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Hope and Healing My Victory Over MS By: Debra D. Kaiser www.hopeandhealingbook.com My objectives in writing this book: 1. To honor, praise and glorify my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who answered my prayers and restored my body from sickness to health. Hallelujah! 2. To help each person who reads this book strengthen his or her faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible. 3. To help people who are suffering in poor health to gain the knowledge and inspiration that they need to maximize their physical healing. 4. To give people the hope and encouragement necessary to gain the mental strength and courage to find God"s Will for their lives. 2 This book is dedicated to: My Father-in-law, Dr. Donald W. Kaiser, whose request during his last days of life on Earth was that I write this book; My mother, Edna Gadient, who has unconditionally believed in me and supported me throughout my entire life; And to the many people suffering temporarily here on Earth with MS – may you gain Hope; Encouragement; Wisdom; and Faith in our Lord Jesus through my testimony. 3 Hope & Healing My Victory over MS Chapter 1 Hope p. 5 Chapter 2 Ignorance p. 10 Chapter 3 Wisdom p. 18 Chapter 4 Healing p. 30 Chapter 5 Persistence P. 46 Chapter 6 Blessings p. 55 4 Chapter 1 Hope Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Psalms 31:24 Multiple Sclerosis is a physically devastating disease that cripples a person"s body – often in the prime of life. But I think the mental agony can be much worse for an MS patient than the physical debilitation and pain. There is a hopelessness that comes with the MS diagnosis. "We don"t know what causes it and there is no cure," I remember my neurologist saying. "MS affects people at varying levels of severity and we can only prescribe medication to help cope with the symptoms as they present themselves," she finished. When your doctor tells you that there is no cure and little understanding of the cause, you are truly left with very little hope. You are hit with the realization that you are trapped in a body that is wasting away. And, at the same time, the medical community is telling you that there is nothing that can be done about it. Your mind starts to race between panic and despair as you look at your small children and think of all the joys of their childhood and their growing up that you will not be able to share in. You wonder if you will even be alive to see them get married or to hold your grandbabies. You look at your husband and imagine the grief and struggles that will await him as he tries to cope with the care of an invalid. The vows to love, honor and cherish in times of sickness echo in your mind and you wonder if he will keep that promise. You can"t bear to think of him trying. Tears fill your eyes and energy drains from your body. Hopelessness. 5 But as a Christian, how can you be without hope? If God is for you, who can be against you? If all things work together for good for those who love the Lord, then there must be some good things coming – right? I believed this. Not just intellectually but in my heart. I was a born-again believer in Christ. I had read the letters from Paul and been witnessed to by his faith and courage during his times of terrible suffering. But in my moments of weakness, when I looked into the eyes of my 5-year-old, I did have my doubts. My MS diagnosis certainly tested my faith. I was not the absolute rock of faith like that of a Corry-Ten-Boom or a Fanny Crosby. My body was falling apart, I was trapped inside, and I was searching for answers. Not the cold, diagnostic answers about how I could expect to see MS ravage my body that my neurologist was offering, but answers that contained Hope. So, I turned to my husband Daren. I truly love my husband. Physically, he is big and strong – 6"3" and 200lbs. Emotionally, he is tender and kind. Spiritually, he is grounded in a steadfast faith in Christ as his Lord and Savior. And mentally, he has a strong will to make things happen and to achieve success in the face of challenging obstacles. In fact, he is probably overly-optimistic to a fault. Well, optimism is something you can never have enough of when facing a battle with MS. I knew that I could count on Daren to provide encouragement and comfort as well as leadership on our quest for hope. And, most importantly, I turned to the Bible. I knew that God"s Word is complete. I knew that all the answers and all the direction that I needed could be found in the Holy Scriptures. I knew the Bible stories of so many individuals who faced incredible hardships and challenges but who were miraculously cured when they turned earnestly to God. There was the boy David who toppled a giant with both a small stone from a creek bed and with enormous faith from his heart. There was Noah who was told of the coming end to civilization but who was given a crazy plan to save himself and his family and who followed through with that remarkable plan for over 100 years…. on faith! Sometimes, I wonder if Noah was the only one who God gave that plan to…. or if he was just the single one of many who had the faith to see it through. 6 There was the woman in the crowd who had been suffering in sickness for years. She had spent all the time and money she could afford, with all the doctors and healers she could find, but she was still sick… and probably left with little hope. But then she heard of a great man who could perform miracles. A man named Jesus who was healing the sick and teaching of God"s plan for our lives. Just hearing of Jesus gave her hope. She turned to God. She knew that she had been created by God for a reason and she knew that if she could just speak with this Jesus that He could heal her. But the crowd was too great and Jesus was being ushered past too quickly to give audience to any one person. So as hope began to walk away from her, in one last desperate act of faith, she dove forward in quiet submission, and with one outstretched hand, grasped the robe of God"s Son and was healed. Healed because she believed. Healed by Faith! I knew of all of these stories of hope, and many more, and I knew that God also had hope for me in His Word. So, with quiet submission, when the rest of my family was asleep, I prayed to God for his guidance and opened my Bible. My prayer was that God would control my fingers and allow them to open to the very page that would give me His answer. Would I open my eyes and see the book of Job? Would I read about a Christian martyr like Steven? Would God"s answer be that my time on Earth would end soon? Whatever, the answer, I would accept it. I trusted in God. And I told God that I would honor Him and glorify Him no matter how He chose to answer me. At that moment, my faith was strong. And as I opened my Bible to 2 Corinthians 7:1, I didn"t just read the verse; I had an encounter with Christ. It was as if Jesus himself was standing there in the room with me. Goosebumps covered my body and my spine tingled. I felt the presence of Jesus. It was less of me reading the words and more of the words being spoken to me by Jesus. And with His words, there was comfort. There was truth. Here was the peace that surpasses all understanding. In fact, I did not know exactly how I was to respond. My path was not yet clear. But my destination was certain. I knew that I would be healed of MS. I knew that I had just touched the robe of Jesus and that His grace and compassion was going to free me of my suffering. 7 Today, I am healed of MS. Since August of 2001, when sight returned to my once-blind right eye, I have had no further MS symptoms. In fact, in December of 2002, my return to health was so complete that I joyously confessed to people that I felt physically younger and more energetic at age 35 than I did at age 25. Little did I know that 12 months later, I would deliver our third child – Braden – a healthy 8lb 10oz boy who, at age 6 months, was so healthy that he was wearing 18month clothes! works…. often in the most unexpected of ways. What a surprise. But what a blessing! I just smile when I look back now and think about the way that God I am not in some period of remission. I am not in denial. I am cured of MS! Hallelujah and Praise God! I am healthy and, Lord willing, have every hope of being healthy and active enough to keep up with my grandchildren 40 years from now. In the next chapters, I will take you step by step through the cause and cure of my MS. It is my sincerest prayer that my story will bring you the hope and the answers that you need to successfully battle your own sickness or help you to help your loved ones who may be suffering. I also pray that I can help you to increase your faith in Jesus and the truths of the Bible. You will see many specific treatments, therapies and lifestyle changes that I employed to rid my body of MS. They are sound. But I am not a worshiper of therapies. I am not here to glorify them. God created us for His glory and His pleasure. God allowed me to endure the initial pain and suffering of MS and then led me through the healing process so that I would glorify and praise Him. People fail. Doctors fail. I fail. The human race is fallen. People will always disappoint you at some point. Now, we all need to look for the good in others. And we need to trust and love each other. Jesus taught us that. But we first need to put our trust and faith in God and look to Jesus for answers. If we have faith in Him, He will never leave us or forsake us. So, I encourage you, as you read about my healing, to keep your heart open 8 and your hand outstretched in submission to the healing powers of our savior, Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 7:1 - Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. 9 Chapter 2 Ignorance They know nothing, they understand nothing: their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see: and their minds closed so they cannot understand. Isaiah 44:18 When I was in grade school, my dentist determined that my molars were too concave and that I would be unusually prone to developing cavities in them since there were such large crevasses for food to stick. So, he proposed that each of my permanent molars be topped off with a filling. My mother, in trying to do what was best for my health, agreed to having our dentist fill all of my molars with silver fillings. As a young adult, beginning in my twenties, enough decay had developed underneath certain of these fillings that I needed to have them removed and replaced with a standard crown on that particular tooth. By the time I was 31; I had already had four such crowns done and was now in need for the same procedure to be done on two more molars. We had recently moved to Buffalo, NY and I needed to find a dentist to rid me of my pain and modify these two teeth with crowns. I found a convenient dental office close to my home that was owned and operated by a very nice dentist in his late thirties – Dr. B. Other than the slight pain from these molars, I was healthy, physically active and unmedicated. I was a happy and busy mother of two beautiful daughters – Reagan age 5 and Ryleigh age 3. Our marriage was sound. We were growing spiritually in a wonderful church (Eastern Hills Wesleyan in Clarence, NY which was led by a very gifted man – Pastor Karl Eastlack). We had sound friendships with many great people from the neighborhood, church and the families of our children"s classmates. And we were delighted with the Christian education that our girls were getting. I felt truly blessed! That was as of January 7, 1999. 10 On January 8, 1999, Dr. B spent about 40 minutes, drilling out the two old fillings that I mentioned previously. A procedure that he had been trained to do and had done countless times in his dental career. Unfortunately, at the young age of 39, Dr. B was going blind of macular degeneration and I would be one of the last patients to go through his practice. What neither I nor Dr. B knew was that we were each being exposed to mercury vapor and breathing it in as the silver amalgam filings (which were 50% mercury) were being drilled away to make room for the crowns. I didn"t have any idea that these "silver" fillings contained mercury at all. And, while Dr. B surely knew of the mercury content of standard silver amalgam fillings, he must not have been aware of the dangerous dosages that he was exposing himself to in his work. In fact, I"m certain that Dr. B didn"t know about any of the following facts (which my husband and I later learned of in our research) or I know that he would have employed some precautions for himself and his patients: 1. All "Silver Amalgam" fillings contain mercury. There are only about 5 manufacturers still making mercury-based amalgams -- down significantly due to fear of liability. Exact percentages of mercury vary between manufacturers but are generally from 48-52%). 