.
.

Welcome

.
.
Make yourself at home. Put your feet up. Grab your favorite beverage and prepare to enjoy the reads.
.

.

Thursday

Apricot Pit Cure for Cancer - Not

Herbs Cost Money
Over the years I attempted to modify my nutrition in whatever was the most popular fashion at the time. (and if you read the latest, you must realize it changes frequently). Still, I do continue to take vitamins and use various herbal preparations substantiated as useful, as well as use standard methods of medical treatments. I use the Balch Books, as they are well formulated without all the hype. They have some references, but not enough. I study them and compare other sources to gain enough knowledge to see what I would be paying to pee at a high and useless rate, or to gain some healthful benefits. And that's my point aiming for as good a health as possible, not necessarily to cure what cannot be cured. If my ancestors used the stuff for generations for what ailed them, fine, But that didn't stop them from dying from cancer or have deaths at a younger age than we have. Just because a treatment was used in the past, doesn't mean it would work any better today.

Not too long ago, I found a site that gave the original recipe of eating just 17 sun-dried apricot pits per day to "cure" cancers as that was the original way of doing it. The site offered a U.S. source of the apricot pits and provided them at nominal cost But, when I looked for that site today, I found it's been long gone. So, I found another one where you can buy organically grown apricot pits already hammered (it is a really hard job). But, apricot pits contain cyanide! When someone gets cyanide poisoning it actually interferes with the body's ability to get oxygen. So none of the cells in the body are getting any oxygen. Some of the symptoms of cyanide poisoning are:
Apricot Kernel Warning
Patients will first notice a faint almond smell, feel dizzy perhaps initially, breathlessness, then convulsions or seizures, foaming at the mouth. And finally complete organ shutdown and death.

Today, the apricot pit cure has been transformed into Laetrile treatments.

I experienced the first three symptoms, then vomiting before I quit ingesting apricot pits. I really didn't know about all the dangerous side effects at the time. I just foolishly followed all the latest hype of what alternatives could magically cure my cancer. Needless to say, it didn't work. I hope anyone reading this will research it thoroughly by finding authentic scientific articles.

I am aware there are clinics in Tijuana, and Juarez, Mexico where one can go for "Laetrile treatments" under the care of a Mexican physician claiming to be able to cure your cancers. You don't get apricots to eat, you get IV's full of vitamin C and other nutrients you could easily just get for yourself. You get a place to stay, you get people who are so happy to receive your money that they will treat you extra nice, just to make sure you will come back often if you're in good enough condition to do so. I’ve run a support group for cancer patients the last fifteen years. I see people waste money and precious time they could spend with their families. I’ve watched them suffer so badly towards the end of their lives because they think standard medical treatment is “bad” for them. They risk following the idea that there are secret cures for cancer if you only just try them. They do not work.

Wednesday

On Happiness

Whatever happened to happily ever after? That was all hype, like Santa Claus, Leprechauns, Fairies, Jesus and all that other bunch of lies that were perpetrated upon us as kids. There ought to be a Law!!!

Really... I think happiness is what we make it. As the Buddhists say, one of the first truths is that we all experience suffering. None can escape it. Once that sinks in, we can work on it, or around it or with it, or whatever.

My life has often seemed as though it has all been one big dark pit of suffering, and a lot of it I brought on myself by my attitudes. (But, I didn't know any better. How could I cope if no one I knew had the skills to be an example to me?) I have a serious history of depression and hopelessness.

The person I am today is not who I once was. Somewhere along the way, I learned that happiness is not meant to be a permanent condition. What a shock when I found that out! I thought I had missed out on something everyone else had.  Though, truly, it is a good thing we don't have an abundance of joy. We would get bored with it. So, in order to appreciate it, thrill to it, we must be deprived of it, before it fills us to overflowing. Shades of "My Cup Runneth Over". Anywho, to make a long story short, it is funny how the littlest things make me happy now, that I never even considered worthy of the title. Plus, just forcing myself to smile makes me feel a sort of a fake happiness that catches on and becomes real the more I do it. Sounds crazy I know, but I am probably somewhat that, too.

Then, of course, there's Chocolate Happiness!

I am a believer in the concept of destiny. Not that we are pawns of it, but that we have created a plan to enhance us and challenge us to become the best we can be. Naturally, we do not live the perfect path, but some acceptance of the painful things sure goes a long way for making life easier.

When I look back, I can see so many things that I used to consider disastrous in my life were actually good things. Being with a man who I loved, for 17 years and having him turn against me with his fists, and tolerating it way too long before setting myself free in such a very traumatic way. (I went through all that with the most negative attitude possible).

Yet, today, I do not regret a single moment of it. If I had clung to what I thought was going to bring me happiness, (staying with him and working on the situation) I would never have met the true love of my life and true happiness even though we can only see each other once a week. (It is all the more precious!) And I never would have learned to use the computer properly, and never would have set up the chondrosarcoma support group, and so on and so on. And all this brings me, deep in my soul, healing, and satisfaction beyond mere happiness. It brings me a compassionate heart that opens to heartfelt pain and full love for others I have never met. See what I mean?





Saturday

When Water Was at a Premium

I remember two times as a child when water was at a premium, not in financial cost, but by a lack of water availability. The first place was when we lived in a summer cabin. There were six of us. Mom, Dad, my three siblings and I. If it didn't feel too creepy we could take baths in the creek water that came through the faucets.

Mom, having been from an area of Pennsylvania where this was not considered unusual convinced us this was normal and quite safe. Waterways were not so polluted as they are today. All we had to do was go back out to the dock and look straight down to the bottom of the creek through that clear water. So, what harm was there?

However, we were forbidden to drink this water. The only drinking water came from a spring up a steep hill from where we lived. My father and older brother used to go up there and fill up large containers of water and bring them home. A bucket sat in the corner of the kitchen with a long-handled cup in it. I'm sure in olden times a family might share this cup, going over to it to take a drink. However, Mom poured it into a Tupperware container and put it in the refrigerator so we could pour ourselves an individual glass of water. Otherwise, the long-handled cup was used to add water to cooking pots or for heating up for washing and rinsing the dishes.

The second circumstance where lack of water was an issue was when we lived in a hundred-year-old farmhouse out in the country. The wide creaking floorboards of the kitchen housed a large trap door that led down to the storage cistern, our only source of water storage. Winter snow melt and rain helped to keep the cistern partly full. But, it was necessary to go out to the well as summer passed and the cistern went dry. We had to pump water into large pails which we used to wash dishes or mop floors. (not very sanitary, but we never thought about that).  At first, we all shared in pouring buckets of water into the cistern. But it seemed an unending chore until my big brother rigged up a rain gutter beneath the spigot so we could pump water directly into the cistern. My big brother was a really clever guy! At one point, though, even the well went dry and my father had to order water and have it delivered in a large truck, which then emptied water into our cistern.

When I think about it today, I shake my head in wonder. I live in California now. I lived in Western New York in my childhood. I expect to experience drought here, but not in New York. It makes me wonder what people did in times past when water was at a premium. The world I live in today makes it appear that water is abundant, yet not all that safe to drink. Therefore, it is popular habit to buy drinking water by individual bottles. Truck delivery is done by five-gallon jugs.