Society often views a cancer diagnosis as a worst case scenario. In particular, a stage IV cancer diagnosis certainly paints such a picture. Towards the end of February this year, Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea found out that both their mothers have late stage cancer.
Most people have been touched by cancer in one way, shape, or form. By touched, we mean punched - a punch in the gut. A cancer diagnosis can feel like that - a punch in the gut when you least expect it. The fear of the unknown, fear of heartache, and the fear of financial devastation lurks in your energy field.
Your thoughts evolve from the grocery list and children’s sports schedules to thinking of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
Life has a funny way of shaking us at the most unexpected yet auspicious times. Some of you may ask why we say such a thing. We see the beauty in the pain. We see the perfect timing of the lessons set before us.
With that said, Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea felt like their world was collapsing around them when they heard their mothers say their respective diagnosis. However, once they saw past the fear, insecurities, and pain, they were able to see that the tools for healing and helping were laid out before them and their moms.
I’ve heard some doctors say that they do not want to give a patient hope for fear the patient will die regardless and look to the doctor as the enemy for giving them hope in the first place. We feel the need to push back a little on this. There is something to say about truthful and transparent communications between the doctor and the patient, but there is also something to say about the energy shift to hope.
While this story has only just begun, the doctors have hope for their moms given the remarkable progress made in such a short period of time. Their moms’ journeys may inspire you or a loved one to not lose hope and gain insight into an unconventional approach to treating a person with cancer - both from a physical, energetic, and emotional perspective.
Signs and Symptoms
Dr. Emilea’s mom, Sondra, surprisingly experienced no pain at all. Likely, the eight children she birthed without pain medication or epidurals built up a substantial tolerance to pain. She started experiencing significant bloating, which annoyed her more than anything, so Dr. Emilea treated her with supplements for a bacterial infection along with binders and liver support.
However, her mom’s symptoms worsened and started to include heartburn. Dr. Emilea re-evaluated the protocol to account for her mother’s ultra sluggish liver, and it became clear to Emilea that the main priority lay in opening up the detox and drainage pathways and addressing the biliary obstruction of the liver.
After a month, her symptoms spiked once more. Dr. Emilea encouraged her mom to obtain a CT scan, and her mother refused. Sondra’s previous experience with conventional medicine built up a wall between her and standard practitioners. Several years ago, she wound up in the doctor’s office with heartburn and bloating, which ended with a cholecystectomy and heartburn medication. Needless to say, neither helped her.
After conventional medicine failed her, she took the advice of a friend and sought the help of Jill Morgan, Dipl.Ac. Jill helped Sondra eliminate all of her symptoms, food sensitivities/allergies, and medications.
Given that acupuncture helped those exact same symptoms two decades earlier, she believed her answers lied in acupuncture, alone, once again. However, her mom didn’t have the standard bloating from food sensitivities but rather ascites.
Over the next month, Sondra eliminated sugar, treated allergies through acupuncture, and focused on optimizing her liver health. Dr. Emilea focused on enhancing lymphatic drainage, removing biliary obstruction and optimizing the liver, but the ascites raged on within Sondra’s abdomen.
Dr. Chris’s mom, Ranell, received her first cancer diagnosis ten years prior, which led to a complete hysterectomy. She too is a tough woman with a high pain tolerance.
Dr. Chris treated his mother for structural complaints once a month with little resolve. His mom continued to receive chiropractic adjustments from a local doctor between times. His mother’s pain intensified especially at night, which is indicative of cancer.
Dr. Chris encouraged his mom to get an x-ray and visit her medical doctor. He knew her case was likely a far bigger issue than simply inflamed discs.
Diagnosis
Ranell followed her son’s advice and made an appointment with her primary care physician who obtained a scan of Ranell. Ranell received a final diagnosis of Stage IV Metastatic Adenocarcinoma. Cancerous lesions reside in both hips, liver, lungs, sternum, ribs, skull, dura mater of the brain, and throughout her spine.
The mass located on her T12 encroaches on her spinal cord, and the L4 tumor impedes her nerve as it exits the spine, which amplifies Ranell’s pain, hinders her sleep, and disrupts her bowel and bladder function.