2. OSHA states that the maximum safe level of exposure to mercury vapor is 50 micrograms. If a manufacturing facility exceeds that level, OSHA will levee a fine and close it down. Yet, it is common for a person with several mercury amalgams to constantly be emitting more than 50 micrograms of mercury vapor at any given time. Just by breathing! Studies have detected levels above 300 micrograms for people right after chewing gum! 3. Methyl Mercury is created from the elemental mercury during a dental drilling procedure. Methyl Mercury is 100 times more toxic than elemental mercury. Levels in excess of 1000 micrograms of mercury are routinely found in the air during the dental drilling of a mercury amalgam. 11 You should read the book "It"s All in Your Head" by Dr. Hal A. Huggins for much greater detail on the toxic effects of mercury amalgam dental fillings. All I knew on January 8, 1999 was that I had an incredible headache from the time I left the dentist office. I assumed that this was related to the work on the teeth and I just took as many Tylenol as the label on the bottle would allow -- trying to reduce the pain enough to get to sleep. The headaches did not subside. After four days of intense headaches, I talked with Dr. B to ask what he thought was going on. I wondered if there was something unusual with the anesthetics that could be causing this? Or if he thought a nerve was exposed? He was equally confused by these symptoms and said that they were not normal but he did not know of any cause. He was confident that they would soon go away and encouraged me to just get as much rest as possible and continue with the pain relievers. I suffered almost constantly for 2 weeks until, finally, on January 22, the headaches went away. What relief! I praised God for bringing me through this trial. But, like Joseph after being beaten by his brothers, little did I know that a long period of hardship had just begun. As soon as the headaches stopped, a tingling sensation began in my feet. Not painful. Just annoying. Much like when your foot "falls asleep" due to a long period of sitting in an awkward position. At first, it was very slight and I did not give it much attention. I assumed that it was just some temporary after-effect of taking so many Tylenols over the previous days. But then, gradually, over the next several days, this tingling turned to a constant and more comprehensive numbness in both feet. By January 30, each of my feet felt so totally numb that I can only describe the sensation as "heavy, dead pieces of meat hanging on the end of my legs." By now, I was sure that this was not caused by the Tylenol. But I had no other explanation. My prayers were constant but I didn"t seem to be getting any sign from God as to a solution. At times, my faith would waiver and I would slip into a trance of doubt and fear. Mostly my fears were of being bedridden and unable to share in the joys of watching my children grow up. Or that I would be an intolerable burden to my husband. I would do my best to push through these fears with a 12 burst of optimism and determination, trying to put my troubles at the foot of the Cross and stay focused on Jesus" love for me. Daren and I still felt that there might be some connection to the dental work but Dr. B did not think that there was any possible connection. If only Dr. B had read some of the publications by fellow dentist Dr. Hal Huggins who is one of the world"s leading researchers and experts on the clinical effects of mercury poisoning as related to dental work. Or had Dr. B learned from one of many European countries which no longer allow mercury to be used in dental fillings (even Canada outlawed the use of mercury fillings years ago for young children and pregnant women). If only the ADA would respect their member dentists and their patients enough to communicate the true health risks of mercury in dental work. Ignorance can literally have crippling results in certain situations can"t it? In the case of Dr. B, ignorance literally begot blindness. Whatever the root cause, by now I was not only feeling discouraged and frustrated but the beginning of a real fear for my long term health was starting to take root in my mind. I scheduled an appointment with my family physician, Dr. M, to see if she might be able to give us some answers. And, I leveraged some guidance that we had learned previously from cancer survivor, Ann Frahm, in her book "A Cancer Battle Plan" as I began to follow her recommendations for a very regimented nutrition program. I was a strong believer that God miraculously created our bodies to be capable of healing themselves from most illness if only the right nutrition, rest and exercise were provided. I remembered the story of Daniel and his friends who were healthier after a period of eating fresh fruits, vegetables and water than King Nebuchadnezzar"s court who ate all of man"s richest food and drink creations of that time. I didn"t know what was causing the numbness but I knew that improving my nutrition could only help even if it couldn"t totally solve the problem. So on February 4, I explained my symptoms, which now included numbness all the way up each leg and into my torso, to Dr. M. I felt tightness around my chest, was very tired and had shortness of breath. Dr. M was so kind, attentive and sympathetic that it felt 13 good to be in her presence even though she did not offer any of the answers that we were hoping for. She did not define any root cause or cure but did recognize the group of symptoms as being neurological in nature. So she referred us to Dr. W, a neurologist who would be able to see me the next day. My first visit with Dr. W was inconclusive. She initially suspected a mild sensory Guillan-Barre syndrome but would order a series of consecutive tests as chronicled below along with her thoughts and diagnosis as each of the test results were analyzed: Neurological Testing & Diagnosis Date 2/5/99 Test First visit. Symptomology Discussed 2/10/99 EMG/Nerve Conduction study Normal Results Dr. W Comments/Diagnosis Suspects mild Guillan-Barre. Orders lower body nerve conduction studies Begins to rule out MS based on progression of symptoms. Still suspects Guillan-Barre. 2/16/99 Clinical follow up. Some clonus in ankles is detected. 3/1/99 MRI of Cervical/Thoracic spine 3/16/99 MRI of Head Abnormal. Multiple per ventricular white matter most compatible with a demyelinating disease. Inflammation seen from C7 to T2. Orders an MRI scan of Cervical/Thoracic spine to look for inflammations. Suspects MS. Orders blood work to rule out Lupus as well as an MRI of the head. Dr. W concludes that I have MS! 14 It was that last encounter with Dr. W on March 16 that provided the greatest real-world revelation to Daren and I about how ignorant some otherwise very intelligent medical professionals can be. Ignorant to certain truths simply because these truths were not specifically presented to them in their formal education. It is almost an intellectual arrogance that takes the posture of: "I know what I know and I don"t want to hear about what I don"t know." Dr. W carefully and compassionately presented the MS diagnosis as she probably had done hundreds of times before. "We don"t know what causes it and, unfortunately there is no cure," she said. "And we don"t know how severe it will be or exactly what symptoms you will experience. And, the symptoms and severity seem to come and go over time." Very engaged, very empathetic. But, as educated and scientific as Dr. W was, her explanation of MS seemed more "hocus pocus" than science. Let"s summarize what she was saying: MS stands for multiple spots Multiple spots because we observe many of these spots on the MRI We know that the spots are inflammation But we don"t know what causes the inflammation We know that the inflammation causes the neurological decay and symptoms We observe how it mysteriously comes and goes but we don"t know why There is no cure, we can just treat some of the symptoms with different medications and medical procedures. We have to wait and see how severe it gets and what symptoms you get to decide what medicines to prescribe. After 5 years of observation, we will be able to determine your specific level of MS severity. Now, compare that to the following explanation that we now understand to be the reality of my case and ask yourself which seems more logical…. more scientific: I am a healthy, 31-year-old woman with no past MS-type symptoms or any real medical history. 15 - I go to the dentist and have 2 fillings (which are 50%-70% mercury) drilled out of my teeth. - I am breathing this mercury vapor and swallowing drill filings for 40 minutes. Severe headaches start the very day of the mercury exposure and last for 2 weeks. - The headaches go away but are replaced with the numbness symptoms. The MRI shows that I have many spots of inflammation in my head. My dentist is suffering the neurological problem of blindness. The mercury traveled through my bloodstream into my brain and spine and then was attacked by my immune system which caused the inflammation. - Cause and effect. I prayed to God for healing and He led me to the words "purify yourself from everything that makes your body unclean." - And, later, when I was specifically detoxified from mercury, the symptoms and inflammation went away. - And now I am healthy again! Isn"t it obvious which explanation is more scientific and which one is more mysterious and hocus pocus? What I have learned through all of this, above all else, is that I have one physician who is great. He is The Great Physician – He is Jesus! But, in that meeting with Dr. W on March 16, after her empathetic explanation of my incurable MS condition, when Daren presented the scenario above and asked if the inflammation could be caused by my body"s immune system attacking tiny molecules of mercury in my body, the Dr. immediately crossed her arms, stepped back, stiffened her body, started shaking her head and said "No." As I look back on it, I keep transposing Dr. W"s body language with that of the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy is holding the bucket of water and is about to throw it on her. I can"t get that comparison out of my mind. When Daren said "mercury from Deb"s dental fillings" it was almost as if we had just stumbled upon a well-concealed secret that, if exposed, could make ruins of the small empire that her neurological practice provided. The Dr. was able to regain 16 composure and give us a very professional sounding answer that went something like: "If there were any relation between mercury in dental work and MS, it would have been published in my medical journals and I would know about it." What"s interesting is that she didn"t stop to ask us how we knew about it and she abruptly ended the conversation, and the visit, with obvious determination to not learn any more about this. It was as if we were holding a bucket of…. mercury for example…. and she wanted us out of there before we accidentally spilled some on her. Now, the reason that we knew, on March 16, to ask Dr. W about mercury being the root cause of my symptoms was because we had been educating ourselves by the Providence of God during the preceding weeks. And, just how we came to this saving knowledge and moved from ignorance to enlightenment will be unveiled in the next chapter. There are a lot of very wonderful doctors, scientists, authors and educators out there who are truly giving their life"s work to helping others. However, there are also people in positions of power and influence throughout the medical and dental field who care more about their reputation and wealth than they do about your health. Like I said at the end of Chapter 1, people may let us down at times but Jesus never will. God created you for His pleasure and He will work all things for good for those who love and trust Him. So, keep your eyes and your heart on God. Trust in Jesus and His teachings and He will lead you in the path that is good and right. Jesus is the light of the world. He does not want us to live in ignorance. Jesus is the Truth that sets us free. . 