The same child that brought me a mushroom, also brought me some juices.

Actually, her mom did.

I used to work with this woman’s mother, and she always said she wanted me to have her granddaughter in my class. She passed away, and her presence was missed every day when I would bring my kindergarten to get their lunch.

A year or two went by from the last time I had seen this woman and lo and behold, the granddaughter she always said she wished I  would have ended up on my roster.

I  am thankful that this little girl had a mom who not only sent me mushrooms, but also brought me a whole cooler full of juices.

To get you to fully understand how this was a huge step for me…

Ketchup was the only vegetable I ate.

True story.

I took a deep breath and tried a juice. It had the name “Black Dragon”, and I imagined the dragon entering my body and sending the cancer cells scattering. It was actually pretty good, and I thought to myself, ” I can do this!”

I had been researching and saw that juicing is something that many people do, and I  read a lot of success stories. It’s pretty impossible to eat the amount of vegetables and fruits needed to flood your system, and juicing is a quick and easy way to get it all in there. It was worth a try.

Little did I know how much those juices would bring to my life.

I went to “The Giving Room”, and walked in feeling intimidated. Like I was a fraud. Who was I to go into this healthy place? I didn’t even know the difference between Kale and Spinach.

I  took a deep breath, walked in, and  met Andie, who was a bubbly, kind, and as knowledgable a person one would dream of meeting when walking into a juicing place. I    felt so good after going, I went back again.

And again.

And again.

I finally met Paula, who is one of the owners.

If you want to meet someone who is a true angel, compassionate beyond measure, and a light to just be around…go see Paula.

She has become more than my juice guru. She has become one of my life teachers.

Some have Oprah.

I have Paula.

The Giving Room also has yoga classes. The first one I attended had someone playing cello in the corner, everyone breathing in unison, it ended with poetry and the healing energy in the air was palatable.

Sometimes I go to the Giving Room just to feel the energy.

The women and men who work there are full of information, kindness, and are people you want to be around. Andrea, Laura, Jesslin, Kyle, Sam, Emily…they all make juices that fill your body with goodness and healing.

As a teacher, I’ve read the book, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, more times than I    can count. Its a story of love, and giving to others.

I’ve always love the spirit of the giving tree.

Now I love the spirit n the Giving Room even more.

If you are starting this journey, or just want to get healthy, find your “Giving Room”. If you don’t have one near you, get yourself a juicer and make your kitchen your very own Giving Room.

A place where you can fill your body with all the organic goodness that God gave us on this big, beautiful Earth.

May we all be as giving as Paula and the staff.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

xoxox

Keri

PS. This is the poem, The Journey, by Mary Oliver, that Paula read at my very first yoga class. She read this poem at the end of class, with a cello playing softly in the corner, everyone breathing in unison, and me crying softly for the journey I was about to take. It was perfect and beautiful.

We’ve all heard about Johnny Appleseed, the man with the tin pot on his head who planted apple seeds all over the country. He did this knowing he would never see the fruits of his labor, literally, but he planted anyway.

He had a real name, John Chapman.

But people tend to remember the other name, and his story is told in classrooms all across America in September as the children go back to school and learn about the color red, make applesauce, and see if apples sink or float.

I’ve told his stories countless times in my classroom, and one boy in particular? I am so grateful he was in my class to hear the story.

You see, this boy’s mom?

She knew someone else who shares the last name, “Appleseed”.

Annie Appleseed.

She has a real name too, Ann Fonfa.

She doesn’t plant apple seeds though.

She plants seeds of hope.

My dear friend Maggie put me in touch with Ann soon after I  was diagnosed. Ann faced a similar diagnosis many years ago. Through a blend of western and Eastern therapies, and a whole lot of nutrition, she healed. Her story has even been written about in the book, Radical Remission, and she was featured in the documentary, The Truth About Cancer. She turned adversity into advocacy. She took all that she learned about holistic and alternative treatments, nutrition, and exercise and created the Annie Appleseed Project. Through her website and Facebook page, she continues to educate and advocate cancer patients. She has a conference every year in March in West Palm Beach, Florida.

