Cancer free!!!

Pops went to his six week check up yesterday at the Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville. To overview everything, six weeks ago Pops had a prostectomy where they removed his prostate and lymph glands. The glands were tested cancer free which means that the cancer had staid contained in the prostate. So yesterday they took a blood sample to test his psa level. This test would verify if any cancer cells had escaped. The psa level came out negative meaning no more cancer! He is supposed to go back every six months for other psa tests. The doctor told him that all restrictions were taken off him, so Pops called his work on the way home and was told that he could go back to work today at 1pm! :) We are all very excited! Thank you all for your prayers! We can't believe that this is finally over. It has been a wonderful learning experience, especially with all the healthy foods. Pops is still going to eat healthy just not totally organic. :) God is amazing! He healed my dad! 

Pops on Vaca!

Ok, so Pops is still 'recovering'. He can go back to work in about a week or so!! :) Yay!!! So right now he is taking full advantage of his sick leave...he is on vacation with my mom and my younger brother Micaiah! They left last Monday heading toward Virginia stopping at Burgess falls on the way. Now they are in North Carolina. I didn't go with them because I had work, but now after seeing pictures Pops has been sending me from his phone, I'm ready to catch a bus, plane, anything to go be with them! They have no idea when they're going to come back. Wow! What a vacation!!! :) Anyway, that's it for right now. God has taken wonderful care of my dad and is watching over him. Thanks for your prayers.

Amazing recovery!!!

Our God is amazing! He has helped Pops through the entire surgery with out a single thing wrong and Pops is healing fast! Today marked the two week period so now he can drive...and drive he did! He took someone downtown for half the day and then later went and did a couple little errands. He is pretty tired tonight and still sleeps a little during the day but other than that he is kicking! Everyone around him has to all but tackle him to keep him from lifting stuff and helping out. It is so not like him to lay around all day, he hates it but has to in order to heal properly. Anyway, he is going to a wedding this weekend and has to endure a hour and fifteen minutes ride to Jackson tomorrow then a little over an hour ride to the village. Keep praying for him!

Prostatectomy

The surgery was scheduled for Wednesday, July 14th 1pm at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tn. The day before, Tuesday July 13th, my dad had to pre-op appointment at 1:20pm at Vanderbilt. He was allowed a light meal in the morning followed by clear liquids for the remaining of the pre-op day. My parents stayed at a hotel Tuesday night in order to be close by. Wednesday morning they were at the Medical Center at 11am for check-in before his scheduled surgery. Around 12:30pm he went into robotic surgery which lasted 3 1/2 hrs. Afterwards he was in recovery for at least 2hrs.

He stayed Wednesday night in the hospital, Thursday night at a hotel, and went home Friday morning.

Now that the surgery is over and Pops is at home, he will be able to return to most of his normal activities after two weeks and for six weeks he cannot do anything that causes strain or lift anything heavier than 10lbs. 

Recovery at home has been fine. He is on pain pills a lot and says he feels like a 'gutted cat fish'.

Johns Hopkins Update - Very Good Article

Here is something one of my relatives sent my mom over email....





Johns Hopkins Update - Very Good Article 

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY
TO TRY ('TRY', BEING THE KEY WORD) TO ELIMINATE CANCER, 
JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins :

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer
   cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have
   multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients
   that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after
   treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the
   cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable
   size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a
   person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer
   cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and
   forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has
   nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic,
   but also to environmental, food and lifestyle factors. 

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing
    diet to eat more adequately and healthy, 4-5 times/day
     and by including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing
   cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells
   in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can
   cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7.. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars
   and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often
   reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of
   chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor
   destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from
   chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either
   compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb
   to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to
     mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy.
     Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other
     sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer
     cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply. 

Pops having fun!!!

There is nothing better than a good game of soccer...

From the terrible updater... :(

So I know I'm awful about keeping you guys updated with Pops but now I have a little bit of time before my brain crashes to blog. Pops had decided not to do surgery but to stick to the Gershon therapy 100%. He has been doing a terrific job too! First he was losing a lot of weight and not wanting to eat a lot, but now his weight is leveling out and he is eating a whole lot more. :) My mom was getting worried about him but now we think he's fine. He actually wants my mom to do the diet part of the therapy with him. She has wanted to eat totally healthy and organic for a while so she is going to love this. It is just going to cost more but God will provide.

Pops' garden is growing wonderfully! He loves being outside working in it. He isn't supposed to be doing tons of excessive work but we can't seem to get him out of it. 

Green juices

Thursday my mom started doing green juices for Pops. Techinically Pops is supposed to be having ten juices total a day (1 orange, 2 carrot, 2 green, and 5 apple/carrot) but we haven't gotten around to the green juices until now.

Official first day!

Today Pops did the coffee enema, got a shot, took his supplements, drank his juices, and ate what he was supposed to! We have officially started the entire Gershon diet!! Pretty exciting!!! :) It was a lot of hard work today. It took about an hour to juice, press and pump-n-seal then it took a pretty long time to make the coffee for the enemas. Mary came out yesterday and really helped my mom figure out the schedule for Pops' supplements, which in itself took most of the the night last night. She also helped a ton today w/ the juicing and making the coffee. We like totally wish she could live with us! It would definitely take a lot of burden off my mom. But I guess right now God has me here with my mom, bringing us closer to each other and Him while we take care of my dad. So that's everything. He is doing the full-fledged diet...finally!
Still haven't heard from the surgeon in Nashville. Pops is still trying to figure out if he thinks the surgery will even work. Please pray that God will show him what His will is in all of this. 

