I AM HealingStrong
Discover how to transform the most challenging chapter of your life with Jim Mann's inspiring podcast. As a stage 4 cancer survivor, Jim interviews famous musical artists like Tasha Layton, Ellie Holcomb, Katy Nichole, and Tim Timmons, as well as health influencers who beat incurable diseases like depression and addiction. Through humor and a renewed sense of purpose, guests courageously share their stories of overcoming the toughest times and learning to trust God. Tune in to Jim's powerful podcast to find hope and inspiration.
I AM HealingStrong
101: A Mother's Story of Overcoming Ovarian Cancer with Faith and Community | Stacy Loftis
HealingStrong Group Leader and mother of 6, Stacy Loftis, whose inspiring journey of faith and perseverance will encourage you. Stacy shares her story of her cancer journey with an unshakable trust in God, and how her faith guided her and her husband through some of her most challenging moments.
Despite a cancer diagnosis being overwhelming, Stacy’s story brings hope found in the power of community and faith. Drawing parallels to the biblical story of Elijah, she helps us understand how even the strongest believers can face fear and vulnerability. Despite the impact of the pandemic on cancer treatments and the overwhelming experiences at local cancer centers, Stacy's reliance on God and her supportive community became her anchor through these times.
She shares her initial success with a plant-based diet, her decision to undergo chemotherapy and surgery at Mayo Clinic, and the divine interventions she believes played a crucial role in her healing. Inspired by influential figures like Chris Wark, Stacy’s search for a supportive community led her to become a Group Leader within HealingStrong, a nonprofit dedicated to holistic cancer support with a variety of free resources found at healingstrong.org.
CONTACT:
HealingStrong Group Leader - Memphis, TN
healingstrongmemphis@gmail.com
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.
Please consider supporting our mission by becoming a part of our Membership Program, as a monthly donor.
When you do, you will receive additional resources such as: webinars, access to ALL our past and most recent conference videos, downloadables and more, as a bonus.
To learn more, head to the HealingStrong Membership Program link below:
So I shared with my husband that, if God was going to give us this journey, that I was going to trust the Lord to do for us what he did for Elijah to meet our needs, to strengthen us and to provide the help that we needed. And I chose to believe that there was going to be a way through that. The diagnosis was not the destination, but an assignment of something that God had for us to walk through.
Speaker 2:You're listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast, a part of the Healing Strong organization, the number one network of holistic cancer support groups in the world. Each week we bring you stories of hope, real stories that will encourage you as you navigate your way on your own journey to health. Now here's your host stage four cancer thriver, jim Mann.
Speaker 3:Today I am traveling all the way to Memphis. Well, my voice is anyway to talk to a guest who has an incredible story, of course, stacey Loftus. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing fabulous. How are you today?
Speaker 3:Great. Okay, I always talk about weather. It's like an old person thing. But how is the weather in Memphis today?
Speaker 1:It is wonderful. It feels like fall. It's just a touch of fall. It's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yes, we had that yesterday. That's why I'm thinking about weather, because it didn't get past the 70s. So I'm all excited about that, but it fakes us out.
Speaker 1:And then gets it does, yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Catches me off guard every year, every year of my life. It's just embarrassing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't get your winter clothes out just yet, way too early.
Speaker 3:I'll put them back after this. Yeah, so you have like 15, 16 kids.
Speaker 1:Ah, six.
Speaker 3:That's close enough, right.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, that's fun.
Speaker 3:I wanted six and my wife wanted four, so we compromised at four.
Speaker 1:I'm one of eight, so my mom told me that after four, once you've got four.
Speaker 3:You can handle more.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you could have handled at least 10.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love a lot of kids, except for my last one came when I was 50. So I didn't want any past that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So were you born and raised in Memphis.
Speaker 1:I was actually born in Illinois and my family moved here when I was three months old. So although technically I'm a northerner, I'm a southerner at heart.
Speaker 3:Tell me your memories of Illinois.
Speaker 1:Yeah, none, but I hear there were great snowball fights and lots of forts built.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And ice hockey in the backyard even, but I missed out on all the good stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm so sorry. I had a lot of that in Baltimore, not quite as cold as Illinois, but still Ice skating on ponds and stuff like that. I like that. Yes, tell us a little bit about Stacy here. Did you want a gazillion kids?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a great question. I grew up in a family of eight, as I mentioned, and so that was normal to me, and we had so much fun and we still have so much fun.