17 Chapter 3 Wisdom We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true. 1 John 5:20 It was at my initial appointment with Dr. M on March 15, 1999 when I first considered that my symptoms might be related to MS. I was still certain that I was having some reaction to the dental anesthetic or all of the Tylenol that I had taken. But, after describing the tingling and numbness to Dr. M, she said that she was concerned that I had some serious neurological problem. Dr. M said that she would need to refer me to a local neurologist but that she would personally call the neurology office to see if she could get me in for an evaluation within the next 2 days. When I asked her to elaborate on what she was thinking and if she could give me any of the possibilities that they would be considering…. her expression changed and, in a voice of solemn concern, she said, "MS." She also mentioned some other possibilities but my mind was focused on her first possibility – MS. I knew very little about MS at this point but had heard enough in third party conversations with friends who knew people with MS to know that this was not good. The words and emotions that went through my mind were: disabled; crippled; pity; sadness; sorrow; dependence. I looked down at my 3-year-old daughter who was with me for the exam. I choked back the tears in my eyes as I gazed into hers. Dependence is not how I wanted my life to be defined at this time of young motherhood. So I put on my tough farm girl face and mustered courage. I mentally regrouped and reminded myself of God"s love for me. I thanked the doctor for her time and referral. I 18 spoke in a positive manner and left with optimism. After all, I was starting to get somewhere with my diagnosis. I was determined to find out as much as I could about MS and to figure out my plan of recovery from it. I called Daren on my way home and told him what I knew. He was still at work but was equally determined to learn as much as possible about MS as soon as he got home. Daren was optimistic and reassured me that God would answer our prayers and provide a path for healing. Just like it says in the Bible where Jesus reassures us that He is a light unto our path and a lamp unto our feet. By the time he got home, Daren had already talked with his father (a Chiropractor with 40 years of clinical practice) who had provided some summary information on MS. Daren began an internet search while I made dinner. By the time the kids were tucked into bed, we had assembled seemingly all that was known by the medical community about MS. Not that we could get access to and digest every case study and every research report ever published in just a few hours. But when every official looking medical explanation about a disease says "We don"t know what causes it and there is no cure," then you learn, pretty quickly, just about everything a person with MS needs to know. So, to keep our optimism, we put ourselves to bed that night with the assurance that "I don"t actually have MS," and that our future evaluations with the neurologist would verify this. The next day, I began the series of neurological visits and related tests that were chronicled in the previous chapter. Importantly, as I followed that path of standard medical treatment, I also devoted hours each day to prayer and Bible study in an attempt to find God"s answer to my problems and His will for my life. As my medical diagnosis seemed to be heading more and more positively toward that hopelessness of MS, I prayed more and listened harder for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was in one of these hours of prayer and devotion, after everyone else was asleep, that I encountered God in the 2 19 Corinthians 7:1 revelation that I shared in the opening chapter. Again, I didn"t know the path at the time but I knew the destination. God had promised me that He would restore me to health. And I knew that the remedy would lie in the purification of something unclean from my body. The next clearly divine answer to my prayers came in the form of a phone call from my mother a couple evenings later. My mother still lives on the 300 acre farm where I grew up, about 5 miles outside of the tiny town of Monticello, Iowa. 3,000 caring souls working hard to provide for their families and cooperate with their neighbors in a small agricultural community. Often a hard life but one that certainly builds character and grows the heart. For some exercise and always a little socializing, mom treks a few miles several times a week to a friend"s indoor-pool-turned-recreation-center. She had been in the hot-tub talking with one of her swimming-circle friends that afternoon and felt that she came upon some information that might help me. Mom was discussing my symptoms and the fear of MS with her friend. The friend asked if the symptoms started after dental work was done. Mom answered "yes" but parroted how my doctors didn"t think there was any correlation. The friend stated that about a year previous, a church from the Western part of the state had held a retreat on her property and that one of the Christian"s on the retreat was a certain Renee Mauser from Osage, IA. She said that she was fascinated with Mrs. Mauser"s personal testimony of terrible sickness but then full recovery from numerous neurological problems. Mrs. Mauser"s symptoms had been caused from mercury from dental fillings. Once she found this out and got detoxified from the mercury, her symptoms went away and she was healed! OK, remember, this is my mom and another non-medically-trained lady in a hot tub, 20 miles from the nearest stoplight, in a community of a few thousand people. Practically out in the wilderness! Not the place where you expect great neurological discoveries to take place. Here I had been rushing off to numerous multi-million-dollar medical clinics staffed with many highly educated and well-funded doctors trying to find the cause and 20 cure of my symptoms when I could have just wandered a few miles from my country home. Isn"t that just like God? He gives you answers but it is usually on His timetable and in His unexpected ways. I think of Moses getting direction from a burning bush. Or, the Israelites having to spend 40 years in the wilderness and having to be nourished on a miracle Manna from Heaven to learn the lesson that "God Provides." So "THANK YOU GOD! And THANK YOU MOM!!" I said to myself as I rushed upstairs to tell Daren what I had found. We quickly called directory assistance to see if there was still a Renee Mauser residing in Osage, IA. There was and Daren called her immediately. We were blessed to catch her at home. The following is the summary of the information that Daren got from Renee that evening: Renee was married with children when she was diagnosed with MS in the late 1980"s. Her symptoms progressed quickly with emphasis on debilitating neurological involvement that kept her bedridden as a helpless invalid for 3 long years. Renee suffered from over 40 symptoms each day. These included: severe, stinging headaches; confusion; speech problems; difficulty remembering; eye pain; blurred vision; photo phobia; and severe allergic reactions to most environmental stimuli. Mentally, she was so confused and forgetful that she "couldn"t tell you how many pennies were in a dime." Severe muscle, joint and bone pain rendered Renee immobile. She would suffer daily fever and chills and experienced constant nausea and diarrhea. The most upsetting symptoms were sleep apnea and premature ventricular heart beats. Her symptoms went on an on and her life was slipping away. Renee relied on constant care by her husband to survive. She and her family had lost hope on any recovery. Then, after 3 years of suffering, in 1990, a friend reported to Renee and her husband about a 60-Minutes television episode that reported on possible links between MS and dental mercury. The Mauser"s immediately began down a path of investigation into heavy metal toxicity and discovered that Renee did indeed have high levels of mercury and other heavy metals in her system. She had her amalgams properly removed and then began the standard heavy metal detox treatment of DMPS and vitamin 21 C chelation. Within 4 months, Renee was nearly symptom-free and spending an hour per day on a ski machine. Renee went on to explain that our bodies can be detoxified from heavy metals once we identify that we have a metal toxicity. The problem is that the mainstream medical and dental communities refuse to acknowledge that people can get toxic levels of mercury from dental fillings. If you were to go to an emergency room and describe neurological symptoms like those associated with MS but you said that you were involved in an accident in a paint factory where mercury vapor was released, the standard treatment that you would be prescribed would be DMPS or EDTA chelation. So, Renee went on to explain, the problem is not the cure… it"s the diagnosis. Renee chronicled her detox treatments and explained how, with each chelation, her mind became clearer "as if a fog was lifting from my brain." And her physical symptoms lessened. After 6 months of treatment, she was back to near normal health – over 90% fully recovered. A year later, she was completely symptom free! All of the lead, nickel and mercury had been successfully removed from her body. Renee did caution that, as the mercury would dislodge on its way out of your body (through your urinary tract), that some new symptoms might occur and then disappear. This is normal as the mercury moves and settles and then moves and settles. The chelation is generally done no more frequently than every other day at first and then moves to monthly and the total process can take up to several years. So, while your overall health is returning, there might be occasional backward steps with certain symptoms. "Keep your faith," she said. "You will be healed," she assured us. Hope! With that one testimony, what had been an emptiness of doubt in my evernumbing stomach suddenly turned to energy and optimism. Thank you Renee! God bless you Renee! Days later, we received a large packet of information from Renee that gave dozens of positive testimonies of people like Renee who had gone from incurable suffering to full 22 health with the mercury detoxification process. We found her information filled with research that linked dental fillings with MS and its symptoms. We discovered that many good doctors, dentists and patients have devoted a great deal of their time, money, energy and reputations to trying to bring forward these truths of the dangers of dental mercury. We also found a Christian witness tract in the packet from Renee. I don"t think I will ever lose the picture in my mind of that little card with a painting of Jesus as the first thing that fell out of that packet onto the desk. Of course Renee was a Christian. Of course, Jesus would want the first thing that fell out of this life-saving packet of information to be a picture of Him. Just to be absolutely sure that I knew He was continuing to be the One answering my prayers… not Renee, not Daren, not my mother or her friend in the hot tub… but Jesus himself working through each of these people. Thank you Jesus! In the days after the talk with Renee but before her packet arrived, we were filled with new hope and energy. We now began to search the internet and library for anything that we could find about Mercury and Heavy Metal Toxicity. We found so much! It"s incredible what answers can be found when you look in the right place. Let me take a moment away from my healing story here and expound just a moment on this thought. Isn"t it amazing what answers can be found when you look in the right place. Take World Peace for example. All of the terrible attacks on humanity that are an unfortunate reality of living in our world today: The Middle East; Africa; Chechnya; Haiti; and the inner cities of the USA. Everyone agrees that World Peace would be great but, yet, no person or no government seems to have the answer. Every year we award brilliant thinkers with the Nobel Peach Prize and yet there are still abundant atrocities. But what if we all looked to the Bible…. To the teachings of God"s Son Jesus… the source of all Truth…? Did Jesus not teach us to love every other person as we would want to be loved ourselves? If every person on Earth followed this simple life instruction would there not be true World Peace overnight? Would there not? Let me say again: Isn"t it amazing what answers can be found when you look in the right place? 