Result of Nashville/food

The trip to Nashville and the consult went fine. The doctor's schedule is booked for the next six weeks so the surgery will have to wait but the doctor said that should be ok. We will hear from the nurse this week to know the date for the surgery.

We heard from someone that the best way to make ice cream is to put frozen fruit in the juicer. I tried it and put frozen bananas, strawberries, and pineapple in the juicer and it was amazing!! Everybody loved it! I decided it would make a good treat for my dad since he hasn't really had anything "good" in a while now. So I cut up some of his organic apples and peeled a couple organic bananas and froze them. The next day I ran them through the juicer and he loved it! It was something different for his taste buds. 

Florida/Nashville/Food...

I'm very terrible about keeping you updated on the latest; I'm sorry. :( Life has been busy and hectic lately and I haven't had more than a few minutes on the computer to check my email. Anyway, here it is...
The guy at the proton therapy place in Florida said the proton therapy wouldn't work for Pops. He recommended having surgery done. So Pops has an appointment to talk to a surgeon in Nashville this Friday at 9am. From there they are going to set an appointment for the surgery if that's what we decided is best.
Practically everything we ordered for Pops came in. The juicer, half of the supplements, the bread, the pump-n-seal, the juice press, a food mill, and the enema kit. We are still waiting for the coffee and the other half of the supplements. Every morning my mom, my brother, and I juice and press enough carrots and apples for nine fresh juices then refrigerate them. Every other day we make a Hippocrates soup. The soup contains all fresh and organic vegetables: 1/2 a leek, 1 onion, 2 potatoes, 3 tomatoes, a handful of parsley, 3 or 4 stalks of celery, and some thyme. We cut it all up, add 1 quart of water, boil it then let it simmer for 2 hours. After it is all done, we run it through the food mill then put it in the fridge until serving. Pops has to have two full bowls of this soup a day, one at lunch and the other at dinner. Before we serve him a bowl, we squeeze one clove of fresh, organic garlic into it.

Before the soup is boiled...

After the soup is cooked and run through the food mill. (it is supposed to be very easy to digest)

Here are a few pictures of the juicing/pressing process...

The pulp before pressing...

The pulp wrapped in the pressing cloth...

Pumping the press to make juice with a 2 ton jack...

The juice...

The pressed pulp...

So, I'll do my best to blog again after the visit to Nashville. But that is it for today. :)

Trip to Florida

My parents are leaving tomorrow morning around eight to go to Jacksonville, Florida where Pops is going to go to a four hour consult at the proton place. They are going to be going over Pops' blood work and different tests to see how and if they can work with him. The consult is Wednesday morning at seven and they will be home sometime Thursday. Right now my mom is preparing organic foods for them to eat on the way there, there, and on the way home. It is very hard to go on a trip with only organic fruits and veges to snack on. This will be very different for Pops because he is the king of junk food snacking especially during road trips. This diet is really changing him.

Here is a couple pictures I took tonight of some of Pops' food...

Totally fresh, organic salad!!!

  

                          

Homemade salad dressing

Ordering...

So today and yesterday my dad ordered our own juicer (hooray!!!!), a food mill (a grinder), a juice press (to squeeze the leftover juice out of the carrots and apples that the juicer didn't do), a case of flax oil, a vacuum sealer (to keep the juices fresh if we make them ahead of time), a couple loaves of bread (w/ only rye flour and no salt or fat), and some supplements. First off, we wouldn't have been able to get that stuff if he didn't borrow some money from my grandpa. The rest of the money we have goes towards food for my parents while they're in Florida for the proton treatment. They still don't have a date when they are going down there but my guess (probably not a very good one mind u...) would be sometime early or mid March.
We are still giving him lots of glasses of carrot/apple juice every hour during the day (or at least when he's home) and his diet has changed so drastically you wouldn't believe it!!! He is learning very quickly to control himself and his sweet tooth (BIG DEAL!!). Personally, I don't think I would be able to go on this diet by myself while everybody around me is munching down on tons of fatty, greasy, salty (this is starting to sound nasty!)....you get the point...all the food that is not good for you in the slightest but boy oh boy does it taste good!!! :)
I think that's it for today. Oh, my mom ordered a couple Gershon books and DVDs and they came in the other day so we are watching them and reading the books. One more thing, Pops is going to be starting his detox (i think) next week.

Getting started...

Yesterday was the official day one of Pop's drinking ten glasses of freshly juiced carrot/apple juices every hour. My mom said she felt like she was in the kitchen all day long! She told me that after I get over being sick making juices will be my job. I think I'd better become best friends with the kitchen and the juicer then. :) Pops has started a little of the diet but we don't have everything we need really. Today he took, I think six drinks but had a meeting tonight so I don't think he'll get in the other four today. We are excited to finally be getting started!! Don't know anything new about Florida yet. I will ask Pops tomorrow if he has heard any news.