Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
The Monster Inside Won't Be Stopped
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Confronting mortality changes everything. After dropping to my lowest weight since seventh grade and finding myself weaker than when I emerged from a coma years ago, I faced the reality that my battle with cancer had brought me to death's doorstep. Yet in this darkest moment, something remarkable happened.
The tumor that had been painfully stretching my neck began to shrink. The constant pain diminished. For the first time in months, I could sleep on my left side again. This simple change triggered powerful dreams and brought unexpected clarity about my healing journey. There's profound wisdom in hitting rock bottom - you discover what truly matters and what's merely noise.
My recovery hasn't followed a straight line. Just as I started regaining energy, debilitating nausea arrived. I found myself in a strange state where stillness felt almost transcendent - as if I could simply float away from my body. That's when I realized my normally bright inner fire had dimmed to covered embers. Making a conscious choice to "light up" again, I visualized drawing energy from the earth and all the prayers surrounding me. This mental shift, combined with dietary adjustments to reintroduce more calories while managing my cancer-fighting regimen, created a positive cascade of healing.
The results speak volumes. From barely leaving my bed to hiking mountains and working with volunteers again, my journey demonstrates that healing comes not from any single approach but from the synergy of prayer, medicine, diet, supplements, and unwavering determination. As I prepare for my next round of chemotherapy, I'm approaching it with renewed strength and profound clarity about what matters most. This experience has stripped my life to bare essentials, allowing me to rebuild with intention and purpose. Want to join me on this journey? Subscribe to follow my ongoing battle and the lessons it continues to teach.
Intro for podcast
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and this is another subscriber edition and it's been a while since I've updated. It's been over a week and it was brought to my attention the other day from one of the subscribers and I said, wow, so much has been happening that I just haven't found the time to sit here and do updates. Plus, we've had a lot of guests on the show that I've been doing a lot of interviews and I've actually been doing interviews on other people's shows. So I apologize, but you know I put a lot of content out, sometimes at once and sometimes there's a pause. That's the nature of all of this. But I have a lot of good news to report, a lot of changes that happened and you know, when I left off the last time, I was just beginning to make some progress and I was starting to get some clarity and really I think one of the most important changes that have happened has been my sleep. So, to backtrack, you know, over two weeks ago I had my first round of chemo and I was at my weakest point probably the closest to death I've ever been, when I began that. So it was a double whammy because you know, the chemo hits you too and I was in a pretty, pretty deep, pretty sad space there for a minute, pretty deep, pretty sad space there for a minute, the weakest and most compromised I think I've ever been in my life, including when I was in a coma. I think when I came out of the coma I was in better shape than I was the other day and it's been eye-opening, it's been humbling for a long, long time. So I'm not so worried about all that, but learning a lot.
Speaker 1:And uh, the first thing that started to happen, the tumor began to shrink and uh, it shrank. Enough that I was. The pain went diminished pretty quickly with after a few days. I realized that all the pain I was in from you know this thing literally trying to stretch my neck until it broke the skin anyways all of a sudden that pressure diminished and the weeping was getting really bad and that was kind of scary for a minute. That diminished really bad, and that was kind of scary for a minute and that diminished. And I think that when I left off I had just gotten the port, or no, I had just gotten the pump taken off and the scab, the big scab that was weeping kind of fell away and a couple of days later, really, the weeping stopped and the tumor continued to shrink and I began getting sleep. And there was a point at which I slept on the tumor side my left side and that was the first time I'd been able to sleep on that side for probably at least three months, maybe more. And when that happened, that night I began dreaming very powerful, clear dreams and I've received this amazing clarity and I've been able to experience the quantum world.
Speaker 1:And I'll get into that in some subsequent episodes, but just really kind of just trying to touch on so much that's happened. And as the clarity is starting to come and I get a little bit of sleep and I'm getting a little more energy, all of a sudden the nausea rolls in and that's kind of a crazy story in itself. I'm thinking about doing a separate episode, but ultimately yeah, I think I will. I'll do a separate episode on that particular element. But suffice it to say I overcame the nausea. I didn't have to take the nausea medication.