Speaker 1:I became an aunt by the time I was nine and I have grew up with more nieces and nephews that were born and have older siblings who just made family and marriage look easy. My parents made it look way easier than it is, so that was my normal and I wanted that for my own life. And God has been gracious enough to give me a very dear, sweet husband and he was open to having whatever kids God would give us. And God gave us our six and they are a joy and they are a lot of work. But I wouldn't, you know, no parent would trade parenthood for anything else.
Speaker 3:It's such a gift.
Speaker 1:It's such a gift, and I'm blown away by how much parenting has taught me about my Heavenly Father. That's been a really amazing, sobering thing how God has instructed my heart as I've parented and continue to learn how to parent my kids. So we decided to homeschool our children.
Speaker 1:And so, although all of them have been in and out of different school settings, so we've used pretty much every teaching modality at this point. We've homeschooled, we've used tutorials, we've they've been in. Some of them have been in public school for a few years and our younger three are now in a local private school. So we we kind of ran the gamut, depending on which, what was needed in the season that we found ourselves in.
Speaker 3:So Right, brilliant, so did you all. Were you all healthy and active or eat right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know um well, as, as best we could, I guess um, I have a family history of cancer in my story, and so I lost my mom to breast cancer. She was 56 years old and I was 26 at the time when she passed.
Speaker 1:And that was actually her second round of dealing with cancer in her life. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer when she was about 38. And it was when my youngest brother, the eighth of the eight kids, was an infant and she had radiation and no chemotherapy and God gave her 20 more years. God gave her 20 years of being cancer free. So I guess she was, had even have been 36 when she was diagnosed. But that first time, and then so the last time that she was diagnosed with cancer because of heart issues, chemotherapy was not an option, even though the traditional oncologist suggested it for her. And so that was kind of when my when holistic things were placed on my own radar, because she discovered Dr Richard Schultz and she and my dad were juicing and eating plant based and, you know, doing colonics and just a lot of different things to try to extend her life, you know, as long as possible. And God did give her two more years even after that, so that the reality that cancer I could have had a genetic predisposition towards cancer was definitely in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1:I did not want to get genetic testing done before my own diagnosis. I didn't want to. I thought it would make me live kind of in fear and I didn't want to deal with that so, and I mostly tried to eat, eat and serve real food to my family. But I don't know if this is unique to a large family, but there's a serious kind of pressure to getting food on the table and it being things that everyone likes to eat. And so, looking back, I really succumbed to a lot of convenience foods that became a norm and became the staples in our home that were not healthy for them or me.
Speaker 1:And then, once our oldest hit middle school and they started doing all the activities, all the sports and all the music and theater I'm. You know, there was one year that every Monday I would spend four hours in the car carpooling and I had this schedule. I had reminders pop up on my phone with set, set alarms, like in 30 minute increments, like had I had. I was so proud of the schedule that year because everybody was able to do something, but every 30 minutes I was going picking one up and taking one, and I look back now I'm like that was so insane, insane, um, but so there was a lot of fast food going on too, when you're spending that much time in the car getting your kids where they need to be. You're not home to cook. I did try to use a crock pot, but anyway, so no, what compared to what I know now and what I'm still learning to do now, we were not really very healthy, you know not, not really we. We were existing often in the tyranny of the urgent, as they say.
Speaker 3:Was your schedule kind of stressful to you?
Speaker 1:Well, it was very stressful. You know, I loved homeschooling my kids and I would not trade that for anything. But now I know, looking back, what I expected of myself was not healthy and I just assumed that. You know, the lack of sleep and the fatigue that I felt and the overwhelm that I felt was something that I was the only one experiencing, that everybody else had it figured out but me. And if I just worked harder, if I just studied more, if I just researched more, then I'd be a better homeschool mom. But I just wasn't working hard enough.
Speaker 1:And, looking back, I now know that I was putting myself in the place of God. I was expecting myself to be superhuman and to have superhuman energy and superhuman intellect, and I was expecting myself things that God had not necessarily put on my plate, you know, because I lost my mom so young as a 26 year old, young mom and young wife. I didn't, you know, I just didn't know how really to seek out the help that I needed to make those that overwhelm a little better. So, yeah, I can look back now and definitely see that was a really big problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I don't want to mention this, but we're on the street, was?
Speaker 1:you were lagging behind everybody else, so I know, I know I wasn't keeping up. I was not keeping up Terrible. Oh just awful.
Speaker 3:So then, 2020, when the whole galaxy shut down, was not a good year for you, I understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was not. So my younger sister, who has four children she had homeschooled hers when they were younger and they had been in school. But after spring of 2019 happened, we decided that we would form a homeschool pod together and we planned the local tutorials were not even meeting in person, everything was virtual. So we decided two days a week her kids would come to my house and we'd set everybody up on their laptops and do their coursework and they'd get the benefit of hanging out with cousins and eating together and doing their schoolwork together. And we were really determined to make it a happy time and to kind of redeem the hardships that were going on.
