For the past three years, I have been meeting regularly with two life-long friends, Don and John, for spaghetti dinners and then watching something related to baseball. We’re all junkies. Don and I were in the fitness business together beginning in the early eighties when we were Fitness Directors for the Back Wall Athletic Clubs. We started our own fitness testing/cholesterol screening business afterwards and stayed close over the ensuing years. Recently, he told John and I how he was juicing six pounds of carrots a day and drinking the 48 ounces he got from his efforts.
“You’re going to turn orange. I read about Steve Jobs doing that and he turned orange,” I said.
He was pretty sure he wouldn’t since he’d been doing it for a couple of weeks and was still pale. We teased him anyways, but he kept drinking. Yesterday, we went to Fisher’s for ribs where he told us he had an interesting story to tell.
“I’ve had a non-aggressive form of prostate cancer for two and a half years,” he said. He went on to describe how he had chosen to just keep an eye on it with his Cleveland Clinic doctor because he wasn’t ready for the alternative chemo or radiation.
“Eighty percent of my patients opt for an aggressive approach because they are uncomfortable with cancer in their bodies. You don’t need to do anything if you’re comfortable with that approach, though. We will watch your PSA and do the exams we need every three to four months,” he told Don.
And so it went – until his last exam when his doctor told him he had a large mass and it was growing fast and aggressive. “We need to take quick action,” he told Don.
“I went home and did some reading – like all people do who get this diagnosis – and I kept reading about mega doses of carrot juice. I checked with Bob (our good friend and incredibly thorough nutritionist) and he assured me that there was not toxic buildup of vitamin A as long as it came from a plant source. I told the doc’s office what I was doing and put off the biopsy for a couple of weeks so I could give it a chance to work. They told me there was nothing to support what I was doing, but as a pharmaceutical rep, I know who puts the money into medical research and it’s not them if there is no drug to sell if it works,” he said.
For the next six weeks he juiced and drank his concoction. He had his biopsy three days ago – fourteen samples were taken – and the doctor had called him with the results just before he joined us for dinner.
“The doc was kind of emotional. He said he’d never seen anything like it before, but my cancerous mass and any sign of cancer – was gone!”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know he’d had it and he was telling me it was gone and of course I was extremely happy for him and dumbfounded by how he’d accomplished it.
“In your reading, was the carrot juice option limited to prostate cancer or would it help will all cancers?” I asked.
“Any cancer,” he said.
It has me thinking about getting a juicer and turning orange.
I managed a hard ride before dinner, going 25 miles on a hot and sunny afternoon. I also hit 30,000 steps for the second consecutive day, which is something I’ve never done before. Today is should be a good riding day if the thunderstorms hold off until evening.
Bike Ride: One hour and 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 120-135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1,125.
Bonus: 31,000 steps.
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