Treating the critically ill does not have to be an all or nothing, ideological choice between holistic medicine and AMA style medicine.  It is important for the critically ill and their families to know that if they use standard medical treatment such as drugs or surgery, these measures can and should be combined with natural healing methods.  It is always desirable to quit all addicting substances, start a whole foods diet, (as light as possible), and add meganutrition (supplements) to the medical doctor’s treatments.  Few medical doctors are so arrogantly partisan as to assert that natural measures will do any harm as long as the MD is still allowed to prescribe as they please.

Holistic support will not only lessen the side effects of the medical treatments but will speed up healing and often reduce the required dose of prescribed drugs.  I have had several clients with cancer who chose to have surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but stayed on a raw food diet and took high doses of supplements throughout the treatment.  These people amazed the attending physician by feeling good with little if any fatigue, no hair loss, or flu symptoms.  The same can be true of other conditions.

Food In The Order Of Digestive Difficulty

Individual digestive weaknesses and allergies are not taken into account in this list.

Hard To Digest:  Meat, fish, chicken, eggs (if cooked), all legumes including soy products, peanuts and peanut butter, beans, split peas, lentils, chick peas, dairy products such as cheese, milk, butter milk, nuts and seeds and their butters.

Intermediate:  all grains—­quinoa, amaranth, millet, spelt, rye, wheat, oats, barley.

Fairly Easy:  Brussels sprouts, green beans, green peas, broccoli, cauliflower, raw cultured milk products, asparagus, cabbage, sprouts especially bean sprouts, kale, other leafy greens.

Very Easy:  fruits, vegetable juices, fruit juices, broth (clear).

No Effort:  herb tea, water.

Ethyl always comes to my mind when I think of how much healing power can still be left in a dying body.  She (accompanied by her husband for support) came to Great Oaks School with terminal cancer, heart failure, advanced diabetes, extreme weakness, and complete inability to digest.  Any food ingested just came back up immediately.  Ethyl had large tumors taking over the breast, sticking out from her skull, and protruding from her body in general.  The largest was the one in the left breast which was the size of a big man’s fist.

She did have one crucial thing going for her, Ethyl was a feisty Irish red head who still had a will to live, and a reason to do so.  She and her husband, who had just retired, had dreamed their whole life of touring the US and Canada in their own RV the minute he retired.  The time had finally arrived but Ethyl was too ill to support her own weight (only 90 pounds) and to top it off was blind from diabetic retinopathy.  The doctors had done everything they could to her, and now judged her too weak to withstand any more surgery (she had already had her right breast removed).  Radiation or chemotherapy were also considered impossible due to heart failure.  They sent Ethyl home to die, giving her a few days to a month at most.