Thanks for Life

As is well stated and all are aware, this blog is to serve as a ongoing “Web Log” of my journey through the near death experience I was given. This may be one of the last needed additions to this blog. Although we will continue it just to limit the number of phone calls we take and the enormous time it takes to repeat the message, but this may well be the first of the last. It goes without saying, thanks be to Kaylinn and Dianna for all the time and effort they took to put this together and to add to it as needed. We have received many positive and encouraging comments by blog, email, letter, card, phone calls, and not to mention in person. So many thanks need to be given.

There are too many to count who have given of their unquestioning support with time, money, gifts, well wishes, hugs, and encouragement of every kind. I cannot begin to mention the heart-felt gratitude that Di and I feel for support in endless ways.

On the other hand, it has been stated by several the foolishness of my decisions to take my health care out of the hands of American-trained and FDA approved procedures and gallivant off to what would appear as a world that cannot be trusted. Astonishment even, that I would give thought to such a course has been expressed by many. “Surly,” they say, “you know of the corruption and vice that exist there. They don’t care about you they just want your money” I would like to take this entry to set those fears aside and to thank my Father in Heaven for offering me a new chance that many in my place are not given.

I do not in any way mean to construe this to be the whole story of my cancer journey, which will never be over and which is too long for a single entry in any journal. Let this simply be my eternal statement and testimony to all those who felt I was out of touch with the spirit and could not make decisions based on God given directions. I feel sorry that my life has been of such a poor example that some would not have trust in my ability to feel the directions of God after searching diligently for them. On the other hand, I more than understand the feeling exactly, by those who know me best, how this would give them reason to pause. I apologize for the many poor impressions I have left, and wish forgiveness from them and my God for having lived in such a way. The most troubling part is that I am but a man. I will no doubt add at later time, wonder and doubt again in their minds, how could “one such as he” ever have been so guided.

And so it starts that, in the beginning Dianna was impressed on an already busy day to take the time and talk to a friend. She was told by her of the place I eventually ended up. By this time I had been given dozens of web sites, telephone numbers, manuscripts, magic elixirs, and places I should look for help. So many people knew someone, something, or someplace I should look. Because I was so out of it, all these were never even looked at. Yet when this friend of Dianna’s called and gave me yet another web site, phone number, and person to talk to about her experience with American Biologic, the following day I was pressed, as it were, to call their number. I ask you, why that number and not the many dozens of other ones I received by well meaning and loving folks? Why be honestly moved to get up and call one, and not have that same feeling to call or research the others?

During my conversation with Dr. Bradford, the United States doctor that is responsible for this protocol and the founder of American Biologic, he told me I had a 60 percent chance of a cure. Along with many other things, most of which I do not remember, he said, “This is your only chance”. I reflected on that statement again and again. My trained doctor of oncology told me I had a 60 percent chance that chemo would do nothing for me but there were no other options. Take in mind, I didn't know either doctor. I only knew the testimony of one person who went to American Biologic and was given a new life. I am taking my oncologist's statement on faith that she knows what she is doing. I know of no one who has ever been cured of liver cancer under her care, and she had no names. So if you were me, what would you think to do? Add it up like I did and take 60 percent one way or the other and I think you would agree one sounds better based on my knowledge at the time. Take also into account that literally thousands have been praying for me, and that my name has been on countless prayer rolls in temples all over America from coast to coast. Remember, too, that the Priesthood of God was used in my behalf and I now stand as a witness to its power. After all that, what would you choose?

Let me add here, by the time I made this decision, I had my first and last round of chemo and had slipped greatly in my physical abilities to function. Chemo had taken me a huge step in the wrong direction by blasting my immune system with no follow-up to strengthen it, only encouragement to eat right. At this point I am convinced if I had had yet another round of chemo it would have been the sewing of the satin in the coffin, the final screws in the hinges, the fitting of the robes, and the purchase of the plot. I was so far down that I could easily see the end. I had stated more than once I wanted it over, and I didn’t know how much longer I could take it. Can you imagine giving another dose of poison to a person in that condition? Yet that is what my doctor here in America wanted to do. I had asked her, mind you, what she knew about hyperthermia and her response to me in part was, “It is not a standard therapy for any cancer that I know of. Sorry.” (I find out now it is available in the United States along with chemo but she was not willing to add it to her standard practice.)

So, along with many other moments in time, and a feeling I cannot explain except to those who have experienced it, of a calm re-assurance that I was being guided by a spirit larger than myself, I attended one more time the temple of our God in hopes for his assurance that I was not reading the many, many signs as more than mere coincidences. In that moment of pure celestial gratitude which I felt, I was assured that there was nothing wrong with what I had decided to do. It was no one else’s decision; I alone made it and secured Di’s agreement.

I have only to stand before you as a person who was given 90 days to live (and given poison to hurry up the process) who will live much longer. You alone will have to deal with this physical testimony that there are powers larger than life that were at work in me and I did, indeed, listen to them. Here I am, touch me, see, and believe that the death sentence was averted. Take it for what it is. Believe how you want to believe. But I am, at this point, very biased in my views. Am I special in my personal worthiness to have received this gift when others have not? I respond with a resounding NO. But there were, for reasons beyond my understanding, prayers by the thousands on my behalf to a loving God who listened to their pleadings. I am forever in their debt.

Once again, I wish my personal example would not have caused those to doubt. I am truly sorry. Yet at the same time they were adding to my healing moment with their own prayers. Again I am eternally grateful.

To summarize, there was guidance from the beginning. I knew ahead of time I was doing the right thing. This is why I could do “such a stupid thing”. Will I share what is available to others as I become aware? Of course, at the same time I will leave it to them to choose what they feel is right.

My gratitude is boundless to those who petitioned our God in my behalf. I simply state here to all who read, Thanks for Life!