Dad’s Cancer: Stage IV Rectal w/ mets to lymph nodes, liver and lungs
Age: 60/ 176cm/ 80kg
Previous Health Condition
This is end of 2015, Dad discovers some nodules (largest 3cm) in his lungs by chance through post spinal surgery check-ups (he got X-rays done for his spines). Dad has been on a pretty healthy lifestyle for about a decade now. He blends his super juices every morning, and eat veggies more than he eats meats. For the past 10 years (or more) he jogs every other day and does weight training at the gym twice a week. His digestive system is exceptionally good, goes to the toilet for big ones almost three times a day. The only problem he has got internally is his aging bladder, but this is not something surprising to see for man his age. For the record though, he did smoke cigarettes for some good 30+ years (quit when he was 50). And although his diet is quite healthily for a Taiwanese (dislike fried up stuff, doesn’t eat street snacks, and rarely eats out,) it is still fair to say that “he’s taste it all.” If he does dine out, he would be having meals that’s composed by meats that are on top of the food chain (gigantic fishes, beef or goose, etc.)
Choosing Alternative
When my grandmother from my mother’s side passed away in her late 70s due to stage III lung cancer, that was the first time my family experienced seeing a close family member slowly loosing her health due to terminal cancer. She did conventional treatment--both chemo and target therapies--and had quite successful results: she lived for 2 more years after initial diagnosis. Yet that two years she lived in constant pain and discomforts from both her still dying body (chemo) and the many side effects from her target meds. That’s really the deal for my dad. When he learnt that his organs are cancerous, he was not in pain at all. He had (and still has) superb energy and exceptional health--externally, at least. Yet since his diagnosis was a very serious one, the oncologist suggested him to start preparing for both chemo and target therapies immediately (on that very same day we visited the hospital,) otherwise he’ll have only six more months to live. A successful treatment would extend his life for 3-5 years. Crazy.
Obviously, we are aware that everyone’s different. Some would react to chemo/target worse than the others. However, since Dad was among the healthiest of all his friends and family members of his age, he was so sure that there would be an alternative way to deal with this situation other than dying in a weakened body at 65. “I’d rather die in peace and awareness,” he said. He also stressed the fact that even if he die by doing natural therapy, he’d be happy that at least he spent all the money on small farmers and eco-conscious companies, instead of the pharmaceutical corporations. Yeah Dad. You score.
Gerson Therapy?
As soon as Dad declared his stance on conventional cancer treatment, I immediately recalled a conversation I had with Hsiaoting, an amazing girl I met in Taitung through the Passengers last summer. Not too longer ago we were just talking about natural therapies, detox diets, and juicing, all that fun stuff. I distinctly remember her enthusiastic expression (although she talks about most things that way hehe), saying that she will “definitely be going to Mexico” if she or her parents got cancer one day. She explains how in this natural therapy, everything actually makes sense if you study it. But it is very very strict. In order to carry on a full therapy correctly, they suggest both patient and the caretaker go to a Mexico clinic and do a 3 weeks trial there. “The caretaker MUST be there as well. They wont accept a patient without caretaker, ‘cuz they simply wont make it without.” Hsiaoting stresses. That’s pretty much the only thing I really got out of the short convo about Gerson: they take things quite seriously and its work intensive.
Well, we didn’t end up going to Tijuana for 3 weeks for the training. We first read this book (this eventually got substituted by the Chinese version of Healing the Gerson Way) to get an overall understanding of the therapy--we did that on day one. Day two, we started watching Charlotte Gerson’s 3 hours lecture on Youtube. As soon as we finished the video, it was pretty clear to us that Gerson Therapy sounds like it could be what we’re looking for. It’s very scientific and also got many many many records of clinal trials. The only thing it’s lacking is FDA’s approval.
Obviously we have also considered other things before we started doing a full therapy. Many of Dad’s friends introduced him different things; of those including the use of allogenic NK cells for cancer immunotherapy (which is still quite shifty and costs SO MUCH), a dietary therapy that is very well known within a global religious organization (but kind of makes no sense really), and some other stuff. We are still considering other things like Chinese medicine, hyperthermia, the regulated immunotherapy, radiotherapy or perhaps proton therapy; those just mentioned could possibly be used along with Gerson if needed in the future.
For the beginners training and community supports, Dad goes to Taipei’s Gerson Lab, a restaurant that provides Gerson meals and related resources. In our opinion, it is always nice to have a physical platform where you are able to meet people who’s also doing the therapy and have conversations in real life (instead of online), especially when Gerson is really a self-taught, do it yourself type of therapy. Since people are always so busy while doing Gerson, most of the time the conversations and discussions only happens online. So for non internet users like my dad, seeing people and talking to them in real life really comforts him a lot in the beginning.
Education wise, I did the Gerson Basics Online course offered by the Gerson Institute and joined both Taiwanese and US Gerson support groups on Facebook to read other patients’ experience. By week two, Mom has installed a gigantic water filtration system at home, I’ve learnt the basics for the practice. We also contacted a certified Gerson practitioner--who also happens to be one of the practitioners at the Tijuana clinic--and got Dad’s first 6 weeks prescription. By then, all we needed to do is to wait for Anna returning from New York with our new juicer that is half her weight (yeah our juicer weights 31kg) to begin the therapy.