Sondra finally caved and faced her fears as her ascites raged on without respite. She made an appointment with a Physician’s Assistant who ordered a CT scan. The results illuminated a tumor on her left ovary and descending colon.
The PA acted immediately by arranging for Sondra to fly from Colby, KS to Wichita Wesleyan Medical Center for further evaluation and to drain the fluid from her abdomen. She ultimately ended up with a “high-rated ovarian cancer” diagnosis that originated in her left ovary and metastasized to the descending colon and neighboring lymph nodes and peritoneum.
Reaction: Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea’s Perspective
As you can imagine or may know from your own experience, Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea were struck with fear. The thought of losing the person who birthed them, raised them, still loved and supported them sunk their spirit.
Dr. Emilea, in particular, felt incredibly defeated as she had not discovered the root cause of her ascites during the months leading up to her mom’s diagnosis. Although she detected abnormal cell growth in different areas of her body, Emilea felt a great sense of failure.
The doctors allowed themselves very little time to sit in this state of being. They knew their moms needed them now more than ever, so as Chris stated, “they hitched up their britches and turned up the fortitude!”
Once the doctors looked past the fear-based emotions, they were able to see the lovely and effective tools the universe left for them to use. First and foremost, the doctors leaned on their network of practitioners to help guide them and family and friends to emotionally support them.
Nothing happens by chance, and as it happened, Chris received a personal training session with Dr. Milton Dowty in December to help support an individual who opted to fight his cancer using Protocel. Dr. Dowty generously shared his knowledge and extensive experience optimizing the health of cancer patients.
Following Dr. Dowty’s wise advice, Chris read “Outsmart Your Cancer” by Tanya Harter Pierce, which outlines alternative options for cancer treatments, and now, Chris highly recommends it to anyone with cancer.
By mid-February, another patient with cancer showed up at Apogee Wellness. It seemed that life was preparing him for one of his greatest challenges thus far in his life: helping his own mother overcome an aggressive cancer diagnosis.
Similarly, Emilea wiped her tears and went to work. She also reached out to Dr. Milton Dowty as well as Dr. Debbie Denno, Dr. Sam Riley, Dr. Martin Hart, and Dr. Jay Davidson for their advice. Each practitioner seemed to hand her baskets of golden nuggets.
Per a friend’s recommendation, she watched the Radical Remissions docuseries. The series thoroughly inspired Dr. Emilea and broadened her perspective on healing.
Dr. Emilea’s frustration of failing to discover the cancer manifestation and root cause within her mother ultimately shifted Emilea’s practice. As a result, Dr. Emilea developed a new way of testing the body using frequency medicine.
This testing method proved imperative and a turning point in Sondra’s journey, and Dr. Emilea immediately started implementing the technique with her other chronic patients. She not only made drastic improvements in a short period of time with her mother, but her stagnant, chronically ill patients started making remarkable breakthroughs!
One would be remiss to discount the support Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea receive from each other during this “dark night of the soul" period of their lives. Only weeks away from their wedding ceremony, they find themselves in a position that forms their bond tighter in moments of despair.
Even in the dark, there is light.
Protocol and Progress
Chris and Emilea encouraged their mothers to follow their intuition, and in doing so, Sondra and Ranell decided to go with an integrative approach to healing. Sondra started chemotherapy, and Ranell started radiation treatment shortly after receiving the diagnosis. Also, they committed to supporting their bodies using alternative and natural treatments under the directive of Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea.
Chris immediately went to work on his mom’s kitchen, and by that, we do not mean that he started a remodeling project in the midst of her treatment. He cleaned out all the processed junk food and replaced it with real, whole foods. This process took more than just loading up a trash sack and telling Ranell “eat this, not that.” Ranell needed to learn about food and break addictions to sugar and other cancer-feeding foods.
Chris set out to teach Ranell healthy swaps and to break her sugar addition. Sugar is 400 times more addictive than cocaine! Ranell’s journey includes detoxing the sugar from her body, which will ultimately enhance her taste buds and retrain her neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine neurotransmitters.
