Hippocrates Sprouting 101

This past Saturday my friend Donna and I went to Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach for a Raw Cuisine/Sprouting & Wheatgrass Class. The class was from 10AM-4PM and included their famous raw buffet.

First up, the fabulous Michael Bergonzi lectured on the importance of chlorophyl, wheatgrass, greens, and of course the almighty O2. Michael stresses over and over the importance of proper breathing and oxygenation. Ok, breathe....
Michael stresses that food is not a cult or a religion, but a choice. You can choose to eat healthy, or you can choose to eat McDonalds. Either way, it's only food. This rings true to me, because I find that many vegans and raw foodists are food snobs. Hello, you're not superior to someone else because of what you eat. Sorry, but it's just not that easy!






He also praises the awesome Kris Carr, a graduate of the Hippocrates Health Educator Program. He points out that what makes Kris so notable is that she deals with her medical lemons with a positive outlook. I agree, but that's just part of it. There's just so much more that makes Kris so fabulous, but I could go on about that forever because I absolutely love Kris- XOXO!

Next we took a tour of the amazing greenhouse packed to the gills with the most beautiful, lush, green wheatgrass and sprouts I've ever laid eyes on. And the oxygen emitted by the plants was so unbelievable that I wanted to set up a tent and camp out there for all eternity! Ok, breathe....





Then it's back to the lecture room for a raw food prep class given by chef Ken Blue. He prepared such raw goodies as pizza, caesar salad, marinated mushrooms and marinated zucchini. Even better, these treats made their way onto the huge, deliciously fresh lunch buffet.





We had our lunch outside overlooking a beautiful lake and pond with a waterfall, shaded by lush greenery. The grounds at Hippocrates are unbelievably beautiful and tranquil. It's incredibly healing and cathartic just being there, so it's no wonder that it's the number one healing retreat in the country!

After lunch we headed back inside for the wheatgrass and sprouting class. Although I've been doing fairly well with my own sprouting, I learned some things to tweak my technique for better sprouts and bigger yields.

Last, it was into the store for some retail therapy. I picked up some sprouting seeds and trays for more of my patio farming.
The day was at once peaceful, serene, and informative, and Michael is one funny dude. It's like "stand up sprouting".

For more information on Hippocrates Health Institue, contact their website at http://www.hippocratesinst.com.
For sprouting and wheatgrass help or info contact Michael at http://www.hippocratesgreenhouse.com or email him at wheatgrassking@yahoo.com.

The bright side of the moon

The results of the MRI and PET CT scans are in, and the news is AMAZING! It's better than I could have ever anticipated that after only three months on Dr. Gonzalez' enzyme therapy protocol my liver mets have "resolved". Roughly translated that means gone, see ya, buh-bye! Hello, healthy liver. I could say it a million ways, but to keep the redundancy to a minimum I'll just say that I'm over the moon and I like it here!
My bone mets are stable with no new lesions seen, so that's also a blessing as bone mets can be very aggressive. Dr. Gonzalez also explained to me that bone can look metabolically active on a PET even while it's healing, which makes sense as bone heals via metabolic activity. So in other words, my bones could be healing and remodeling, with cells laying down more bone, which would simply show up as activity on the PET and therefore be misinterpreted as still being cancer. I'm definitely going with that one.
At any rate, I'm so happy and grateful for all the things that make living a beautiful thing. I'm living my life for this moment and all it has to offer. I'm blessed with an amazing array of family and friends who have been and continue to be an integral part of my journey. Thank you for all your love and support.
I've made so many wonderful new friends on my journey, mostly as a result of landing in Kris Carr's CSL community of hope and love. There I've been lucky enough to have been able to learn and share, to give and receive love, prayers, great advice, laughter, pain, and most importantly hope. So thank you Kris for creating this haven for healing and to my friend Eileen for sending me Kris' book. Your thoughtful expression of kindness set off a chain reaction which would become an essential part of my healing journey.
Love and eternal light to all!

Vitality and abundance

Things have been going well for me. I'm on my last day of the 20 day pill cycle, so I'm looking forward to 5 days of being able to sleep through the night. Of course there is always a but in this program (and also a lot of butts), which this time is the liver cleanse. The liver cleanse consists of drinking a gallon of apple juice mixed with phosfood over 4 days, which amounts to about 3-4 glasses per day. Sounds like a walk in the park so far, right? Well if it is then day 5 is a walk in a dog park without shoes. Maybe even doing cartwheels and headstands.
On day 5, I have to drink epsom salts several times (see my earlier post about the "purge" for reference to how I feel about epsom salt), eat heavy cream and berries, drink bentonite clay, then drink 1/2 cup of olive oil. Let me just tell you that while this may make for a good science experiment, it doesn't sit in the stomach too well. Don't try this at home, folks.
Anyway, it's a good thing that I'm reading Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" and learning to live in the moment so I don't have to think about those future events. The book is giving me many "aha" moments and contributing great insights into my mind and the games it plays. I've had many laughs at my mind's expense.
Over the last few weeks I experienced some firsts. I went to dinner with my family to celebrate my dad's birthday and brought my own food for the first time, I went to my first raw foodies meetup at my first raw restaurant, and I had a model search company invite me to audition in the mall. I guess A.A.R.P. magazine was looking for models, but I decided the market was already saturated with 40-something, 5'2" models, so I politely declined.
Seriously though, I've been really loving my new lifestyle and have met so many awesome people who share my views about health and wellness. I'm really passionate in my belief that proper diet, nutrition, and avoidance of chemicals can really bring about or restore health and vitality. I also strongly believe that when one is presented with a health issue, it is a warning which calls for action. Conventional medicine has it's place in buying us the time we need to address the cause of the health issue, but if we stop there and return to our previous lifestyle we are probably in for a relapse or recurrence somewhere in the future. If this all sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo propaganda, please be assured that it is the vital truth. It's something I wish I'd known when I was diagnosed 11 years ago. Instead, like many others, I believed what I was told that cutting and burning the cancer out would be the end of it. It just doesn't work that way. I can only pray that more people begin to see that.