I’ll talk about the How-to’s in the post coming up next. It will probably be organized into three sections: 1. Groceries 2. Coffees 3. Daily/Weekly Schedule. It’s about bed time for me. Ciaociao :)
爸爸的癌症：直腸癌第四期，轉移至淋巴結、肝臟和肺。
年齡：六十歲 176公分/80公斤
之前的健康狀態
爸爸是在去年年底做脊椎 X光的時候，偶然間發現肺部的腫瘤的（最大的那顆有三公分）。過去十年來他一直都是過著算是很健康的生活，每天早上都打精力湯蔬果汁、平常蔬食也吃的很多。每週去花兩三天去健身房鍛鍊肌力，而沒有去的時候則都會花一個小時慢跑。而且整個家裡沒有人的消化系統比他還要好了，他是那種除了外出換環境以外，每天都可以排三次大的的那種人。如果真要說哪裡有問題，大概就是他老化的膀胱了。不過老實說，這並不是什麼多稀奇的毛病。上了年紀的人本來膀胱就會比較虛弱，是吧。然而，雖然以上講了很多好話，必須要聲明的是，雖然以一個台灣人而言他算是非常的健康了（不嗜油炸食品、不吃小吃、很少外食），但是他這輩子確實也沒有少吃什麼：去餐廳的話基本上都是會叫食物鏈頂端的肉類（超大尾的魚、牛肉、鵝肉等等）。
選擇自然療法
我外婆七十多歲的時候因為肺癌三期走了，她是全家最受尊愛的長者。發病後她便搬到家裡跟我們住，所以兩年間我們看著她因為化療以及標靶藥物受苦、失去生氣。傳統醫學讓她延續了兩年的生命，這對於她的個案來說已經是很成功的了。儘管如此，原本好學勤奮的她在生命最後的兩年過得非常痛苦。她總認為自己一定會好起來。當然，每個人的身體都不同，對化療以及標靶藥物的反應也不見得會一樣。但我爸因為偶然的原因發現癌症，身體非常健朗的沒辦法想像在短時間內失去所有的元氣，因為後遺症受苦。在短短十分鐘的會面，腫瘤醫生說，如果他不馬上接受治療，就只剩下六個月的生命。接受治療，多30個月。成功療程的定義是多活五年。五年誒。他無法想像做化療、經歷所有的折磨後，也只能活到 65 歲。他寧可將金錢花在健康的食物以及有機小農上，而不是在藥廠以及醫院。
葛森療法？
當爸爸確認自己肺部裡面的腫瘤是癌後，當下就和我們大家說自己絕對不要去做化療。而我也馬上想到了幾個月前在台東跟朋友筱婷的談話。那個時候好像在聊一些養身的話題。她說了一句話讓我印象很深刻：「如果今天我或是我媽得癌症，我一定要去墨西哥的葛森診所進行治療！」當下其實沒有太了解什麼是葛森療法，只知道它是一個非常嚴謹、有歷史、並且相當科學的自然療法。它可以說是許多食療以及現在流行的冷壓果汁排毒的始祖，它也是多年前將咖啡灌腸發揚光大的始祖。因為這個葛森嚴謹，所以如果想要使用葛森治療慢性疾病或是癌症，葛森診所要求所有就診的病人入住至診所三個禮拜的期間，一定要有另一位家人或是照護者一起入住，學習照顧葛森病患的一切。包括準備食物、果汁、咖啡、以及觀察病人的好轉反應等病情。
在完整的了解葛森療法後，我們發現其實要做葛森不用一定得飛到墨西哥。從醫院確診回家後第一天：我們讀了《正統葛森自癒全攻略：成功擊敗癌症及慢性病》。第二天：我們全家開始看夏綠蒂・葛森（即葛森醫師的女兒）八十歲時在英國的演講（三個小時的內容毫無冷場，超像以前在大學聽教授的課）。看完三個小時的影片後，我們大致上確定葛森療法是我們可以接受的非主流療法。它如此非常的科學，整個療法也是透過無數臨床實驗所行程。它唯一缺少的，只是食品藥物管理局的認可。
當然，我們在決定做葛森之前還是有考慮很多（緊關說這個考慮也是只有考慮幾天啦～）。老爸許多朋友介紹了許多非主流的癌症療法；包括了使用NK細胞的非自體（直系血親）免疫系統療法，某全球知名宗教組織內極度受尊重但是只有富貴人家能見到的食療中醫師，以及很多其他療法。做葛森並不代表只能做葛森，所以對於像是一般中醫、熱療法、字體免疫系統療法、以及放射性治療。但是這些都得要在做葛森一年後，爸爸免疫系統以及身體恢復大部分健康時，一起和葛森並用。
在網路上找到了一些資訊後，我們馬上到了位於台北的葛森實驗室尋求資訊。儘管實驗室並不是官方葛森中心認可的組織，我們還是認為在剛開始什麼都不知道的時候，能有個實體的平台和管道是比較令人安心的。畢竟做葛森在台灣來講還是很 diy的，零零總總的瑣碎細節幾乎都要自己學，並且還要從不同的管道和書籍確認資訊並沒有錯誤。而真正在做葛森的病人或照護者都很忙碌，所以很多溝通和交流都是在網路上執行。所以對於不用網路的爸爸來說，葛森實驗室的存在在剛開始是能讓他比較有安全感的。
在學習葛森了法這方面，我自己則是上葛森機構的官方網站上報名葛森基礎網路課程。同時也加入了美國和台灣的葛森療法互助會臉書社團。接觸葛森的兩個禮拜後，媽媽已經將家裡的水搞定了（換了一套完善的過濾系統），而我也把幾個小時的課看完。而我們也跟墨西哥葛森診所的其中一位醫師聯繫上（註：Dr. Carlos 在 2016 年春天被診所辭退，我們於 2016年五月更換葛醫），開始爸爸第一個處方簽。同時再過不久，姊姊也將從紐約帶著一台三十公斤的 Norwalk 果汁機回台，我們將正式開始全葛療程。
執行葛森療法的細節我會再下一篇裡細述。不過主要會是分為三個階段： 一，買菜 二， 咖啡灌腸 三，日程表。現在我該去睡覺了！晚安～
