Lately, I feel like the walls are moving in on me.

Everywhere I look, someone who played a major part in my childhood is being diagnosed with cancer, is fighting cancer, or has already died from cancer… It’s overwhelming.

What’s most overwhelming is how so many of us are just so blindly willing to accept the conventional treatment recommendations and not question what REALLY causes this and what might REALLY help.

I don’t know a single person who has endured years of chemotherapy and radiation that went on to live for another decade with their health mostly intact. (And for all purposes, know that I’m talking about Stage 3 or Stage 4 Cancer here…) But I do see many people who chose not to have chemo or radiation that live for close to a decade doing the things they loved with the people they cared for the most.

I saw this link on Facebook today, and it just got all the wheels turning in my mind:

From the moment I first met Bryce, he made it very clear to me that he didn’t have a dad because his dad had gotten so sick with Mesothelioma that he underwent chemo and radiation to the point that it FINALLY killed all the cancer…. only for him to die from a YEAST INFECTION. That was the day I learned that Chemo and Radiation kill all the bad, but also all of the good inside of the human body. Bryce went on to tell me that he would never get chemo or radiation if he ever got cancer because he didn’t “believe in it”.

I thought he was insane.

10 years since that first conversation with him, I’m sitting here pondering how he could have had so much insight and so much conviction regarding the topic when he hadn’t really done any research… But a decade later, his viewpoint is one I’ve come to not only accept, but to agree with.

My biggest frustration is that no one wants to really look at what we are doing now with the foods we eat, the products we clean with, the vaccines we inject, the chemicals we use in our yards/on our skin/in our home/at our work…. when all of these things have been shown to be extremely harmful to the human body.

No one wants to miss out on foods they love, on junk, on convenience, on the “best” beauty products, the prettiest yard, the most weed-free garden, on the most affordable products… but the more I look at all the chemo and radiation happening to people that I know and care about, the more that I keep wondering if the “convenience” and “cheaper price” and “better taste” of processed, GMO, non-organic foods is worth this crash ending in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Where we die after enduring months or years of torturous amounts of chemotherapy and radiation.

I try to imagine myself laying in a bed, receiving chemotherapy drugs through an IV in my arm, emesis basin in my lap. What will I be thinking? What will be going through my head? Will I be regretting my decision to use any of the following:

(My thoughts below are things that I once used to rationalize by use of the products, and that maybe some of you still use today… I’m thankful that I don’t feel that way about MOST of these anymore. But just so we’re clear… I still drink Starbucks even though I know it’s filled with chemicals, and I REALLY, REALLY need to stop.)

*GMO food – It is easier and cheaper to make, buy, grow and store after all.
*BPA/other toxic plastic containers – Because glass is a PITA and really expensive.
*RoundUp – It takes days to weed my front flower bed and I just want my hard work on my flowers to look good!
*Processed foods – At the end of a long day I don’t have time to cook full meals, from scratch, to feed my entire family every single meal of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year. I need a break and sometimes processed foods are what get me through really hard days.
*Refined foods – I like to follow the 80/20 rule. Eat 80% clean and 20% whatever. I mean… I can’t possibly avoid everything toxic, so I’ll just do my best.
*Make Up – It makes me feel pretty and some days my self esteem just needs that and I want to look nice.
*Skin Care – If it reduces wrinkles, clears acne, eliminates scars and age spots and helps me look better, then maybe it’s worth it.
*Bath Products – The natural stuff just doesn’t smell as good and I can’t keep it for years without it going bad.
*Flouride Toothpaste/Drinking water/Dental treatments – Hello…. My dentist told me it was important to get this so my teeth stay healthy.
*Alcohol – It’s better than prescription pills after a long day…
*Birth Control – I honestly cannot be a Duggar and I don’t have the time to use NFP or use a condom every time when I’m allergic to latex.
*Radiation – Who knows how many times I’m unknowingly exposed to this on top of the dozens of times I’ve had CT scans for kidney stones.
*Tobacco – I smoked for 5 years… At the time, I definitely felt like it was worth it.

And those are just a few of the first things that come to mind when I think about the massive amounts of chemicals we are exposed to every single day.
It’s easy to read about the US cancer statistics. Even a look at a website as basic as medicine net.com reveals commentary that makes my stomach churn:
“Among U.S. residents, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will develop cancer at some point in their lifetimes. Research shows that environmental factors trigger diseases like cancer, especially when someone has a family history,” said Kenneth Olden, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, which prepared the report for HHS. ( http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=13276&page=2 )

The list of carcinogens is long and growing:

http://scorecard.goodguide.com/health-effects/chemicals.tcl?short_hazard_name=cancer&all_p=t

http://www.disabled-world.com/health/cancer/carcinogen-list.php

When I look at all of the chemical carcinogens, and look at the list of likely carcinogens, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be the one sitting at the doctor’s office, deciding on my cancer treatment and looking back thinking… The weed free lawn wasn’t worth it, the junky snacks weren’t worth it, the skincare wasn’t worth it, the make up wasn’t worth it, my scars are gone but the those chemicals weren’t worth it either, the cheaper price of GMO groceries wasn’t worth it, the convenience of processed foods wasn’t worth it, the “fun moments” sharing HFCS and chemical filled ice cream from the ice cream truck with my kids wasn’t worth it, the toxic shampoo wasn’t worth it, the delicious smelling commercial bubble bath and bath bombs weren’t worth it, the tan wasn’t worth it, the mixed drinks weren’t worth it, the birth control wasn’t worth it, the plastic tupperware and non-stick cookware wasn’t worth it…

In fact, I bet I’ll be holding someones hand, looking into their eyes and thinking, “I wish I would have really thought about how I’d feel right now, before I continued to expose myself and my family to all of these chemicals…”

And while I know that I will certainly not chose chemotherapy or radiation… I hope that by avoiding as many of the things on those lists as I can, that I might be able to avoid making that decision altogether in my 40’s or 50’s. I want to see my kids graduate from High School and College. I want to meet my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. (And maybe even my GREAT GREAT grandchildren.)

I want to live (REALLY LIVE) as long as I can.

And in order to do that…. I’ve got to stop making excuses myself.

Are there things you feel convicted to give up but that you struggle to part with?