23 Thank you for obliging me with your time and consideration of my thoughts on World Peace. Now, I will get back to my mercury toxicity…. Like I said, in the days before Renee"s packet of information arrived, we found many other bits of information and testimonies that continued to reveal the root cause of my sickness being mercury toxicity. Of all of these, there are four unique findings that were particularly helpful to us. I just see God"s Providence in each of them and I want to share these with you before we go on in the next chapter. First – The conversation with our friend Dr. Wicks: Before moving to Buffalo, we had lived in Bettendorf, IA and attended a fabulous little church of Bible Believers called Bettendorf Christian Church. BCC is where we really began to study the Bible… both at home and with a small group of young married couples on Wednesday nights. We praise God for planting us in that Garden of Love and Biblical Wisdom. One of our many friendships at BCC was with Dr. Tom and Linda Wicks. Dr. Wicks is a gifted Chiropractor and humble servant of God. We have come to know many talented Chiropractors due to our moves around the country but Dr. Wicks is unique in that he was first a licensed Medical Doctor before becoming a Chiropractor. This gives Dr Wicks a tremendous perspective on sickness and symptoms because his training allows him to comprehensively understand the Medical, Chiropractic and Nutritional perspectives. Not only is he multi-dimensional as a healing professional but he has a close connection with the Holy Spirit due to his strong Christian Faith. It was only natural for us to call Dr. Tom to get his thoughts on my illness. I get goose bumps as I recall how God worked through Dr. Tom to give us another clear signal as to the direction that God wanted us to go in our healing strategy. The following is a recap of the conversation that Daren had with Dr. Tom (see if this doesn"t make your spine tingle as well): Daren: "Dr. Tom, Deb has been experiencing neurological problems for over a month and is being diagnosed as suffering from MS. Her symptoms began immediately after 24 having dental work done. Specifically, she had two silver-amalgam fillings drilled out during a procedure that lasted about 40 minutes. We have recently gotten information that these standard silver fillings contain mercury and that her symptoms may be caused by mercury toxicity and her body"s reaction to molecules of mercury in her body. Have you ever heard of anything like this happening before?" Dr. Tom: "You know, it is very coincidental (or Providential – my interjection) that you would ask me that Daren. We were just in Germany this year staying at the home of the German foreign exchange student whom we hosted last school year. His father is a dentist. We were talking dentistry and he told me how all of the dentists in Germany think it is amazing that dentists in the US continue to use mercury-based fillings given the known negative health consequences of mercury. He said that these silver amalgam (mercury) fillings have been banned in Germany and most of Europe for years. He said that it is standard protocol to remove old mercury fillings from any patients that present themselves to a dentist in Germany today. He laughed at the thought of how far behind American dentists are." Again, this could be coincidental or it could be Providential…. you decide. In my opinion, someone who"s medical opinion we greatly value, had not gotten the information that we needed in all of his medical training so God sent him halfway around the world so that he could have a conversation with a European practitioner and gain wisdom that God wanted to be shared with us. Second – The MS Dream Team Web Site: The day after our conversation with Renee Mauser, my father-in-law called us with some interesting information. He advised us to check out a web site called MSDREAMTEAM. My father-in-law was not a born-again Christian at that time. In fact, we had had loving debates with him over the years about whether Jesus was just another of God"s many prophets or whether He was truly God"s Son. So we were surprised to find that the founder of the MS Dream Team site was a born-again believer in Christ who credited his miraculous healing from MS to God"s Grace. Specifically, Mike Snitker"s testimonial 25 was that he was so stricken with MS that he couldn"t get from bed to the bathroom and was asking God to just let him die rather than continue living as an invalid. And that in the midst of his misery, he experienced a divine revelation that showed him the way to healing through removing mercury toxins from his body. Mike"s story of sickness, divine intervention and healing is incredible but I won"t go into all of the details here. Instead, I will encourage you to investigate it for yourself. What I will say is that his healing just added to my own hope and confidence in the path that was being laid out before me. And it was not just Mike"s story but the many web links that sent us from Mike"s site to similar stories of others who suffered these same MS symptoms but were healed when they removed heavy metals from their bodies. How each individual removed the toxins and rebuilt their immune systems varied from case to case and this helped us to become familiar with the broad range of healing therapies available. This helped us to define the battle plan that we would later embark on. Third – The eMedicine Medical information web site We seemed to be traveling on a path that was inspired and laid out by God. And, yet these therapies and sources of information seemed so "alternative" that we somewhat wrestled with the credibility of them. It just feels odd to be trekking out on your own without the backing of the mainstream medical and dental community. So, we were very interested in finding some more "mainstream medicine" publications on the causes and cures of mercury toxicity. One of the mercury free dentists whom we were in discussions with at this time pointed us to just such a resource in the eMedicine web site www.emedicine.com (then search for information regarding mercury toxicity). Apparently, this site is one of the top providers of information to the medical community in the United States. What we found very reassuring was that, here, mainstream medicine was describing the exact symptoms that I had and was stating that these symptoms could be caused by mercury. Further, they pointed out how mercury poisoning is often mis-diagnosed initially as some other neurological disease such as MS. Finally, they listed dental amalgams as one possible source of mercury exposure – here it is Dr W! And they listed protocol for mercury detoxification that was consistent 26 with what our alternative doctors were prescribing. Obviously, this brought us an extra level of comfort and confidence in our plan. I"m sure that many "procedures" resources exist out there from many different schools and clinics. This eMedicine site just happened to be the one that we sourced first. So, once we know that a person has heavy metals problems, we do all seem to agree on how to remove the metal. "All" meaning both the mainstream medical community and the alternative medicine pioneers. As we have stated before, it is just that most doctors don"t feel comfortable with the idea that a person can get a toxic level of metals from dental fillings. Makes me think of other times when "most" doctors clearly had the wrong ideas… like bleeding people who were sick to try to remove the bad blood. So now all of these Providential bits of information seemed to be aligning and our confidence was peaking. We knew the cause of my problems and we had testimonial after testimonial of how people had addressed this same cause and then continued to restore health to their sick body. All we needed now was to define the exact detoxification and health restoration plan. And we had learned of a great many strategies and had read of them working in a variety of ways and timelines across a wide range of individuals. We knew that each person was different and that the exact best cure was not the same for everyone. So, what would my precise strategy be? If only there was an expert who had clinical experience with a large number of mercury-troubled patients. Well, we found that just such an expert did exist -enter Dr. Hal Huggins. Fourth – The many publications of Dr. Hal Huggins: Don"t you admire those rare individuals who are willing to sacrifice their lives, their wealth, and their position to swim counter to the popular current, and to courageously face confrontation to do what they know in their heart to be right? 27 I think of people like: The founding fathers of our nation who pledged their lives, their wealth and their sacred honor to declare independence from an oppressive mother country. Like Abraham Lincoln who held fast to his belief that slavery was wrong and that freedom was worth fighting for. Like Martin Luther King who made the country aware that, while slavery had officially ended, the destructive practice of racism was keeping so many great Americans in bondage. Like Helen Keller who proved to everyone that people with disabilities could be productive and live mainstream lives. Like Winston Churchill who awakened the appeaser nations to the true threat of a horrifyingly evil leader. Like Ronald Reagan who knew that putting up walls to keep a country"s citizens captive was wrong. Like President George W. Bush who has taken a non-politically-correct stance against global terrorism – because he knows terrorism is a threat to the innocent and that a policy of appeasement will not work with terrorists. Like John the Baptist who openly told people that their ways were evil and that they must repent of this ungodly behavior. Like Martin Luther who knew in his heart that a relationship was more important than ritual. 28 And like Paul who preached the Good News of the Gospel while suffering repetitive persecution. Well, Dr. Hal Huggins is one of these people. Dr. Huggins, a dentist, has devoted his life to the study of the negative health consequences of modern American dental work. He has chronicled countless clinical cases (including myself) of people who have been stricken with serious health problems as a result of: mercury toxicity from dental amalgams; root canals; infected cavitations; or a combination of these. He has partnered with other doctors and scientists to develop protocols for treatment and reversal of these dental-related afflictions. He has founded clinics and trained other doctors in these protocols. He has initiated studies, authored books and written articles to share this knowledge with the world. And he has been shunned and rejected by the AMA and ADA. His license to practice dentistry in the US has been revoked. He has suffered alienation and ridicule by those who were once his peers and colleagues. The book Uniformed Consent by Dr. Huggins and Dr. Tom Levy is the resource that I found most helpful in my search for the right healing plan. You need to read this book and understand this information. And you need to incorporate the knowledge of Dr. Huggins into your plan for healing (www.drhuggins.com). Remember when God asked Solomon what gift he wanted to be granted and Solomon asked for wisdom? And God said that this was good and Solomon was blessed with not just wisdom but with all other things that a King might hope for. As I said before, the problem with MS and Mercury Toxicity in my case, was not the cure, it was the diagnosis. Once you move from ignorance to wisdom in your knowledge of the true cause of your sickness, then God is ready to bless you with health through the healing processes that He has already built into your body. Now that you are enlightened, we are ready to develop your healing plan and to begin your physical restoration. 29 Chapter 4 Healing When He heard this, Jesus said "this sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." John 11:4 In Og Mandino"s book, The Greatest Miracle, he explains how people, you and I, are God"s greatest miracle. Mandino is a masterful author and this book is an excellent work. It is very inspirational, especially if you are currently going through any kind of trials or troubled times. I know this book was a blessing to me and I would certainly recommend it. In the book, Mandino emphasizes the biological miracle that the human creation truly is. I share some of these illustrations with you in the next paragraph. One of the major points that I take away from this is that God designed our physical bodies to heal themselves. Think about that as you consider some of the following facts and thoughts taken from Mandino"s "The Greatest Miracle." We are each a Miraculous Creation Nothing else on Earth comes close! In your eyes alone there are 100 Million receptors. In your ears are 24,000 fibers that translate vibration into hearing. You have 500 muscles, 200 bones & 7 miles of nerve fibers. Your brain has 13 Billion nerve cells. Your heart beats 36 Million times a year sending blood through 60,000 miles of veins & arteries. Your lungs filter oxygen using 600 Million pockets of folded flesh. 