Speaker 1:So you know we talk about this double-edged sword. You know I'm doing natural things and some are helping, some are hurting. I'm doing this great diet but then it leaves me zinc deficient. Everything's got a double-edged sword. And to everybody who says you just got to do this one thing, I hope you never get what I got, because you'll end up dead. Whatever your one thing is is not the answer, I guarantee it.
Speaker 1:Even though you believe it is, that does not make it so. If you have a complex problem, you go into it, learn it, figure it out, figure out what you need to do to solve it for you and do those things. And maybe there's going to be some things you want to do and maybe some things you don't. And faith has a lot to do with it. But unless you're that one in a million, your faith alone isn't going to fix your problem. In my world and with my relationship with Creator, I've always been accountable and my faith is powerful and never wavered, ever, not for one second. However, I don't get handed things on a platter. It's never been that way, it's always been.
Speaker 1:If I do everything that can be done, then at the very last second it happens, and that's been miracle after miracle after miracle in my life, and this has been no exception. I was literally. I saw the darkness closing in. It was that point I was so weak I couldn't barely move and everybody who saw me at that point my wife was a little fearful. She thought maybe I wasn't going to pull through this. And inside I always had the confidence. I didn't have a lot of strength, but I made the right choices. I never wavered, I never blinked and I've been aware the whole time that I have this thing beat. But I have to do the work. I have to do everything right or I'm not going to get what I want and it's been that way.
Speaker 1:So now I get this nausea rolling in on me and the only thing that really makes it feel better is not doing anything. And anybody who knows me knows that that's not an easy task for the most part. But if you've ever been seasick and I'd have to equate the nausea to that and it wasn't violent, it was just unsettled I just didn't feel like eating, I didn't have an appetite, I didn't feel like. And if I didn't move, if I just laid't feel like eating, I didn't have an appetite, I didn't feel like. And if I didn't move, if I just laid there, really still it was manageable, it was tolerable, and you do that long enough and you don't really feel that hungry and then, before you know it, my weight went down to a place where I didn't. It was passed right to the point where I said it couldn't go past. Literally. I weighed 140 pounds 140.6 pounds is the lowest I got to and I think I probably weighed that in seventh grade and that got my attention. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1:I said, man, I got to do something about this, but still still, meanwhile I'm laying there and it's just so easy to spend hours just laying there. I didn't do anything, I didn't read, I wasn't watching TV, not listening to music, just laying there, and that was okay and attacked the tumor with my energy and my vision and this quantum world, and it was, as it gave me enough to do, that I felt I was being productive, but I wasn't doing all the things I needed to do, which part of included eating. And I came to a place where it was almost like a drug and I would say I've done a lot in them before which is an opium tincture, and it was a very similar kind of feeling where it was just very, very comfortable to just sit there and do nothing, almost like you're kind of floating down, not in a depressed way, in a very calm, peaceful way, where I felt almost like I could, just in a very calm, peaceful way, where I felt almost like I could just stop, just let go and just kind of float away. And I suppose if I had let that happen I might have done that, I might have just floated away. But as I was sort of drifting down, I realized at one point that I'm an energy creature. I've always been high energy and I felt like my light was just really dim Usually. I feel like I've got a rip-roaring fire going and I felt like I just had some embers that were kind of covered over with sand and they were there. I was still there, present, but my energy was just very muted and I felt like I had to make another choice and I said to myself I need to light up. I need to light up, I need to energize. And when I made that choice I visualized you know, I've talked about my little energy box and all the prayers and all the thoughts and all the energy I sort of charge up with that. And I did that again I just sort of took in my mind's eye this golden white light and drew it up from the earth and drew it down from all the prayers and from Christ and all of the helpers, and I just said let's start filling this thing back up again. And it didn't happen right away, but a subtle shift began and the next day I came up with a tool, and I'll talk about all that in the future.
