in all honesty, I knew he was probably 5 lbs. overweight because I can’t feel his ribs. But, he walks for an hour vigorously each morning, chases a ball every night and then takes  a night walk. The dog eats 100% organic…when the chinese pet food scandal hit, I had nothing to fear because my dogs have never seen a can (much to the chagrin of my daughters!). I aspire wholeheartedly to Ceasar Milan’s Credo “EXERCISE BEFORE LOVE, FOOD OR OBEDIENCE TRAINING”-so I could read my dogs mind because he gets less to eat than my chihuahuas.When the doctor said he had to lose 17 lbs. 17 LBS??? I couldn’t believe it (and neither can the dog)! He’s looking at me, “Please, keep feeding me and when my hips give out just hook me up and put me to sleep. I love to eat and right now don’t get enough!” He is literally, like the friend who tells you (and you secretly don’t believe),”I’m not eating anything bad, I’m exercising like crazy and I’m gaining weight!”

Excuse me while I take him out for a run and a bike ride before bed!

For the last 2 weeks I have been feeding my neighbors cat until the new owners move in and then God help the poor guy. He’s been living in the neighborhood for over 20 yrs… longer than my daughter has been alive. With coyotes everywhere, I worry. Today while I was feeding him (he comes out of no where when you call “Rene” at the house) I noticed hoe huge his paws are from pounding the pavement and yet when I touched him, his frame is skeletal. As I walked home, I noticed a Beagle crying in a dog run of a house with tons of space and a yard. Obviously, the people were worried the dog was going to make a mess in their absence so it was crammed into the side yard on cement where the garbage is kept. I can say no more!!!