30 Within your 5 qts. of blood are 2 Trillion blood cells. Each second, 2 million of your blood cells die to be replaced by 2 million new ones. Each second, 2 million of your blood cells die to be replaced by 2 million new ones. I repeated that on purpose. Can you believe that!? Each second! Your skin constantly renews itself – healing itself of cuts and damage... what a miracle! In fact, your body is constantly healing itself by replacing dead cells with new ones. Each type of cell reproduces at different rates but none longer than 1 year. So each year, you have a totally new body! Your body heals itself. Think about it. Truly miraculous! So your body can heal itself, replace itself and, each year, you have a totally new body. Wouldn"t it be great if your car did that? A funny side-bar is that my minivan has so many door dings in it that about 3 years ago, the girls and I started calling it "Dinger." "Poor Dinger," we would say as we walked out of the grocery store and noticed another door ding on her side. Wouldn"t it be nice if I could just park Dinger in the garage and, after a good night"s rest, come out in the morning to find the door dings all miraculously healed? Nice thought, but no such luck. The good news is that my body can heal itself. God designed it to be able to heal itself. And I spend 24 hours a day in my body. I only spend about an hour a day in Dinger. So let"s praise God for his wonderful creation and not worry about Dinger for now. So, any thorough study of the human anatomy is going to validate the miraculous fact that we each were designed by God to heal ourselves. Given my situation, as a young 31 mother struggling with the onset of MS, I believed in God"s creation and this self-healing design but I had two big questions: 1.) If my body was designed by God to heal itself, then why am I not healing myself of MS? 2.) If my body can heal itself, why do I need the help of any doctors, therapies or medicines? I"m sure that if you are dealing with any persistent illness right now then you are wondering the same things. So let me give you the answers that I found. First, why wasn"t my body healing itself from MS if that was God"s design? The simple answer is that there are limits to what the body can do in its healing and restoration. Even though God can do all things, including raise a person from death back to life, it seems that He normally allows His creation to live within certain physical boundaries. For example, when Peter chopped off the ear of a guard on the night of Jesus" capture, Jesus reached out and restored the ear. So, while God could restore an ear or a limb through a miracle, He normally doesn"t intervene in that way in our lives. So, if your father lost a limb liberating the people of France in WWII, the restoration of that limb was beyond his body"s God-designed ability to heal. The human body cannot regenerate a lost limb. In the same way, a person like George Burns can smoke his whole life and not die from the effects of smoking. A smoker"s body is under a toxic assault but his body"s built-in detoxification system is able to stay one step ahead of the toxins. However, a person caught in a house fire almost always dies of smoke inhalation before actually dying of the heat. The smoke in a fire is in such a quantity that the lungs cannot filter in enough oxygen. Again, God could intervene with a miracle like when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into King Nebuchadnezzar"s furnace and He could allow someone to survive a set of normally-fatal circumstances if He chose to. 32 I believe in God and His ability to answer prayers and perform miracles. I believe that He gave me the unique compilation of wisdom and truths regarding health and healing that I needed to put my body back on the path of restoration. I believe that God wants me to share this information with you. How you respond to His truths, is your decision. Whether it is our health or our salvation, God gives each of us the freedom to make our own choices. So, in my case, it was the mercury that pushed my body beyond its ability to self-heal. The amount of mercury in my body was too great for my detoxification system to eliminate it on its own. So, even though my body was trying to detoxify as it was designed, my symptoms were getting worse instead of getting better. Each person"s body has its own unique threshold to how many toxins it can deal with successfully. Once you exceed that limit, any additional toxins become free to wage destruction without being held in check by your body"s defenses. Mercury is a particularly dangerous toxin. Ask your neighborhood EPA enforcement official how much mercury is safe to dump into Lake Michigan each week. He wouldn"t let you drop one dental filling"s worth into that entire lake and, yet, the ADA claims that it is safe to put these things in your mouth. Though it is extremely toxic, our bodies can eliminate mercury. Each person can handle a different amount. How much you can eliminate depends on an enormous amount of factors. In the end, when it comes to mercury toxicity, it all comes down to this summary: 1.) Any amount of mercury is harmful. 2.) If you are having health problems, then your body is telling you that it is not able to handle your current amount of mercury on its own. 3.) The healthier that you are, the more effective your body is at detoxifying. 4.) Any other toxins are an additional burden and challenge to your body"s attempt to get rid of the mercury. 33 5.) God wants you to be healthy but He also wants you to trust in Him. Look at all of the people whom Jesus healed. But notice that it was almost always upon their true conviction of Faith in Him when the healing actually took place. See, if Heaven is for Eternity, then the most important thing for us to do on Earth is to make sure we get to Heaven. And, it is when we believe that Jesus is the Son of God that we secure our spot in Heaven. So, the physical healing of your body is meaningless if your soul is not saved. So, our Healing Plan comes down to this: I. Have Faith in Jesus, save your soul, praise God and pray for physical healing. II. Stop all new toxins from coming in. III. Get yourself as healthy as possible. IV. Undergo treatments and therapies that help your body eliminate existing toxins. Follow along closely as we now go through the details of each of these four steps: I. Have Faith in Jesus, save your soul, praise God and pray for physical healing. a. Read the New Testament from Mathew to Revelation (I prefer the NIV version of the Bible because it is just easier for me to read). b. Pray to God for His will to be done in your life. Pray for guidance and courage to follow His leading. c. Attend a Bible-based church (remember that people are fallen and that many church leaders drift from accurate Bible teaching into teachings of their own design). Pray that God would lead you to the right church. 34 d. Learn from other books and resources to help strengthen your faith and to improve your understanding of the teachings of Jesus. Here are some resources that I would recommend: i. Dr. Kent Hovind"s 15-hour Creation Science video seminar – strengthened our Faith in the truth of the Bible by scientifically refuting modern evolution theories and by supporting the Biblical account of Creation (www.DrDino.com) ii. Mel Gibson"s The Passion movie drama – illustrates Jesus Christ"s love for each of us despite our sins. iii. The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel iv. America Looks Up by Max Lucado. v. The Teachings of Billy Graham - www.billygraham.org e. Pray to God confessing your Faith in Jesus as His son and as your Savior. Repent of your sins and ask for help to live the life that God wants you to live. Tell others about your decision to follow Christ"s teachings and take the opportunity of adult baptism to put your past behind you and arise from the water to walk in a newness of life. II. Stop all new toxins from coming in. a. Food can be toxic in the following ways: i. Residual pesticides & herbicides are toxic and can be on anything that is not certified organic. EAT ONLY ORGANIC FOODS! ii. Chemical preservatives are toxic. EAT ONLY ORGANIC FOODS! iii. Artificial Flavors and Colorings are toxic. EAT ONLY ORGANIC FOODS! iv. Sugar throws your body out of balance chemically; reverses the dentine flow in your teeth which leads to dental destruction; 35 cripples your immune system; and can lead to diabetes. Reduce your daily sugar intake as much as possible. v. Sugar substitutes are toxic. vi. Caffeine is toxic and causes cancer. If you are a coffee person, switch to Organic Decaff, or better yet, switch to herbal tea. If you "need" caffeine to feel awake and energized, your body is telling you that it is not getting enough rest, the right nutrition or enough exercise. A healthy body doesn"t need caffeine. vii. Water contains heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, fluoride and other chemicals that are toxic. DRINK PURIFIED WATER! Also note that all bottled water is not purified. Look for the text on the bottle that says "Purified by Reverse Osmosis or Steam Distillation." We got tired of lugging home jugs of purified water from the store and installed a Reverse Osmosis drinking water system in our home about 8 years ago. This makes it convenient to have purified water for cooking, feeding the plants and pets and mixing juices as well as for drinking. viii. You can get heavy metal residue from your cookware. I switched from my Teflon coated and stainless steel (nickel) pans to Le Creuset cookware. ix. Alcohol is toxic to your body. If you feel like you "need" beer to unwind or de-stress, try switching that association to organic lemonade. Think of how peaceful and relaxing it is to drink a glass of lemonade. x. When you combine foods improperly, the foods don"t digest well and can create a toxic situation in your body. I talk more about the important factors to digestion and nutrient absorption in the Nutrition section below. xi. The best source that I have found on explaining the toxins in food is Dr. Malkmus at Hallelujah Acres. You need to watch his video testimonial called "How to Eliminate Sickness." www.hacres.com 36 37 b. Your current medicines can be Toxic. i. Many of the medicines that get prescribed are designed to eliminate symptoms but do not correct the root health problem that is causing the symptom. Our Healing Plan focuses all of our energy on restoring total health to your body which will eliminate the need for any of these "symptom-masking" medicines. ii. Vaccinations can be toxic. Some contain mercury. Most people can metabolize a vaccination with little negative impact to their health. And yet others (especially infants) can suffer permanent damage from vaccinations. Read "Vaccinations Deception & Tragedy" by Michael Dye. iii. If you read all of the potential negative side effects of any medicine that you are taking, you will get an idea of all the ways that this medicine can be toxic to your body. iv. I encourage you to have a serious dialog with your doctor about each of your medicines and exactly how they are benefiting you – especially in the area of eliminating the root cause of your symptoms. I believe that if you follow this Healing Plan, that you will restore full health to your body and will no longer have any symptoms that justify medicating. v. Again, the Dr. Malkmus teachings on nutrition provide a great resource for understanding the true affects of these medications. c. Air can be Toxic i. Obviously Smoking is an extreme, direct toxic assault on your body. You must stop smoking to fully employ the healing forces that are designed by God into your body. You also need to be careful of second-hand smoke. ii. There may be some other work or hobby activity involving toxic air fumes that you need to change. For example, painting or 38 cleaning with chemicals can be toxic. Application of any chemicals such as pesticides or herbicides can create toxic air. Do you have a lawn service that sprays chemicals on the yard where your children play? Working around running vehicles or other fuel combustion emissions can be toxic (think about how many hours you spend a year in traffic behind another vehicle). iii. Certain beauty products can have very harmful fumes. For example, hair sprays; finger nail paints & removers and hair coloring chemicals can each provide a toxic exposure. iv. Certain body lotions & chemicals can be toxic. Antiperspirants are probably the most concerning. But lotions, makeup and perfumes can all be toxic. Toothpastes and mouthwashes can be toxic. Certain contact lens cleaning fluids can be toxic. I try to purchase organic & 100% natural forms of health & beauty products for our family. The two main sources that I use are: Aveda and Frontier Products. v. Work environments can circulate toxic levels of chemicals from cleaners, paints, carpet or other building materials. vi. Even the carpet, insulation or other materials in your home can emit toxic fumes. vii. Obviously masks can be worn in certain environments to reduce the risk but the best advice is to keep yourself in fresh, clean air environments. d. Your Dental Work can be Toxic i. Any Silver Amalgam Fillings (which are 50% mercury) in your mouth can be toxic to you in the following ways: 1. The most damaging doses can happen if you have these fillings removed improperly. It is critical that you utilize a dentist who is trained in and is using the Huggins 39 protocol for removal of mercury amalgams if you choose to have your fillings removed. 