The mission of Health & Success is to never again have another life, family, or dream devastated by
07/17/2024
Very good assessment of the world today. Manipulation equals power.
Hannah Arendt discusses in her book „The Origins of Totalitarianism“ the manipulation of truth and the impact on people’s ability to think independently.
I’ve been pondering about the effects of pervasive lying and the undermining of the capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood for quite a while now...
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced N**i or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
Arendt’s extensive body of work includes many nuanced discussions on truth, lies, and the nature of totalitarianism, and this quote reflects themes from her writing on totalitarianism and the nature of truth:
„This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore.
A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong.
And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule
of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.“
- Hannah Arendt,
(14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German historian and philosopher.
🙏🏻🥰🙏🏻
06/23/2024
I think that this is a beautiful way of looking at humanity. Wouldn’t it be amazing if people actually lived this way?
“You are comprised of 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells.
You have been built up from nothing but the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix, and small enough to be carried by a s***m. You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing.
Happy Earth Day! USANA’s dedication to people, planet, and products has ensured we continue holding ourselves to a high standard that protects our world.
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I first noticed a lump in the back of my neck, then lumps under my armpits, and finally in my groin. These are typical regions that lymphomas are discovered. In early October 2016 I realized that it was time to go have a doctor check these lumps out. My family doctor immediately sent me to get scans taken. After about six weeks of testing, my doctor believed that I was headed down the path to cancer and referred me to an oncologist. This oncologist felt confident that I had a low-grade lymphoma; however, he ordered a biopsy on the three largest lumps to be sure.
During the three months of testing, my wife, Ingrid, and I started doing a lot of research on lymphoma. I have been an extremely healthy person the majority of my adult life other than having several orthopedic surgeries due to sports injuries. I have eaten a plant-based lifestyle since late November 1974. I have always been very interested in health and the body’s ability to heal itself. Because of this I wanted to take a holistic approach to my treatment. This meant using nutrition, supplements, exercise, meditation to control stress, and proper sleep to get back to full health. So although we did a lot of research about the disease, lymphoma, we spent most of our time researching natural healing methods.
Finally the day arrived. When the doctor walked into the room to see me, he had a very serious look on his face. He sat down and began to tell us of the test results. He told us that I had Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL) and that it was a rare cancer (only about 4,000 cases annually in the US). He also stated that it was a blastoid variant (BV), meaning that it was very aggressive. The proliferation rate measures the aggressiveness of a cancer and is on a scale of 1 to 100, with anything over a score of 40 being very aggressive. My proliferation rate was off the charts coming in with a score of 100. He had never had a patient with this aggressive of a cancer. He suggested that I immediately begin a chemotherapy regiment called R-CHOP. This protocol is a four month treatment having six chemo infusions every three weeks.
Obviously, we were in complete shock with this diagnosis. We told the doctor that we needed time to discuss this finding and would get back in touch with him once we made a decision as to what we were going to do. We spent the next two weeks getting another opinion, while doing as much research on MCL as we could. The second oncologist walked into the room after reviewing all of the tests, and the first question she asked me was, “What did you do to yourself?” What a shocking question that was. Unfortunately, she also came to the same diagnosis as my first oncologist.
On the flight back home after this diagnosis, Ingrid and I held each other, cried, and recognized that we were starting a journey that was going to be exceptionally difficult. We knew that we were in for the challenge of our lives and that we were going to spend all of our waking hours researching ways to help me survive this journey Once we made a decision on how to proceed, we needed to be very diligent and strictly follow our protocol.
After much researching, soul searching, and prayer, we decided to go forward with the protocol that the first oncologist gave us. He was highly regarded, and was in our local community. Everyone that we consulted, who had been on a journey with cancer, recommended staying local, if possible. The stress associated with the treatment can be even more amplified when adding travel into the equation.
Because my tumors were growing so rapidly, the oncologists put immense pressure on beginning treatment immediately. I now know that we truly rushed into this difficult choice. I also now know that my journey with cancer may have been less difficult had I chosen a different path (I will elaborate on this in a future post). Later during our research, we found an oncologist who is the most experienced in the world at treating MCL. Once I finally went to him after 10 months of treatments that failed, he told me that he would have chosen a slightly different path that might have saved me a lot of suffering. He said that the protocol that I underwent was what the majority of oncologists would have followed but that his experience would have taken me a slightly different path.
The decision to share my story is driven completely with the desire to help educate other people to be their own advocate. Do as much research as you possibly can. Never allow anyone to pressure you into doing anything before you have educated yourself, and you are prepared to do so.
I do not believe in looking backwards and asking what if so once you make an educated decision, go forward with all of your ability. My future blogs will discuss my treatments as well as all of the holistic approaches that we took. My primary purpose for this website and blog is to give you information on how I have been able to survive this journey. My wife, Ingrid, was more important to my journey back to health than any medical practitioners, so having a special caregiver is critical. You also have to have a positive mindset and truly believe in your soul that you will be able to survive your journey with any health condition. Never for 1 second did I ever doubt that I would survive this health challenge.
I am attaching a picture of me and my family at our home in Costa Rica, when Ingrid and I told our boys about my cancer diagnosis. Even though we know that we were in for a difficult journey, we were just happy to be together. See you on the next post.
