Successful Cancer Battle, My Mother's True Story of Hope Was it a miracle, the doctor, resveratrol, carboplatin? You tell me! Robert Fassbach , editor, www.seniorark.com

Ursula Barbara (Michael) Fassbach ( Mum )

July 15, 1907 - May 1, 2001

           

           

SHE DID NOT GIVE UP

( nor should you )

When she was baptized Ursula Barbara Michael in 1907 at the Dorseyville Lutheran Evangelical Reformed Church, just over the hill from her farm, no one could have imagined that 92 years later she would be waging a winning battle against stage 4 ovarian cancer. She called it "God's Miracle". I overheard her gynecological oncologist at Magee Women's Hospital tell a group of medical students, "Now I will show you my miracle". Please understand, I would never discount the power of God, or the abilities of this prominent doctor. But I want to introduce yet another possible factor.

Her abdomen had expanded to the size of a woman in her 9th month of pregnancy. (I'm told this is a liquid byproduct of this cancer.) The cancer had spread to other organs. She told us not to worry. God would take the cancer from her body. Her whole life had been lived with this sense of faith. The doctor said that the best he could do was to give a sharply reduced amount of carboplatin chemotherapy because of her age. And the 20%-of-normal dose would only be given monthly, not weekly. Perhaps she would last a few months that way.

Not so fast. A son not yet willing to let go of a mother can be a dangerous thing!

She had her first monthly treatment, followed up a couple weeks later with a blood test that comes up with a "count" of some kind to indicate the impact of the chemicals on the cancer. Little or none the first month. Same the second month. 

This is when I buried myself in my computer, reading about cancer studies around the world. Some studies were far too technical for me to understand. Some were negative from the get-go about advanced ovarian cancer, especially in the elderly. But some had found a very interesting substance that showed great promise for this and other types of cancer: resveratrol.

Never heard of it?   Neither had I.   RESVERATROL.   A substance found especially in the skins of dark red grapes. It can also be found in walnuts and some other foods. But resveratrol is most available to us as dark red wine, or grape juice. I printed out an inch-and-a-half thick stack of studies and articles on the impact of resveratrol on cancer. I even came across an article entitled the "Amish Cancer Cure". Somehow the Amish had discovered that red grape juice seemed to have some kind of healing power over cancer.

I gave this stack of paper to my Mother. Through her macular degeneration she read enough to be convinced. She said, "I've never had any alcohol, and don't plan to start now. But I want to try the grape juice." A couple of the studies speculated that the resveratrol stripped the cancer cells of an oily substance that prevented the body's natural defenses, or chemotherapy, from entering the cancer cells and killing them. They observed that chemotherapy in conjunction with high doses of resveratrol seemed to have a larger impact on cancer than chemotherapy alone.

So we bought a couple gallons of Welch's dark grape juice.  The day before, the day of, and the day after her third month carboplatin treatment, she drank a total of a gallon and a half of the juice.

Now I want to tell you about the miracle. One week after her third treatment, coupled with dark red Welch's grape juice, her abdomen suddenly went flat. I mean FLAT. I mean, one day it was huge, and the next day it was flat. It had been huge for MONTHS. In a panic, we called the oncologist to tell him that something happened. Was it bad? Did something burst? Was this a sign of the end? What was going on?  He didn't know, but if she seemed ok, it could wait until her return for the blood test.

When she walked into his office he looked at her and said, "What the hell happened to you?" Her response was that she supposed God had taken the cancer. He examined her in a state of awe. I was there. He said that the monthly carboplatin should continue. She also continued the grape juice each month. She seemed to improve, and the count definitely improved.

I think it was after the 5th or 6th treatment the doctor ordered a CAT scan to see how the cancer looked. THERE WAS NO SIGN OF CANCER IN OR AROUND THE OVARIES, THE LIVER, OR ANYWHERE ELSE THAT IT HAD BEEN EARLIER OBSERVED. I gave the 1.5 inch stack of studies to the doctor, with his promise that he would look at them. I often wonder if he glanced across his desk at the stack, and then trashed them, or whether he sat down one evening and scanned through them.

Was it God, the doctor, the grape juice, carboplatin? All four? None of the above?

You tell me. I don't know.

It's like the story of the three people who saw the same accident, but upon reporting it to the police, they all seemed to see a different event.

And I am reminded of the man, blind from birth, who was healed by Jesus,  and grilled by the authorities about how this happened. He responded something like, "Hey, I don't care. All I know is that I was blind, but now I see."  Guys, all I know is she had terminal cancer and given virtually no hope, and she was cured. NEVER, NEVER give up Seniors! Your God-given body can do amazing things, and will heal or give out when it and God are ready.

And what about my mother. She lived cancer free for a year, until her death in 2001 from the debilitating results of a stroke. Ironically, she may have died as an indirect result of her healing. At the time of her chemotherapy she had been taken off blood thinners that she took to prevent clotting, due to a 30 year irregular heartbeat. They were stopped to prevent excessive bleeding at the point of insertion for the chemicals. The thinners  were never resumed, and perhaps this caused a clot that resulted in the stroke.

But even right until the end, with one side of her body nearly paralyzed, and in a nursing home, she had a will to live. The day before she died she asked to receive physical therapy so she could try to walk again. When I saw her that evening she showed me some rapid leg movements they had her doing that day. I said, "Mum, if I scratch my dog in just the right place, she moves her leg just like that". Her response was, "Maybe she came here too." And then she got that half-mouth sly little smile.

 Robert Fassbach,  editor,  www.seniorark.com   Send Bob an email at:  seniorark@aol.com .

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)