2. With every breath, you are taking in tiny amounts of mercury vapor that emit themselves from these fillings as they lay silently in your teeth. The drinking of hot liquids or chewing of gum can increase the amount of vapor that is emitted. 3. Mercury in its elemental form can leach from these fillings into the skin inside your mouth over time causing "mercury tattooing" and infiltrating your blood system. 4. Metal fillings of different compositions can create electrical charges and magnetism that negatively affects the normal brain and nervous system functions as they corrode and deteriorate. 5. Read the book "Uninformed Consent" by Dr. Hal Huggins and Dr. Tom Levy. 6. You are going to want to investigate the removal of your existing mercury fillings. I would highly recommend that you schedule a comprehensive consultation with Dr. Hal Huggins. He can direct you to a dentist that has had the proper training to conduct a removal that is safe: Dr. Hal A. Huggins, DDS, MS 5082 List Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80919 866-948-4638 www.drhuggins.com email@example.com ii. Cavitations 1. These are the small voids that are created during the healing of a tooth extraction where the jaw bone has not completely bridged the space once filled by the tooth. 40 Cavitations easily become infected creating a toxic challenge to your body. This can be critically damaging since this toxic charge is so close to the brain. 2. Cavitations can be corrected by a trained doctor who follows the Huggins protocol. iii. Root Canals 1. This procedure effectively kills the tooth but leaves it to rot in place. The rotting produces toxins which then have a direct path to the brain via the metal post that is sunk into the jaw bone. 2. The metal post itself is a toxic challenge to your body. 3. Read the book "Root Canal Cover-up" by Dr. George E. Meinig. III. Get yourself as healthy as possible. a. Nutrition – You need to provide your body with all the nutrients that it needs to function properly. Your starting point is raw, fresh organic, fruits and vegetables. In addition, you may need to supplement with extra vitamins and minerals. Your ACAM doctor can conduct the testing needed to determine deficiencies and provide a supplementation plan customized for you. For example, I take numerous vitamin and mineral supplements including over 4 grams of vitamin C every day ( I purchase vitamin C through Bronson (http://www.bronsonvitamins.net/home.cfm) in the crystal form and mix it with water and organic lemon juice and drink it throughout the day). Source the ACAM website www.acam.org to find a local ACAM professional. In addition, get the book "God"s Way to Ultimate Health" by Dr. Malkmus which gives wonderful menu planning for the nutrition that you need each 41 day. In this Malkmus book, there is great information on "Food Combining" on pp. 94-95. The concept here is that proper digestion of your food is critical to getting proper absorption of nutrients and that you should eat different categories of food separately to get optimal digestion. Along with proper combining (really separating) other keys to good digestion are: Thorough chewing; avoiding drinks with meals – especially cold drinks; eating foods raw rather than cooked; supplementing with digestive enzymes when eating cooked foods. b. Rest – You need at least 8 hours of sleep daily for restoration when you are sick. c. Exercise – Your body needs oxygen. Your muscles need to be exercised. Your heart is the most important muscle in your body and you can"t strengthen it without aerobic exercise. You need to gradually work up to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise per day and stick with this for your entire recovery period. There are lots of reasons why you can"t do this but you need to do it. Just do it. This 40 minutes is less than 5% of your 24 hour day and it will make the other 95% of your day 100% better. You will feel more energetic (oxygen does wonders for your energy level) and you will sleep better at night. It will also help motivate you to follow your nutrition program more faithfully. Nothing helps a smoker to quit smoking more than to know that he will be spending 40 minutes jogging later that day. You will actually crave the good, nutrient rich foods that you should be eating because of your exercise activities. d. Chiropractic & Massage – You should get a 1-hour massage and a chiropractic treatment at least once a month. These are critical to ensuring that your nervous system is functioning properly and that your muscles are getting the detoxifying benefits of physical massage. e. Prayer – Pray constantly. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Ask and you will receive. f. De-Stress – Stress comes in many forms and they are each hard on your body. Find ways to bring relaxation into your day. Things that worked 42 for me were: Long Showers; Soaking mineral baths; Deep breathing; Massage; Walks outdoors; Gardening; Prayer. IV. Undergo Treatments & Therapies that help your body eliminate existing toxins. a. Physical removal of Toxic Fillings & Replacement with Bio-compatible material – Again, the removal of your fillings can give you a very high one-time exposure to mercury if they aren"t removed correctly. So you need to be sure that the doctor you use has been trained in the Huggins protocols. It is also critical that you have a lab do a blood serum biocompatibility study against all of the dental materials available so that you are certain that the new filling materials are highly compatible with your body chemistry. Each person is different. In my case, my compatibility report showed that I was highly incompatible with almost every material that normally works for most people. In fact, the clinic that I used, that does this revision work every day, had to special-order my replacement materials. This helped explain why jewelry, that contained any metal other than 14K gold, had always seriously irritated my skin in the past. Since I was a teenager, I can remember infected ear lobes from silver earrings and green or red rashy wrists from any non-gold bracelets. b. Clean up Cavitations & Eliminate Root Canals – You need to incorporate these procedures into your total dental revision plan. Again, I would recommend consultation with Dr. Huggins for his perspective on the most appropriate center to have any removal work done. All my fillings were removed, my crowns were replaced, my cavitations were corrected and my root canal was removed. We were there a little over a week but all of the work was completed in one day and, within 36 hours, I was out of pain and walking on the beach. 43 c. Chelation for Heavy Metal Detoxification - Chelation treatments are the way that you get the mercury and other heavy metals to drain out of your body. These treatments need to be done in a very systematic way with an experienced ACAM doctor. Again, I will refer you to the www.ACAM.org website to find a doctor near you. If you happen to live within driving distance of Cincinnati, I must refer you to Dr. Theodore Cole at the Cole Center for Healing in Sharonville, OH. You are in expert hands with Dr. Cole. CAUTION: Chelation itself must be done very gradually. The problem is that the chelation causes mercury to move throughout your body as it is being pulled loose by the chelating chemicals and traveling toward the urinary tract. It is common for you to experience new symptoms as the mercury moves around on its way out. In many ways, detoxification is temporary retoxification for your body. d. Supplementation for other Toxins/Deficiencies – Again, your ACAM doctor can set you up with the right vitamin and mineral supplementation that is customized for your deficiencies. Scientific tests like hair analysis can precisely determine what elements your body is missing. Your blood serum biocompatibility testing can also identify any elements that you are not compatible with. My doctor was also proficient with muscle testing and used this in addition to hair analysis to define what my body needed. e. Nutritional IVs – To very quickly build up your immune system, you can be treated with Nutritional IV"s by your ACAM professional. Nutrients are injected directly into your bloodstream in concentrated doses that are not as feasible or efficient to take orally. Consult the clinical studies of Huggins here again. Many nutritionals will have too much B-12 which can actually increase the toxic effects of the mercury. f. Oxygen Therapy – In addition to aerobic exercise, there are two other effective ways to hyper-oxygenate your body. I utilized these early in my treatment when my symptoms kept me from doing the physical exercise that I needed to do. Your body craves oxygen! I believe in the Hovind 44 Theory of Creation (www.drdino.com) which proposes that when God first created the Earth, Adam and Eve lived in an atmosphere that had significantly higher concentrations of oxygen than today. I believe that this is one of the reasons why people lived to be up to 900 years old before Noah"s flood when the Earth"s atmosphere was changed into the presentday concentrations. So, you can spend sessions in a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber or have your ACAM doctor administer Ozone Treatments to you. Either way, your body"s healing processes are accelerated due to the additional oxygen. g. Colonic Cleanse – There is just no pretty way to discuss this topic. So here it is…. Over time and because of poor eating habits, we get lots of "caked on" build-up in our colon. This retards the proper transfer of nutrients into your bloodstream and it also provides a place for toxins to reside. Colonics get you cleaned out and, even though this is probably the last thing that you want to think about doing, you should do it. You can have these administered at a clinic or you can do them yourself in the privacy of your own bathroom. Please refer to The Cancer Battle Source Book by David Frahm for all the messy details. I"m sorry but I do better dealing with colonics in a humorous way because I just find it too embarrassing to try to be serious when talking about them. Your Body Heals Itself! God designed your body to heal itself. Hallelujah! Praise God, my Creator who made me for a purpose. And I praise my God for creating you for your own unique purpose. Yet, His design only works if we keep from the body all of those things that are evil to it and supply the body all of the things that God designed it to have. So, depending on our past, we may have a lot of work to do to get our healing processes liberated and energized. But, God has shown again and again that if we do our part, He will do his. And this healing plan is based on Biblical Truths. 45 And again, this is my own personal testimony – my body was a wreck with how I had treated it for 30+ years, and yet, in about 2 years of following this healing plan, my body was restored to full health and I was freed of my MS symptoms. In case you missed it, I physically felt better three years ago at age 35 than at 25 and I delivered the healthiest of my three children at age 36! My baby boy Braden just turned 2 and continues to be an amazing living testimony to God"s self-healing design and also to how He will answer the prayers of the faithful. My only worry is how much we will be spending on organic foods for this boy over the next 18 years. Wow can he eat!! I know that this Healing Plan will work for you. Not just because it worked for me but because it is a Christ-centered plan. And Jesus Christ is just as concerned about your well-being today as he was 2000 years ago when He laid down His life for you. 46 Chapter 5 Persistence Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 If you follow the Healing Plan that was outlined in the previous chapter, your body will unleash all of the restorative processes that God designed into it. And you will be healed. And you will be Saved. And God will make known to you how He wants you to serve his kingdom during the months and years that you are still here on Earth. And you will live with the Fullness of purpose and Joy that God wants for you. But this healing plan is not easy and it is not fun. I would rather sit on the couch in my pajamas, watch a sitcom with the fire going and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry"s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (right out of the carton), than do a home-colonic, go for a 40 minute jog and then drink a mixture of carrot juice, barley grass and flax seed oil. Of course I would! Which would you rather do? But what does your body want you to do? In your condition of ill-health, what does your body need you to do? And this is the key. We need to get our mind to want us to do the right thing for our body. It is difficult. It takes persistence. It takes encouragement and support from those around you. You need to figure out the key triggers that help you retrain your mind in this way. For me, some of the triggers were: The maternal knowledge that my health was very important for my children. The motivation (almost brainwashing) that I got from watching the Malkmus "How to Eliminate Sickness Video" again and again. 