Speaker 1:But I began to eat and you know, if you know about my diet, it's rough because there aren't a lot of things that allow me to get any calories and gaining weight is very difficult with this diet that I'm on. But I do take this enzyme and this enzyme is expensive and I just had to say, well, I'm just going to start taking more enzyme and I'm going to start eating some things that you know are a little on the Not not off the chart, but at least you know a little worse than I should be eating. You know a little worse than I should be eating. And so I started taking on some potatoes and I got this, this bread that is a bread that I can kind of eat and even took a little I even ate a couple of eggs and just took the extra enzyme and made it to where you know it blocked out the methionine and I felt like I started feeling my energy recharge. And as I started feeling the energy recharge, I was able to take that and parlay it into more of a clear vision of taking the tumor out and subsequently the tumor has shrunk dramatically. And for everybody who says it's the power of prayer absolutely. For everybody who says it's the chemotherapy absolutely. For everybody who says it's the diet absolutely. For everybody who says it's the supplements absolutely. For everybody who says it's just my sheer will and guts absolutely, it's all of the things that I'm doing. And I know this and I know that I can't let up, even though from that point till now I have increased my energy substantially.
Speaker 1:The next day, after the shift in my, my mind, I began walking around the yard again. I hadn't even gone out in the yard in days, I hadn't even gone out there, didn't care. I just said, well, I just got to work on me and the garden will solve itself. It'll, it'll live or it won't. If it doesn't, we'll replant it. I just couldn't worry about that. All the stuff with the non-profit, I've just kind of let go. Everybody's doing stuff. And then I'm just like, well, it'll be what it'll be for now.
Speaker 1:And then a funny thing happened as I began to get energy and strength. I'm sleeping better. Now I'm eating more and I shifted into a positive cascade. So the more I ate, the more energy I was getting. And I was literally got to the point where I was going outside working until I just got tired and then I'd go in the house and take a nap and then I'd sleep for 20 minutes or whatever. I'd get back up and go back outside and I'm eating fruit all day and I'm eating the things that I can eat cucumbers and macadamia nuts and this crazy thin diet that I'm on but then taking the enzyme, eating more beans, eating some rice Like I said, I ate a couple of eggs and egg salad Started eating some potatoes.
Speaker 1:I was eating a bunch of sweet potatoes but I realized, you know the the value of them is that they're insulin resistant and they're they're resistant starches, so, but a lot of fiber, it just mostly passes through you. And as much as I haven't had potatoes in my diet for years because I was trying to lose weight, now I'm on the other side of that and I said, you know what? There's not a thing wrong with potatoes nutritionally, as long as I can handle the carbs and the starch and that was what I needed right now, and so I took the extra enzyme and, frankly, potatoes and sweet potatoes have about the same amount of methionine and that's the determining factor right now. It's not sugar, it's not anything else, it's methionine and, as I've come to learn this and understand it, it's working. Okay, anybody who challenges this. You cannot deny these results.
Speaker 1:And in the last week this thing has continued to shrink and my mobility has increased. My sleep continues to improve. I even yesterday was up at 430. I went on a hike up in my mountain and prayed and drummed and sang and even brought some rocks back. I brought a backpack full of rocks back, probably brought I don't know 40, 50 pounds of rocks back home with me and felt good doing it. Yesterday I had volunteers over. I took maybe a 15 minute nap when I got back from the hike and I was up all day and slept pretty early, went to bed probably before 10. Up again five o'clock, felt good all day. I took a nap today, maybe 20 minutes in the middle of the day, and I've been at it all day long day, maybe 20 minutes in the middle of the day, and I've been at it all day long.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I've received from this is this amazing focus, as I removed all of the things from my life that were not serving me and the people from my life that just didn't have my interest in mind and just stripped my life to bare bones, and I've been slowly integrating people and things as my energy has been increasing. I've been very discerning. I'm very clear about the things that I'm looking to do, where I'm going to put my energy. My health is still 100%. Until this thing is gone, until I'm cancer free, all my energy available is going to go to solving this, and I've been blessed. We've gotten a little bit of business. That's helping, so I've got products to make and we've been filling some orders.
