You Want Me to Put Wheatgrass Where?

After learning I had stage II uterine cancer, and immediately receiving clear guidance from external signs as well as my own intuition, I chose to forego surgery and radiation. Instead, I opted for natural healing. It took me several weeks to come to grips with the decision. However, since I had strong evidence of spiritual miracles happening in my life, I didn’t question my healing decisions as much as my family did. One by one, each of my five siblings called me. By the time my brother called, I was used to the routine. “Hi Jim,” I said when I answered the phone. I didn’t hesitate to predict the reason for his call. “Is it your turn to call your little sister and convince her to have cancer surgery?” 
 

He laughed and put on his most persuasive Stanford MBA voice. “You know, Em, you don’t want to regret not taking action while you still can. The consequences could be quite dire.” This came from a man whose current wife had battled breast cancer, then uterine cancer, and then brain cancer, all treated by traditional Western medicine. I didn’t have the heart to tell my brother that I just couldn’t imagine taking that route. I didn’t want doctors to chase cancer around my body with scalpels and radiation guns for the rest of my life. I wanted to get to the root cause of the only cancer I would ever have, and in doing so, keep it from coming back anywhere else.

Every time my family called and I had to tell them I wouldn’t change my mind, I worked harder to educate myself. I owed it to them, and I owed it to me. In my research, I found repeated references to the importance of detoxifying one’s body to maximize its ability to heal itself.

In order to improve my diet to heal from cancer, I needed to eat more greens and eliminate cancer-feeding sugar. This meant breaking up with my favorite food, chocolate.

I learned that a healthy diet wasn’t enough. I also had to clear out the toxins that had built up in my body over time. They’d taxed my immune system and jeopardized my body’s ability to fight off foreign offenders such as nasty cancer cells. I decided I would have more success with support and a community. After many inquiries, I checked into the Optimum Health Institute (OHI), a no-frills health and wellness facility in San Diego, for a two-week total detoxification.

Up to two hundred guests visit OHI each week. People go there to eat a clean, raw, vegan diet and detoxify their bodies. OHI guests might want to lose weight or promote healing from diabetes, cancer, and other diseases. The stories I heard from program participants were humbling, to say the least. One man, John, had Parkinson’s disease. During his first week at OHI, John was unable to walk without a cane. He had a hard time articulating words. His wife had to speak on his behalf. By the end of his second week there, he had lost twenty-five pounds, was participating in exercise classes, and you couldn’t stop him from talking. One of the tenets of OHI is that we don’t actually name our “diseases.” Instead they are called “Health Opportunities.” So, the focus is always on health, not on the disease, an important and empowering distinction.

My sister, Jennifer, met me for my first week at Optimum Health. I welcomed her support because up to that point, I’d been protecting myself from my well-meaning family’s inquiries about my alternative healing path.

The main buildings revealed OHI’s former life as a retirement center. There was a room for classes, a kitchen, dining area, and hotel-type sleeping accommodations. Over the years, OHI expanded its guest accommodations to include a humble condo complex near the main buildings. My sister and I decided to stay in a condo near a small pool area. When we walked into our unit, we saw that it had only the essentials - chairs for sitting, beds to sleep in, and basic bathroom supplies. The condo kitchen sorely lacked supplies; heating water for tea was considered cooking. A coffee maker would have been an extravagance. It was just as they’d advertised on their website – unpretentious. I looked at my sister apologetically, knowing she’d chosen to spend a week of her vacation in this environment because of me. She wasn’t fazed. She’d brought her enthusiastic, supportive attitude along with her suitcase.

Our daily regimen included three raw, vegan meals. For two-and-a-half days out of the week, we drank only green juice with lettuce, cucumber, celery, ginger and lemon. We attended courses during the day to learn new information about nutrition, food combining, and what to eat to prevent inflammation in the body, a precursor to disease. Much of the food we ate came from OHI’s onsite garden. Exercise, stretching, and meditation were part of the daily program. 

OHI's spiritual heritage is based on the work of the Essenes, a brotherhood of holy men and women who lived two thousand years ago. Although the Essenes carried the seeds of Christianity, they studied all religions in order to understand the scientific principles. Given my affinity for hybridized spiritual experiences, it was important for me to participate in a program that was spiritual, but not religious. OHI fit that need. 

Probably the most beneficial, loved, and hated aspect of the program was the wheatgrass juice we had to take into both ends of our bodies each day! Twice a day, we swallowed two four-ounce shots of wheatgrass juice. They also recommended that we use fresh wheatgrass juice to cleanse our colons via daily self-administered colonics!

Perhaps my first official “Holy Sit” moment came when I understood the realities of my chosen healing protocol. I quickly realized that if I wanted to heal from cancer, I’d have to choose wheatgrass, and lots of it, over chocolate. To read about all of the incredible powers of wheatgrass including its ability to fight tumors and potentially lift large vehicles off of trapped children, check out the list of benefits here.

On our first full day at OHI, my sister and I were walking from the wheatgrass harvesting room to the dining hall. A rather animated OHI guest approached us and said, “I just did my first colonic with wheatgrass!” We thought this bordered on TMI (too much information) to share with strangers. Nonetheless, she continued without provocation. “I don’t know where the wheatgrass juice went! It didn’t come out! Where did it go?” It was serious to her, but seriously hard for us not to laugh. She went on, “Is that bad for me? Where did it go? What should I do?”

When I realized she was panicking, I responded that her colon probably needed the nutrients, so it absorbed the wheatgrass immediately to revitalize itself. I assured her it would lead to better colon health and smoother functioning later. I’m not sure from which orifice I pulled this manufactured information, but it was probably the same place I’d put wheatgrass juice later! After more convincing, the stranger walked away, with a different kind of relief. The event and the after-effects I describe in the next chapter can only be described as a modern-day miracle…

Wishing you peace and great health.

Emily Hine

Note: This Holy Sit blog is one in a series of blog posts that tell the story of my journey healing from cancer without surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. It's also about spiritual awakening and finding inner peace in a chaotic world. If you want to read the full story, check out the chapter titles on the Holy Sit home page & start with this one.  Cheers to your health!