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What happens when you don’t win the war against disease? It’s not something that we want to think about when it comes to those we love, but it is a real issue that many have to face.
This post is incredibly personal to me, and one that is pretty difficult for me to write. If you’ve been following me for a while, you have no doubt seen the posts that I have written about my Mom and her 4 year battle with cancer. Just a few short months ago, I was posting with the good news that her tumors were shrinking. The natural route we were taking was working and we were winning the war against disease.
Giving up
But something else happened that was unexpected to my family and me. After hearing that the tumors were shrinking, my Mom went back to eating a diet filled with fast food, soft drinks, and junk foods. She would still take some supplements but refused to do anything to help her body rid itself of the toxins that were being released from her fat cells and her organs. Those toxins had little chance to be removed from her body. And more were being added daily, so they formed new tumors in her liver and stomach. On August 7, she lost the war and the cancer won, and we lost a mother, wife, sister, aunt, and friend.
My Mom was my best friend and was an incredibly gentle and loving woman. Her main gift in life was caring for others. And many of the friends of my brother and sister and I called her Mom. She always sent little cards to those that she cared about, for any and every occasion. But she never just signed her name. She took the time and wrote out a note. She let people know that they were important…but often was so focused on taking care of her family and friends that she didn’t really take care of herself.
Lessons to learn
As in anything in life, there are lessons to be learned from her struggle. No one in my family will ever truly understand why she reverted back to her previous way of eating. Especially when her body was healing. After her first bought of cancer in 2010, she was told that she was cancer free. But she didn’t change her lifestyle to detoxify her body and keep cancer from returning. Instead, she reverted back to a diet of McDonald’s, Pepsi, and other junk-filled foods every day. Even though the rest of the family was prompting her to eat real whole foods, she chose to eat the very foods that contributed to cancer in the first place. I believe that she used food to comfort herself and also to relieve stress.
I’ve seen it happen with others as well. People who are given the “all clear” from the doctor after a run-in with chronic illness become complacent and believe that they can resume eating the way that they were previously without any problems. But the problems associated with chronic illness (most of which are food and toxin-related) will NOT go away permanently unless you make a real effort to change your diet and lifestyle permanently.
If you are dealing with health issues, I urge you to commit to changing the way you are eating….permanently. Your body will not heal or thrive if you are consistently eating a diet of packaged, processed, and fast food. Those foods have little nutritional value. And they are so full of toxins that they will continue to poison you from the inside out!
Get rid of toxins
You must also find a way to remove the toxins from your body. This is a great way to fight the war against disease! Regular exercise will move your lymphatic system. Bentonite clay baths or foot soaks, coffee enemas, and diet will all help your body to process out the lifetime of toxins as they are released from your fat cells and organs. Cleaning the liver with milk thistle and boosting glutathione levels with alpha lipoic acid and n-acetyl-cysteine can help support the body and its ability to heal naturally.
Do you have a loved one that is struggling with chronic illness but refuses to make lifestyle changes to help them restore good health? Unfortunately, there is really nothing that you can do. Just like those who deal with other forms of addiction, unless a person is committed to change, they will not. No matter how much you beg, plead, guilt, bargain, scold or yell. It will only happen when they are ready to make changes. A person has to commit to help themselves heal. You cannot do it for them.
The good news
There is good news in all of this for my family. First, each person in my family has a personal relationship with Christ, as did my Mom. So although she is not with us in physical form right now, we know without a doubt that we will see her again someday!
Second, it has brought us closer together as a family. We really do not know how many days each of us has left here on earth. And so we are choosing to practice love and forgiveness with one another each day because life is so precious and too short for petty squabbling.
Third, having watched Mom go through immense pain during the last days of her life, my whole family has committed to changing their lifestyle. We are moving to a real, whole food way of eating. And we are adding exercise and stress management.
Don’t wait to make the changes in your life that can help you to be healthier! You truly do not know how much time you have left so do it now. You can win the war against disease if you are armed with knowledge. And be sure to tell your loved ones how much you love and appreciate them each day!
My sincere condolences. I hope that you know the time and love you put into see the changes were well felt by her heart. Your love was not in vain. I really love your closing paragraph. It is the vision of everyone who wants their loved ones to eat more real foods. Hugs!! I shared this on my personal FB page – I know it will speak to the right person God intends on seeing your message. Be well in the healing of losing your mama.
Thank you Jessica! For both the kind words and for sharing. My hope is that maybe in sharing, someone else out there will decide to make changes so that they don’t have to struggle the way my Mom did at the end. I miss her terribly, but am committing to caring for myself through the grief process! My whole family is making good healthy changes, so that is one victory from this!
Thank you for sharing this story, I know that was hard! My children and I were recently diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (see my story here: amindfullmom.com/my-journey-with-cystic-fibrosis-metabolic-syndrome) and I first hand know how important nutrition is. I pray God brings you peace as you grieve your mom.
Thank you so much! I am going to keep sharing information on getting away from packaged and processed food with the hope that just the right people will read it and make a commitment to changing their health through changing the foods they eat!