I  went to that conference last year and learned so much. She had doctors from all over the world speaking about new treatments, alternative therapies, speakers on nutrition, healers who showed us how to move and do healing dances, a  Chinese herbalist, meditation, and assorted vendors. It was a whirlwind of information. It was worth every penny to go and sit in that conference room surrounded by other people who believed in hope.

That’s what Annie Appleseed plants…

seeds of hope.

http://www.annieappleseedproject.org

Check out her website, got to her conference, donate to her cause.

I  will always be grateful that Ann shared her story with others, and through a boy in my kindergarten class, I  heard about her story and had a seed of hope planted in my heart.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

xoxo

Keri

I never liked mushrooms.

“Plain pizza please!”

After I  was diagnosed,  a little girl in my class gave me a strange looking object. It looked a little like a rock, but soft. She exclaimed it was a mushroom, and her mom wanted me to have it.

That was an interesting parent-teacher conversation.

“Thank you for the mushroom, but I don’t smoke”.

Little did I  know how much this mushroom would change my life. The mother put me in touch with one of the owners of the local Chaga mushroom company, Chaga Island. I  looked up how to make chaga tea in a crockpot, and it was as easy as it looked.

Chaga has a ton of benefits. It has a high ORAC score, which stands for “Oxygen Radical Absorbent Capacity”.  The higher the ORAC score, the better the ability to protect the body from disease.It is an amazing antioxidant, is low in calories, very high in fiber and free of fat, sugar and carbohydrates.

According to the Memorial Sloan Cancer Center, they have done studies where Chaga can inhibit cancer progression. It can stimulate the immune system, has anti-viral abilities, is an inflammation reducer, and can improve physical endurance.

When I    went to the Annie Appleseed Conference, there was a speaker there who was a mushroom expert. He saved the Chaga discussion for last, and called it the strongest mushroom.

That’s good enough for me!

Some people take it in pill form, but I’m more of a purist. I get my chunks from Chaga Island, throw three or four in a crock pot, and fill it with high PH water. I  turn the pot to low or simmer, and let the mushrooms work their magic. The water will eventually turn to a maple syrup like color. I keep the pot on at all times and continue to add water as I  take water out.

“But Keri…how does it taste?”

I  like it.

It really doesn’t have much of a taste at all. Put aside all of your preconceived notions of what a mushroom tea would taste like and just take my word for it. You can add lemon, cinnamon, mint, or honey. You can drink it warm or cold. I know the ladies at Chaga Island have told me that warm is best, and three cups a day when in a medical crisis is good for you. *Always check with your medical professional if you have any questions, and do not take Chaga for two weeks before surgery since it may increase bleeding risk.

I made a video that was shared on my Facebook page and has been viewed several thousand times. If I can figure out how to share a video here…(and have a good hair day)…I may try to share it here.

Hop on board the “Chaga Train” with me and see how you feel.

Chaga choo choooo!

(Thank God for classroom moms that love their child’s teacher so much they send in mushrooms!)

In Jesus’s name, amen.

xoxo

Keri

Welcome to my very first blog post. I’m not sure what I’m doing, how it’s going to go, or what it’s going to look like. Essentially, I’m “going in blind”, as they say.

I  don’t need to see the big plan to believe that somehow it will get done, because I  have faith it will happen.

That’s the thing about faith.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” -2 Corinthians 5:7

I’ve been walking in faith for over a year in what has become a journey of fear, courage, hope, despair, joy, grief, forgiveness, and above all…love.

When one hears the words, “Stage four cancer”, the feeling you have that floods your body is indescribable. Some people hear those words and believe that their life is ending.

I heard those words and decided that would not be my story.

In fact, my life began.