Chris taught Ranell how to read nutrition labels. Often, what is marketed as healthy or gluten free still contains inflammatory seed oils and other harmful ingredients.
A quick look at Ranell’s social media posts will give you a clue as to her strong dislike for this lifestyle change. She went from daily Sonic Blasts to a suggested protocol of juicing fresh, organic vegetables each day. Her picky and narrow palate poses a tremendous challenge for the all too important nutritional aspect, but she leans on her tremendous sense of humor to keep pressing forward.
Chris uses the many lines of trusted supplements they carry at Apogee Wellness to support Ranell’s body. Chris adjusts the supplement protocol daily. Ranell requires pain management medication, which, of course, comes with a list of side effects to combat such as constipation. She experienced setbacks as a result of the body’s inability to eliminate toxins.
With that said, she made it to the third radiation treatment before nausea arose, which her oncologist said normally starts on the first round.
Sondra jump started her diet regimen prior to her diagnosis to reduce inflammation, and once she received her diagnosis in Wichita, she told the nurse, “Good! Now, I can have chocolate cake!” Her nurse responded by encouraging Sondra to indulge in the cake as, according to the nurse, nutrition would not impact her body’s ability to fight cancer. Needless to say, this infuriated Dr. Emilea.
Emilea went on to explain an 80/20 lifestyle. 80% healthy, 20% unhealthy, sustains life under normal circumstances. However, emergency situations such as cancer diagnoses require 100% adherence to a healthy diet. Thankfully, after she came home from the hospital, Sondra decided to follow Dr. Emilea’s recommendations to the “T”, which meant no sugar, dairy, grains, caffeine, and seed oils. Sondra is also incorporating juicing into her daily routine and eating beef and organic fruits and vegetables.
Much like Ranell, Emilea adjusts Sondra’s supplements daily. The doctors still plan to look for the root cause, which, as Dr. Emilea points out:
“When someone has a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system, immune system, and metabolic system, they have a hard time fighting infections and removing toxins on their own. My treatments center around balancing all of these systems so that my mom’s body could fight on her own. Breaking down fibrotic tissue and biofilms has also been an important piece, so organs can heal.”
Both Ranell and Sondra utilize energy healing for emotional and physical health. They both receive regular Reiki sessions from Nichole Olsen, a Reiki Master. In addition, they receive biofeedback, frequency medicine performed in-person and virtually by Mandy McGreer with In Fine Feather, to further enhance their detox and drainage capabilities, remove emotional blockages, and balance meridians among other things.
Chris uses Quantum NeurologyⓇ Nervous System Rehabilitation on his mom for pain control and retraining the nervous system to adequately respond and shift from the sympathetic to parasympathetic state. Ranell also receives additional Reiki support from Reiki Master LJ Blackburn. They also incorporate acupuncture regularly and the power of herbs such as in Flor-Essence Essiac Tea, which is a blend of Sheep Sorrel, Burdock Root, Slippery Elm Bark, and Turkey Rhubarb.
They each get to experience coffee enemas! Yeah! Neither of them love this, but it helps the liver detox and keeps the bottom juices flowing!
Last but certainly not least, they encourage Sondra and Ranell to ground, move, and get some sunlight!
Within just five weeks, Sondra transformed into a more vibrant, happier person! She lost 47lbs of primarily fluid, as well as some fat and muscle. Her energy improved, and her sleep normalized. She reconnected with old friends and has continued to live her life as normally as possible. She started regularly walking and swimming for exercise, and she is even learning about developing a meditation practice!
After two rounds of chemotherapy, her body bounced back beautifully. She has more chemo and possibly surgery yet to go, but we are excited to see what her next scan shows given her impressive improvement thus far.
Chris started dedicating one week a month in Overland Park, Kansas to provide in-person treatments for not only his mother but anyone living in the area. As he says, “they received ten years of education and experience in 3 months” with the most recent challenges they faced.
These women are amazing and incredibly inspiring! Dr. Chris and Dr. Emilea witnesses their strength every single day. They also get to build a team around their moms that fully support their healing journeys with their moms at the helm. They were all the recipients of so much love, support, and peer guidance. What a blessing!