Choosing alternative cancer therapy

Mardi Suhs | Cadillac News Mike and Susan McCann have been working together to fight MikeÕs throat cancer. As his caregiver, Susan prepares the raw, organic juices that Mike must consume daily for 24 months.

BOON — For the past 21 months Mike McCann has not taken a bite of food. No Thanksgiving turkey. No Christmas roast. Not even a taste of birthday cake.

Instead, the 57 year-old consumes raw, organic juices and soups.

The liquid fast is McCann’s way of battling advanced throat cancer.

“I’m very disciplined and strong-willed, or else I couldn’t do this program,” he explained. “There’s no margin for error. It’s an awful decision for anybody to make but the oncologist didn’t give me any hope.”

McCann was diagnosed with stage three throat cancer in 2005. Doctors recommended chemotherapy and radiation and hinted that surgery might be required. If that didn’t work, they would “discuss quality of life.”

Reading between the lines, McCann thought his chances were pretty bleak. So, instead of choosing the prescribed chemo and radiation, he chose an alternative diet therapy of organic juice fasting and detoxification enemas, a procedure that would last two years but would have its start at a clinic in Mexico.

When his physicians heard the words “alternative treatment” and “Mexico,” they desperately urged him to reconsider.

“All these people told me that throat cancer is horrible,” McCann recounted. “It’s a fast and aggressive cancer and they told me I was putting my life in jeopardy.”

But McCann felt led to the treatment by circumstances that included a recent religious conversion. Looking back, he believes God slowly prepared him to take this drastic step.

McCann is a high school dropout who started working for General Motors in 1968.

He retired in 1998 after 30 years with the UAW. Five months later he suffered a stroke. Then he developed heart problems.

One day, feeling tired and weak from antibiotics and steroids, he said a prayer.

“I’ve messed up my life,” he said. “If you would just take it God — and p.s. if you could sell this house it would take a load off me.”

The subsequent sale of homes in Florida and Tennessee convinced McCann that God was looking out for him.

Back in Michigan, he then confided to his builder about the recent “void in his heart.” That builder, Brian Fenner, invited him to a religious retreat. McCann found some answers and started attending church. But when he realized that most of the members were vegetarians, he protested to his wife Susan: “There’s no way I’m going to be a vegetarian. Now get me over to Burger King.”

But slowly the church’s health message took hold. He quit smoking. He stopped drinking six cans of pop a day. His blood pressure normalized. He was feeling great until one day he spit up blood. After his cancer diagnosis, a friend from church, Dawn Briggs, told him about the Gerson Institute, a place where some people with advanced cancers were being healed.

The McCanns, along with Briggs, left for Mexico after securing a place in the 10-bed clinic. He started a two-week introduction to a 24-month process of juice fasting and detoxifying through enemas.

Shortly after arriving, McCann received a forwarded letter from his oncologist, stating: “If you delay conventional therapy you are certainly running the risk of significant pain and suffering and ultimately a gruesome death.”

Although frightened, McCann was convinced he was following God’s will. For the next 16 months he drank one juice every hour under the care and supervision of Susan, who spends her day preparing the juices and prescribed soups. After 21 months, he’s down to six juices a day.

Because of the demands of the therapy, he doesn’t leave home except to attend church and buy organic supplies.

“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” he confessed. “It’s awful.”

But McCann is still alive. And his tumor is shrinking.

Although he experiences periodic bleeding, treatment by his local physician has stopped the bleeding and provided updates on the tumor.

“It’s still there,” the physician reported recently. “But it’s not black and not ulcerated. I don’t know what’s going on. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it.”

McCann will be done with his juice/enema regimen in January.

“I’m scared,” he admitted. “But we feel God’s been with us holding our hand, walking with us all the way since that first house sold. Looking back you can see where you are coming from. You can’t see where you are going.”

What does he want to eat in January?

That question was answered with a big smile. Pasta!

Then he wants to go to church and praise God.

“I would like to be a missionary after this,” he said. “I want to tell my story and give people hope. They don’t walk in this world alone.”

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What is Gerson Therapy?

The Gerson Institute is dedicated to healing and preventing chronic and degenerative diseases based on the philosophy and successful work of Max Gerson, M.D. After 30 years of research Gerson concluded that: the human body can heal itself given the appropriate nutrients; diet has a considerable effect on almost all diseases; treatment must treat the whole person; and people with serious illnesses must help their body detoxify.

Gerson’s cure through diet therapy consists of high potassium, low sodium diet with no fats or oils and minimal animal proteins. Raw organic juices of fruits and vegetables are consumed, along with supplements and caffeine enemas to facilitate the excretion of toxic cancer bi-products by the liver and the dialysis of toxic products from blood across the colonic wall. The therapy must be followed exactly as prescribed and the Institute claims, “This therapy has cured many cases of advanced cancer.”

For more information, call Mike McCann at 885-2424.

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