"...Regular blood work continues to show I am free of cancer."
In June of 2000 I was diagnosed with stage-2 cervical cancer. I was emotionally devastated and immediately fell to my knees asking God, “why me?” Here I was in my mid-30s with a great husband and a teenage daughter—whom I feared would have to go on without me. To make matters worse, I had no idea that there were any alternative therapies out there; so, I agreed to conventional treatments.
The cervical tumor itself was so big that it was inoperable, so they took out 18 of my lymph nodes as a precautionary measure, and found cancer in four of them. That led to six hours a day of chemo, once a week for six weeks, and radiation treatments every day. Between the nausea from the chemo treatments and radiation right on my stomach, I couldn’t keep anything down. In the end, the treatments were all for naught. The “heavy hit” package of chemo and radiation that I endured did not shrink the tumor as the doctors had expected.
To add insult to injury, I had lost 30 pounds of weight that I didn’t have to spare, could no longer eat or drink, and was on the edge of death.
I was so scared. I had taken every bit of advice from my doctor and nothing was working. Every time I heard the word “cancer” it was like hearing my own eulogy. I tried to shake it off, but having cancer is very much a mental game, and I was letting the words of my doctor win. One of the hardest things was seeing my husband Steve with that “I don’t want to lose you” look in his eyes. It was difficult to see the effect of this disease on my family; it devastated everybody. But, I didn’t want to let them down; I wanted to do everything I could to beat it—I just didn’t know how.
Then, only a week after my treatment ended (and my despair began), God stepped in with a miracle. He began bringing people in my path who had been healed of cancer naturally, one after the other. Then, a woman in my Bible study group lent me Dr. Lorraine Day’s DVD Cancer Doesn’t Scare Me Anymore. Because I had seen how God was healing others naturally, I literally rushed home to watch it… but I felt very uneasy with the message. Every conventional cancer treatment Dr. Day advised against, I had just done (chemo, radiation, surgery)—I was concerned that I had doomed myself out of ignorance. Still, I was amazed to learn how Dr. Day overcame cancer by enabling her body to heal itself through nutrition. It was through this video that I was introduced to The Hallelujah Diet.
On October 7, 2000 I dove into The Hallelujah Diet 100%. I juiced like crazy. I was drinking up to eight glasses of vegetable juice every day; I did BarleyMax faithfully; I switched to mostly raw food, and kept it all really simple. I went back for a check-up in December, only two months into the diet, and the doctor told me that the large, “unshrinkable” tumor was gone. Gone! I was ecstatic!
However, further tests taken in the following month showed that my fight was not over. Despite the fact the tumor was gone, random cells remained. This was enough for the doctor to issue me a death sentence of only one to five years to live and a 75% chance of getting cancer elsewhere in my body. Strangely enough, this didn’t scare me. I knew enough about diet to understand why the tumor was gone. So, I calmly asked my oncologist three questions:
My first question: Is it true that if I have an alkaline pH level, cancer cannot survive in my body?
My oncologist said: That’s true.
My second question: Is it true that if I have a lot of oxygen in my body, cancer cannot survive?
My oncologist said: Yes, that’s true.
My third question: Is it true that cancer feeds on sugar?
My oncologist said: Yes, that’s true.
I was shocked! He knew this all along and never told me?! I was upset, but what could I say? Come to think of it, maybe I should have asked him, “If you knew this all along, why did you have that big candy jar in your chemotherapy room?” Or, “Why were there chocolates available for cancer patients as they walked down the hall to radiation therapy?” Instead, I thanked the doctor for his help, and walked away knowing exactly what to do: (1) eat more alkaline foods like vegetables and fruit, (2) drink more water and exercise to get more oxygen in my body, and (3) remain steadfast in rejecting sugar and other processed foods.
Really, that’s all I knew—but it was enough. Just knowing the basics of The Hallelujah Diet was enough to start repairing my immune system. I kept it all really simple and continued to educate myself, watching every DVD and reading every book I could get my hands on.
That was eight years ago, and regular blood work continues to show I am free of cancer.
After God healed me through all of this, I started teaching culinary classes and held raw food potlucks. I really felt a need to show people that there is a better way to overcome cancer and disease. I taught classes and shared with many during those several years. Then, in just the last couple of years, my husband Steve and I were blessed with a big, beautiful house in San Diego County. We asked Hallelujah Acres if we could open a Lifestyle Center on the west coast to help introduce people (most of who are struggling with disease) to The Hallelujah Diet, and they were thrilled.
So, in November of 2006, Steve, myself, and our daughter became Health Ministers. We opened a Lifestyle Center in our home a year later. Since then, we’ve watched many people with cancer come through the Hallelujah Acres Lifestyle Center—and many of them have done the same thing I did. They’ve put trust in traditional treatments and are afraid that nothing can be done for them. But we make sure to give them a lot of hope; and that’s easy to do when you’re a living testimony. Even if you chose to do chemotherapy, radiation or surgery simply because you didn’t know any different, you can still build your immune system to give your body the ability to fight back (see page 17). Steve and I know from experience that as long as there’s breath, there’s hope.
Steve & Leslie Kirchmeier operate a Hallelujah Acres Lifestyle Center in their home in Fallbrook, California. The center boasts four guest bedrooms, a large meeting room, a fully-equipped “Hallelujah” kitchen, three acres of lush tropical landscape, a lagoon-like swimming pool complete with a Jacuzzi, waterfall and slide, and a courtyard and wraparound terrace where you can spend quiet time. The Kirchmeiers look forward to welcoming you for a five-day or 10-day stay in beautiful Southern California! For reservations, call toll-free (877) 728-1064 or visit www.halifestylecenters.com.
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