47 - The support and encouragement that I got from my husband. The hope that I found in the testimonies of Mike Snitker, Renee Mauser and others who recovered from mercury toxicity. - The inspiration that I got from reading the Bible and prayer. When I talk about the need for persistence, I am talking about strictly following this healing plan for at least a year. And for most people, you need to invest a full two years. For some, it may be three or more years. The time needed for complete healing of each person is as unique as how you got to where you are today. In the rest of this chapter, I am going to chronicle the specific healing strategies that I employed so that you have one very concrete illustration of what you are signing up for. What I can tell you is that it was worth it. It was worth it! If it had taken me an additional 2 years beyond what it actually took, it still would have been worth it!!! If it had taken me an additional 5 years, it still would have been so very worth it!! I was 32 years old! If it had taken me until age 40, it still would have been worth it. If that had been the case, and I live to be 80, that would have meant 40 years of good health versus 40 (or probably a lot less) years of debilitating sickness. So, yes, it is difficult and it takes determination and persistence, but it is certainly worth it! So here is the full recount of my personal road back to health: January, 1999: Again, this is when I underwent the removal of two mercury amalgam dental fillings in Dr B"s dental chair in Buffalo, NY. This exposed me to a significant quantity of methyl mercury as I breathed in the hot mercury vapor that was created by the dentist"s drill. So this is where the timeline of my adventure from health to sickness and back to health began. 48 February, 1999: I began the nutrition enhancement and cleansing program found in "The Cancer Battle Plan" by Anne & David Frahm (www.healthquarters.org). I stopped eating and drinking anything that I knew to be impure. I specifically eliminated all caffeine, alcohol and refined sugar from my diet. For the first two weeks, I followed the full 2-week juice cleanse and fasting procedure as outlined by the Frahms. This was a daily combination of fresh organic apple and carrot juices (we bought a Champion Juicer which has performed great year after year at juicing any fruits or vegetables) along with purified water, supplements and self-administered colonics. The supplements included a fiber solution (to keep the bowels functioning), green drink, vitamin C and multi-vitamins. After the initial 2 weeks, I continued to give my body pure nutrition. Almost all of my meals were fresh, organic fruits, vegetables or juices. A few weeks later, our church encouraged a 40-day fast and prayer initiative tied to the weeks leading up to Easter. So, I took advantage of this extra motivation to continue a juice cleanse for most of that time. Over and over in the Bible, prayers that are accompanied by fasting are abundantly answered. It was a period of time when I really grew closer to God and my faith was so strengthened. I continued to eat purely throughout the vast majority of the remaining 2 years of my recovery. This was a critical part of my healing as I was careful to not add any extra toxic load to my body, while, at the same time, I was providing it all of the nutrition and elements that it needed to regenerate properly at a cellular level. Unfortunately, during the first 6 months of 1999, I did not have the energy or coordination to get much aerobic exercise. So two key elements that my body was not getting were exercise and oxygen. However, I was very disciplined about getting at least 8 hours of sleep per night. In fact, I often got 10+ hours of sleep a day as my body often shut down in exhaustion as it battled the mercury invasion. 49 March, 1999 to April, 2000: As we went over before, March of 1999 is when I was officially diagnosed with MS. I also mentioned that this is when I began my chelation treatments with Dr. Barnes. The following is the ACAM website which you can use as a resource to find ACAM physicians in your area as well as learn more about chelation (www.acam.org). What I can tell you briefly is that there are some very effective chelating chemicals that can be injected into your body that will attach themselves to the mercury and any other heavy metals, causing them to dislodge and flow out of your body over time. The trick is to administer these treatments very gradually and to compliment them with good nutrition, and oxygen. For me, the combination that seemed to be very effective was DMSA first, with supplements and Nutritional IVs, then moving to EDTA Chelations and Oxygen Therapy with a final series of DMPS Chelation. As bad as I felt, I would always end up feeling just wonderful the days immediately following the Nutritional IVs and the Ozone treatments. The following is my exact listing of treatments so you can see the progression: Dr. Barnes (ACAM) & Dental Revision at Huggins Clinic 4/1/99 – DMSA treatment started with 1 tablet orally every other day for 25 tablets 4/6/99 – Nutritional IV 4/13/99 – Nutritional IV 4/20/99 – Nutritional IV 4/27/99 – Nutritional IV 5/5/99 – Nutritional IV 5/12/99 – Chelox (EDTA Chelation + Ozone) IV Therapy 5/19/99 – Nutrox (Nutritional + Ozone) IV Therapy 5/25/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 6/4/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 6/9/99 – Double Nutrox IV Therapy 6/11/99 – Chelox IV Therapy 6/15/99 – Chelox IV Therapy 6/16/99 – Chelox IV Therapy 7/13/99 – Chelox IV Therapy 50 7/20/99 – Chelox IV Therapy 8/18/99 – Chelox IV Therapy 8/20/99 – Nutritional IV 8/23/99 to 9/2/99 – Total Dental Revision at a specialized mercury-free center in Puerto Vallarta under the supervision of Dr. Hal Huggins and Dr. Tom Levy. All of my amalgam fillings were removed. My root canal was removed. My cavitations were corrected. And my crowns were replaced. I was taking high levels of vitamin C throughout this week and underwent a vitamin C IV all during the dental revision. 9/3/99 – Ozone Therapy 9/10/99 – Ozone Therapy 9/17/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 9/24/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 10/15/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 11/19/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 12/15/99 – Nutrox IV Therapy 1/26/00 – Nutrox IV Therapy 2/11/00 – Nutrox IV Therapy 3/10/00 – Nutrox IV Therapy 4/12/00 – Nutrox IV Therapy 4/18/00 – Nutrox IV Therapy In addition to these ACAM treatments, I also utilized the services of a Chiropractor. I have been a chiropractic patient since my teens. So, I continued to have regular chiropractic adjustments at least every 3 weeks during my recovery period. Chiropractic treatments are important to ensure that your nerves are functioning properly. Your brain controls all your bodily functions. It uses your miles and miles of nerves to communicate properly with all of your organs; muscles; ligaments and cells. All your nerves branch off from your spinal cord which runs through the middle of your 24 vertebrae. As these nerves thread through the vertebrae, they can get pinched (subluxated) if your vertebrae are not in proper alignment. So you need all your vertebrae in proper alignment for your body to function as it was designed to do. A chiropractor specializes in getting and keeping all of your vertebrae in proper alignment. 51 Therapeutic massage was available at my chiropractor so I also received massage treatments at least monthly. Massage is another important therapy to help your body restore itself to health – especially when you are detoxifying. May, 2000 We relocated from Buffalo to Cincinnati in May, 2000 and God answered so many of our prayers, including our prayers for competent new doctors. We found a wonderful Chiropractic office and a fantastic ACAM office each within 5 minutes of our new home. In the first 6 months after getting to Cincinnati, I did not have any new chelation IV treatments as Dr. Barnes had given me a self-administered oral DMSA prescription to continue with until I was settled and had resourced a new clinic. Though my symptoms were nearly gone, I felt that I still had mercury in my system so, shortly after my DMSA treatments were complete; I had hair and blood analysis completed at the Cole Center for Healing in Sharonville, OH. My instinct was correct; I still had mercury in my system. So, I began to have chelation treatments in addition to customized supplementation administered by Dr. Cole. I don"t think I have ever met a more knowledgeable doctor as Dr. Cole. His practice included patients who traveled from all over the country to be treated in his clinic. The following is the chronology of my treatments at The Cole Center. Notice that now, at the end of my detoxification, we switched to DMPS chelating agent which is more comprehensive and aggressive at going after mercury. This was needed to pull out the last stubborn bits of mercury. The supplementation that Dr. Cole prescribed was specifically designed to compliment these DMPS treatments. Dr. Cole 6-30-01 7-31-01 8-23-01 9-13-01 Initial blood work, hair analysis & muscle testing DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation 52 10-11-01 11-08-01 12-13-01 1-17-02 2-15-02 3-15-02 5-13-02 DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation DMPS Chelation Ozone Treatment October, 2000 With my symptoms almost completely gone and as I physically began to feel so much better, I started to crave physical exercise. I began walking and then light jogging throughout our (hilly) neighborhood. In addition, in October, 2000, I began a weekly, cardio kickboxing class. I faithfully attended three or four sessions per week -- each being about 1 hour long. This was a wonderful exercise for me and, within months, I was feeling great! I continued this routine of jogging, walking and kickboxing each week for the next two years. I can"t stress the benefits of aerobic exercise enough. Without it, your body is missing out on one of the critical things that it was designed to do. August, 2001 Since May of 2000, my neurological symptoms were almost non-detectable. As I began my DMPS chelation treatments, however, I had an increase in a variety of miscellaneous symptoms over a period of 8-10 weeks. These can easily be explained by the fact that the mercury moves into different places in your body as it is being chelated and pulled out. These symptoms included slight numbness, tiredness and some muscle coordination issues. But, in addition to these, I began to have foggy vision in my right eye. Within about a week, I had almost total vision loss with my right eye. I could see light and dark but couldn"t make out anything. I was very confident that this would be temporary as I had read about this phenomenon in many of the testimonies and clinical studies of people under chelation for mercury. But, nevertheless, I did experience fear and concern, especially about 2 weeks into the full blindness when the vision in my left eye started to get foggy also. My faith was tested but, through prayer and the knowledge that God had given me, I held fast to my hope. My left eye returned to normal within days and then, 53 over the course of about 2 weeks, my right eye returned to full, normal vision. After this final battle with the bits of mercury in my body, the war was won. It was finished. Victory was mine. This vision problem, in August 2001, was the last symptom that I had. As of today, over 3 years later, I have not experienced any other symptom and do not expect to. As you can see, from the treatment dates above, May, 2002 (just after celebrating my 35th birthday) was my final treatment with Dr. Cole. His testing at that time showed that I was finally, completely mercury free. December, 2002 I remember verbalizing several times to Daren and others, during the fall and winter of 2002, just how great I felt. Frankly, I could not believe how healthy and energetic I was! At 35, I felt younger and healthier than at 25! Because, even back then, my