Speaker 1:So that requires my energy because, frankly, the fundraising fell dramatically short of my needs. We tried. We thought people were going to care a little more than they did. Well, we got what we got and I never relied on that. I never believed that that was going to be the answer. It's been super helpful. It's paid some bills that needed paying and it allowed me to get this port installed and I didn't have to block any medical treatment because of money, and so I'm thankful for that to no end and I'm thankful for the opportunity that now we're picking up a little business and I don't have the overhead I had before, so we'll make progress faster than before. But energy has to go there or, you know, we don't make it.
Speaker 1:Then the nonprofit Gardens of Hope. I felt enough energy to begin to get this thing going. We've got all these volunteers that have been coming and going and the problem that I have with volunteers is they're chaotic and everybody's got their own thoughts and ideas and people come and go and they can help you today and they can't help you tomorrow and in a lot of ways they take as much as they give, sometimes more. Fortunately, the volunteers we've been working with have been amazing and they have heart and they've been giving a lot and taking little. But when it comes to organizing and structuring and leading, we just don't have the strength there, and I have it, and so what's happening and it's really kind of amazing is as my energy has returned.
Speaker 1:In the past I've always had a huge amount of energy. I've always said I've got a monster inside of me that just won't be stopped, but because of that my ambitions have always been big and I always thought I could, you know, do more than I can, spread myself too thin and still, in spite of it, all, accomplished huge amounts of things. But this time I'm not doing that. I'm just taking on what I can and I'm setting everything else to the side. And so I began putting energy to structuring and building the nonprofit. And wouldn't you imagine that as soon as I get a little energy, I am being spiritually attacked. My wife has this meltdown for three or four days and she's upset at everything.
Speaker 1:I call a meeting for the nonprofit and I I'm super clear. I put out a very clear video, I give clear direction, and all these wonderful people just will not listen and they don't hear what I say. Everybody wants to talk and tell me their ideas, and I've already been very clear about what needs to happen. And it's going to happen that way, one by one. I think they're starting to understand. But it's, it's it happen that way, one by one.
Speaker 1:I think they're starting to understand, but it's, it's, at least, with this new incarnation that I have, it doesn't frustrate me. I'm not giving it any energy that it doesn't deserve. I've given it as much as I can. I'm giving very clear direction and, with the joy that I have, I'm being careful not to dilute this, and I feel that the adversaries, spiritually, are trying to capitalize on this little distraction of my joy, of my joy, and I've been sort of attacked with chaos from everybody that I care about. Just about everybody's gotten a little pissy over something and everybody's been a little demanding over things and everybody doesn't want to listen to what I'm saying and everybody wants to talk and not listen, and it's all right.
Speaker 1:I'm aware of where I am in this, I'm aware of what needs to happen and I'm not going to compromise and I'm certainly not going to compromise my health, and so I'm sharing the joy with those who've been sharing my, my journey, and I'm sharing it here and I'm just so grateful for everybody that supported this show, supported me in all the different ways that you have, and I know they changed the platform, has changed the structure of the subscriber stuff and I hope you're not having any difficulty there. Supposedly it's going to be easier to access. I hope that is the case. I subscribed to this show myself so that I can see what's up and I think it's okay, but I'm not sure I will spend a little more time looking at it.
Speaker 1:I'm really just trying to keep my focus on this journal, which is this podcast and my health, and getting the Gardens of Hope functional so that we can start getting it funded, so that it can stand on its own and not require huge amounts of my energy and still be productive. So I'm excited. I'm gearing up the next episode. I'll talk about preparing for the next round of chemo, which is going to be this Monday. So I'm less than a week away, but this time at least, I'm going to be a lot stronger and coming at it from a stronger point of view, for sure. All right, we'll see you next time. Thanks for all your support.
