Jeremy Swanson

It was a sweet time in our lives- Jeremy and I had been married 15 years (still in love more than ever), our four kids were keeping us busier than ever, we moved into a new house, and paid off our debt.

I literally thought (and said out loud) this is too good.

The day we moved into our house Jeremy had his very first known symptom: eating a piece of pizza and getting a stuck sensation.A few months later, just shy of 41 years old, Jeremy was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Shortly after diagnosis, Jeremy had a feeding tube placed, I was shopping for formula, 6 rounds of chemo, 6 weeks of proton radiation, and major surgery.

We thought after the surgery we could get back to a sense of normalcy and put cancer in the rear view mirror.

After finding out that there was lymph node involvement, we made the decision to make major diet changes and focus on healing his body.

7 months after surgery we found out that the cancer had spread to his liver (5 lesions) giving Jeremy the dreaded stage 4 diagnosis.

All the work in the diet department felt like it amounted to nothing.  No hope, just chemo, chemo, chemo.

We prayed and asked God to give us specific direction forward.

We would do anything.

Initially, we had a friend who told us about a worming medication (oh Lord, are we that desperate..yes).  Secondly, we had a friend with terminal kidney cancer receiving teatment in Germany that sent us a message, “Hey, you might want to look into this book “How to Starve Cancer” (haven’t we been already doing this with the diet thing already I thought!?! Another book..sheesh!)

I ordered it right away.  Finally, after Jeremy read a good amount of “How to Starve Cancer” over the weekend (I barely glanced at it..as I was so overwhelmed), we met with an integrative oncologist who mentioned using off label medications to starve cancer and Care Oncology.

We had 3 confirmations this was the path for Jeremy’s treatment.

Thank you Lord!

With Jane’s book and a list of mediations our integrative oncologist gave us..I ordered whatever I could get our hands on.  Jeremy read his way through the book in orderly fashion.

When he wasn’t reading, I was jumping to the chapters: How to Starve Cancer and How to Kill Cancer along with the helpful summary in the back of the book. And ordering more supplements.

After finally catching my breath, I started reading through the book (in more orderly fashion) and making stronger connections and realizations. I started coming to an understanding of how cancer works and how to fight it.

I’m a nurse, both my maternal grandparents died at a young age from cancer, but still I felt I hardly understood how cancer works. Cancer has always boggled my brain.

I began to understand the war strategy on cancer as described on page 295: Starve Your Cancer, Stop abnormal cell signaling, Stop it spreading, snuff it out, recover!

I believe why so many, including myself, are overwhelmed with this war strategy is because it’s multifaceted, unlike conventional “standard of care” treatment that works with 1-3 treatments.

If only it were that easy!

Also, another challenge is that we have our own very personal stories that play out in different ways. There is no formula that fits all!

Things that helped us: making notes on post-it’s through the book, making our own cancer starving triangle to visually see what we were doing, compiling a list of our medications/supplements and how they worked, prioritizing other life giving practices like journaling, quiet time, prayer, walks, meeting with an integrative oncologist, and being encouraged by the positive progress posts in Jane’s group as well as making a few wonderful friends.

Little by little, one step at a time, Jeremy has made progress.

He started out with 5 liver metastasis and now has 3 much smaller lesions. His inflammation markers are low.

He is living life full and thankful.