body was wrestling with the effects of mercury and poor nutrition. Though I didn"t have any noticeable symptoms, and was living a seemingly normal, vibrant life as a young woman, I know now that I was not in top health. January, 2003 I celebrated the 4-year anniversary of the mercury exposure at Dr B"s. that had started my MS symptoms. And I continued to feel great. There was no question in my mind -- I was healed! Praise God! Thank you Jesus! January, 2005 It has now been 6 years since my mercury exposure at Dr. B"s. I continue to feel great. Well, OK, the baby does tire me out some days – he is just so busy! It has been over 3 years since my last symptom. There is no question that God has completely and permanently delivered me from this illness. Besides my healing, another blessing that God provided us was the improved health of my entire family. Because of what we have learned about toxicity and the importance of nutrition, my entire family is living a much healthier lifestyle than we otherwise would have. Daren went through the same complete dental revision that I underwent to remove 54 toxic amalgams and cavitations from his mouth. Now, he never had any noticeable symptoms but who knows how mercury may have affected him later in life? And, because of what we have learned, if our children ever need corrective dental work, we will use materials that are biocompatible with their blood chemistry. We are now confident that we are doing all that we can to be the good stewards of our bodies that God wants us to be. In addition to my family, I have also been able to witness to and share what I have learned with others who are sick. I feel that I have made a positive impact on the lives and souls of dozens of people by sharing my testimony and knowledge with them. The blessings have been many. Too numerous for me to count. This entire ordeal has just convinced me again and again that if God"s children will turn to Him through faith in His son Jesus, that they will be richly blessed. In the last chapter that follows, I focus on one of these most special and miraculous blessings. 55 Chapter 6 Blessings The grace of the Lord Jesus is with God's people. Revelation 22:21 So God clearly answered my prayers and I am healed. You know my story. You know my testimony of sickness and healing. I am so blessed by God. But God"s blessings did not stop with my physical recovery from MS. In the 3 years since my recovery, God has continued to bless me and my family in such great ways. I want to share the most significant of these blessings – the birth of our son - with you now as just one more way to praise God and glorify Him by sharing His work in my life. On December 4, 2002, our beloved dog Onyx died. Onyx was a 105 pound male Doberman who was an over-affectionate teddy bear of a companion of ours for his entire 13 years. He was a Good Boy. But more than that, he was almost like an older brother to Reagan and Ryleigh. They each love animals so much and felt such a loss when he finally died that they naturally hoped to fill that void with a new puppy. But, after having had dogs for 15 years (Onyx"s mother Allisha had died at age 11 four years before), Daren and I wanted to have a break from dogs for a little while. So we told the girls that we wanted to wait and we asked them to be patient. It"s tough for little girls to be patient when they have visions of a puppy in their mind so they took matters into their own hands and began praying for a puppy. By Christmas, their prayers were answered but not exactly the way you might think. Our backyard neighbors got a dog (all of the backyards in our Cincinnati subdivision ran together into one great green playground for our girls). Sharky, a 2-year-old Boxer came 56 home to the Beckman"s by way of their oldest daughter who returned home from Florida to finish college in Cincinnati. Well, without small children at the Beckman"s house, Sharky kept finding his way into our backyard to play with Reagan and Ryleigh. And the girls seemed to keep finding their way over to the Beckman"s to see if Sharky could come out and play. So we were all able to again witness one of those Providential relationships developed and nurtured in our backyard as child and puppy entertained each other with a continual frolic of giant circle races and stick retrievals and tackles and hugs and face licking and winter sled chasing and even trampoline bouncing and sprinkler splashing in the summer. A marriage of pure joy and innocence. You could almost say that it was a marriage made in Heaven. Well, everything seemed to be perfect. And we often gave God praises at meal time specifically for Sharky and for God"s answer to prayers. Little did Daren and I know that the girls had begun to take matters into their own hands on another subject. It was about 6am on a Saturday morning in early March, 2003 and I couldn"t stand it anymore. So I got out of bed, ran to the corner grocery and quickly returned to the privacy of my bathroom to hopefully ease my troubled mind. But I couldn"t make out the meaning of the indicator so I woke up Daren and asked him to try to read it. First he said that it was just a single straight line and not two lines crossed. Then, a moment later, he asked "what are we doing with this home pregnancy test?" After confessing my worries to him, we concluded that this test was inconclusive and I sent him back to the store for another one. This time, the results were very clear. I was pregnant! This was so unexpected and so unplanned that it was almost unbelievable to us. We had a day of skiing already planned with the girls for that day so soon, Daren and I were riding a chair lift talking about how unreal this was. We spent the day sharing our emotions: shock; wonderment; embarrassment; it was just such a surprise! And at age 36, we had some concerns about the health of the baby and the complications that the 57 pregnancy might bring. I had experienced such extreme morning sickness (including hospitalization) with each of the girls that I was also genuinely fearful of the coming months. We prayed constantly that day for an uncomplicated pregnancy and a healthy baby. We decided not to tell the girls for a couple more months – until we were certain that there wouldn"t be a miscarriage. Two weeks later, the morning sickness hit me. Not as severely as with the girls but enough that both Reagan and Ryleigh were concerned about my change of apparent health. They didn"t understand why I was lying around so much and why I didn"t seem to be getting over it. The morning sickness brought back some memories of my MS symptoms for Reagan and she started expressing her fear that I was getting MS again. So, toward the end of April, we decided to share the news with them. But I just did not feel up to it so I asked Daren if he would tell them during their 25 minute drive to a weekly horse riding lesson. The following is the paraphrased dialog that transpired in Daren"s Dodge Ram as he has explained it to me: Daren: "Girl"s, I have a big surprise to tell you." Ryleigh: "Are you getting us a puppy?" Daren: "No, girls, this is bigger. This is really great news." Reagan: "What is it? Are we getting a horse?" Daren: "Your mom is pregnant and she is going to have a new baby." Ryleigh: !!screams of joy!! Reagan: "Are you kidding Dad?" Daren: "No, I am serious. We are going to have a new baby." Ryleigh: !!screams of joy!! Reagan: "Is it a girl or a boy?" Daren: "We don"t know yet. But it will be born around Halloween." Ryleigh: "Yes! Yes! Reagan, it worked! It worked!! Yes!!!" more screams of joy! Reagan: "What are we going to name it? Did you pick out names yet?" Ryleigh: "Yes! I can"t believe it! It worked! Yes!!!" 58 Reagan: "Can we help pick out names Dad?" Daren: "Yes. Wait a minute. Wait. Ryleigh, what do you mean it worked?" Ryleigh: "Yes!" Reagan: "Well, when we new we weren"t going to get a puppy of our own, we thought that if we were really good and we prayed really hard together, that God might give us a baby brother." Daren: "You"re kidding." Ryleigh: "Yes!" Daren: "When did you start praying for a baby?" Reagan: "After we got back from Christmas in Iowa." Daren: "Please tell me that you did not pray for twins?" Reagan: "No, we just prayed for a baby brother." Ryleigh: "Can we tell anyone?" Daren: "Yes. You can start telling people." Reagan: "Can we tell our friends and teachers at horse riding?" Daren: "Yes." And the rest of the conversation was around possible names and where the baby would sleep and if this meant that Reagan and Ryleigh would get bunk beds and get moved into one room together, and that Ryleigh wanted the top bunk if they did, and……probably some more screams of joy. Meanwhile, I was at home on the family room couch drooling and moaning – a posture that I had gotten very accustomed to in recent weeks. Of course, Daren called me on his cell phone while the girls were riding and told me of how they prayed for a baby brother. Wow, does God answer prayers! Daren and I pray almost daily for our children to live a life filled with the peace and joy that comes with having strong faith in Jesus. How strong their faith is becoming as they see God answering prayers like this and working small miracles in their lives. As Jesus taught us, the faith of a mustard seed can move a mountain. 59 I will never forget the vision of Ryleigh from my pitiful perch on the couch as she walked into the room after returning from their lesson. With hands on her 8-year-old hips and a very adult – almost teacher-like – expression on her face. "A baby!" she says with an accusatory tone in as if I had been holding out on her. "All this time I thought you were too old to have a baby and here you"re going to just pop one out!" she continued. Oh, Ryleigh, I wish it were that easy. Obviously our home was filled with much talk and excitement over the next several days as the girls talked about everything from names to clothes to cribs and diapers. And, also busy with one neighbor after another stopping by to congratulate us in between phone calls with relatives. This excitement was uplifting for me and helped me to cope with my morning sickness a little better. A baby boy, Daren and I wondered? Girls run so strong in my family that we were just sure we would be having another girl. You see, my mother had 7 children, 6 of which were girls. And, before Braden, she had 8 grandchildren of which 7 were girls. And Daren was an only son of an only son. We were just counting on another girl. But, then again, the girls prayed specifically for a brother. Would God honor that request? And some of you of little faith are questioning if this has anything to do with God or if it is just a coincidence. Let"s look at the possibility of coincidence…. First of all, it would be quite the coincidence that in the 8 years of trying not to have another baby, that we just happen to conceive within the next couple cycles after the girls faithfully prayed for a brother. But the real validation of this miracle came for us on the day of my 26-week ultrasound. The whole family was in attendance as we were all anxious to find out if this baby was pink or blue. My mother and oldest sister were also in town visiting so it really was the whole family. I"m not sure what the nurse thought when she walked into that tiny examination room and there stood my sister, in one corner, my husband and Reagan in the other, my mom sitting on a stool with Ryleigh on her lap and me sitting on the cold table. Quite the audience. Well, we quickly explained to the nurse how anxious we were to find out if this baby was a boy and within minutes it 60 was clear to everyone that we needed to pick out a boy name. We also found that the baby appeared perfectly healthy and normal. Each of our specific prayers had been heard and answered by our Heavenly Father. Isn"t it just like a loving father to want to provide all of his children"s wants as well as our needs? So we all left the hospital knowing that God was truly in the middle of this. We could rest easily in the comfort of knowing that God was going to deliver this baby safely in His time. And, so it was, 13 weeks later on November 6, 2004 that a healthy Braden Louis Kaiser was born in Christ Hospital, in downtown Cincinnati. How fitting. And what a divine way for God to add exclamation to His loving grace in my life. When I first heard that MS diagnosis I was thinking of mere survival, not flourishing and giving birth to new life. And this is the hope that I would offer to you. If you put your Faith in God, he can provide you with blessings that you would never have imagined! For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten son that we shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16. 61
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