I  have been writing every day since I was told there was cancer in my body on my little private Facebook page. First it became a way to control the information that I  knew would get out about me. I  am a teacher in the biggest little town there is, and my children go to school in the same district in which I teach. The last thing I wanted was for the rumor mill spreading half truths and having those half truths keep my children up at night.

I wrote to keep track of all of the new information that I was learning. I wanted a record for me to look back on and see what I’ve been doing. I also (morbidly) wanted my children to one day look at my writing and see that their mom did everything she could to live.

I  remember saying, “That’s not my story”, when the first oncologist I saw told me I had weeks, months, maybe a year or two left to live. I went on a mission to find as many stage four breast cancer survivors who have beaten the odds and are still alive five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty years after the stage four diagnosis. They were hard to find, but I  found some.

And in the process, I’ve become the woman I  was looking for.

In five months, after being told I had tumors in my breast, lymph nodes, and metastatic spread in my sacrum, I was told I had a complete remission.

The miracle I prayed for happened.

It didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t easy. I  followed a mix of Western and Eastern Medicine. A new targeted therapy that has only been approved for about three years, pills, injections, all along with a whole lot of faith, discipline, forgiveness, learning, new friendships, dancing, hugging, laughing, radical changes, and love.

Some may say it was the medicine.

Some may say it was the diet.

Some may say it was the Chinese herbs.

Some may say it was the mindset.

Me? I say it was Jesus. Here is where I  may lose some of you, and that is ok. (I really hope I don’t).

I had never been a “religious” or “spiritual” person per say. I was your typical Christmas/Easter, sit in the back of the church kind of girl. I believed in Jesus, and God, and had a bible. But I never really “got it”. The whole trinity and the apple analogy, the Bible was overwhelming to read, and I had been tuned off of it when I heard people using it as a tool of hate and fear.

I’ve now learned that the Bible is the greatest love story ever told, and it’s all about love and forgiveness.

Beautiful.

The day I was told the cancer had spread into my sacrum, I was stage four, and would have to do chemo after chemo until they ran out and I had no options left…

I remember specifically crying out…”Oh, Jesus!”

He heard my cry.

That’s when I started to get what I  call “whispers”, or “God winks”. Things started happening, things in threes, miracles, unexplained occurrences. I believe God has put everything and everyone in place for me in my life. I followed my heart, my gut, my instinct, my Jesus.

I  don’t know why some people get healed, and others don’t. I don’t know why children get cancer. It’s not for me to know. When it is my time, and I get to Heaven, I’ll hold onto Jesus and ask him for the answers to those questions.

But I never asked, “Why Me?”

I knew.

I  knew that my diet, my running around and not taking care of myself, my anger and inability to forgive…that had all attributed to the cancer. (That and some crappy genes).

But, I knew with Jesus’s help, modern medicine, and a whole bunch of alternative treatments and ideas, I could heal.

And maybe, by being blessed with the calling to teach, I could help teach others to heal their lives and bodies and souls as they watched me heal mine.

During this time, if I had a nickel for every time someone said, “You should really write a book”, I would be rich. I  have no idea how to even begin to think about a book process, but writing a little bit every day?

Now that….

I’ve done that every single day for the past year.

I  am thinking of writing my daily morning post here, and adding my old posts as I can. Those posts show the journey I have been on, the people I  have met, the food I  have eaten, the forgiveness I have been given, and the healing as it happened. I’m not doing this for money, or for a second job. Being a wife, mom, and teacher are enough for me. Please forgive me if there are typos, grammatical errors, and if it seems jumbled. Many times my fingers fly across the keyboard and I don’t even know what I am writing until I am done.

And maybe…

When someone says, “That’s not my story” while shaking and not breathing and their whole body has gone cold while sitting in an oncologist’s office after being told they have only so long left to live while visions of their children and husband and friends and family fill their head…

They will find my story…

and find hope.

In Jesus’s name, amen.

xoxo

Keri