Speaker 1:And so we worked really hard to put together this plan and two weeks into this new school year we had taken one of my sons off to college for his freshman year, about three hours away from our home, and so we had moved, got him moved in, and that week I just had trouble sleeping. When I'd lay down I just had an ache in my side that would not go away If I sat up. It was better, but it continued and of course, my internist wasn't seeing people in person. You had to do a virtual appointment first. So we went through all of that and, lo and behold, discovered that I was having trouble because my lungs had fluid in them. So she was able to send me to a local hospital to have the lung drained and that following Tuesday I guess it was I was alone at the house, which I'm rarely alone, but I happened to be alone at that moment when she called and I was having trouble, like I couldn't speak very loudly and I couldn't even because it was starting to affect my breathing.
Speaker 1:And so I got that phone call that we all remember very vividly in this community, that phone call where she said you know, the, the cells from your lung, the fluid in your lungs, are adenocarcinoma cells and you have cancer. And at the time we didn't know the source of the cancer, but we knew that it was cancer. So you know, that's a ton of risks. I mean it imploded, the panic began and it was very real. I was shocked because I thought I had done a lot of things or, you know, tried to be more aware. I thought I had some cancer prevention things going on in my life, thought I was healthy Because, other than having children, the only times I've been hospitalized in my whole life were when I was expecting and had my kids. I didn't have a history of any other kind of illness at all.
Speaker 3:How did your kids react to that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the first person I had to tell was my husband and growing up in a Christian home, and both my husband and I came to Christ as children, and so we both know nothing randomly happens in a believer's life that God has a purpose. And not only does God have a purpose, he has already walked before you in whatever comes. So I knew this, as those of us in Christ know that this was not a surprise, but I knew I did not want to just dump this news on Him when he got home from work, to just dump this news on him when he got home from work. What came to my mind and what immediately came to my heart? And I'm still I'm just four years out, so I'm still sifting through what happened, because it was all highly traumatic, in all honesty. But what came to my mind was Elijah, when he was running from Jezebel and he was terrified, and scripture says he was afraid, and this is in 1 Kings 19. And he told the Lord. In fact, I'm going to read it because I think it's just so human and I love this passage. It says Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba and Judah, he left his servant there while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. I've had enough, lord. He said, take my life, I'm no better than my ancestors. Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. All at once, an angel touched him and said get up and eat. He looked around and there by his head, was a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you. So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled 40 days and 40 nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night.
Speaker 1:What I love about this passage is we see Elijah, who we know is a prophet who had just had this victory over the false god Baal, and by the, by the power of the Lord. He had witnessed firsthand the power of the Lord. And yet when somebody said hey, queen Jezebel heard what you just did and she's coming to kill you, and he's terrified. He's very human and so getting that phone call for me was very terrifying, because I was already well acquainted with cancer and I was very well acquainted with what that journey can look like, and I'd also lost one of my brothers in 2016 to cancer. So one thing that was on my heart is I really don't want this path. I know that it's of the Lord and he's allowing it, but this is a ride I just don't want to take. And the other thing that got impressed upon my heart was the journey is too much for you. It's like, of course you don't want this because this journey is too much for you.
Speaker 1:So that's the passage that I shared with my husband, because what I chose to draw from it is that, instead of rebuking Elijah for being afraid, god met him there and he sent Elijah what he needed. He sent Elijah food, he made sure Elijah got rest and he gave him strength by that food to run like this marathon. It was a 200 mile distance by the way, to Mount Horeb, which is crazy, so it took him 40 days and 40 nights to make that run. So I shared with my husband that if God was going to give us this journey that I was going to trust the Lord to do for us what he did for Elijah to meet our needs, to strengthen us, our needs to strengthen us and to provide the help that we needed. And I chose to believe that there was going to be a way through that. The diagnosis was not the destination, but an assignment of something that God had for us to walk through.
Speaker 3:Wow, look at you, you're so mature.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness. But now you had asked about our kids. So one thing I would do differently we gathered our kids that weekend because we had a daughter who lives in Middle Tennessee and a son that we had just taken to college, and then the other four at home. So they all came home that weekend and we told them all together. So they all came home that weekend and we told them all together. I kind of think it might've been better for each one had I taken the time as painful as it would have been to sit down with each one and tell them individually. But we did, you know, share it with them as a group, and I shared this passage with them as well. Just that. Now we, you know, we didn't know what the future was going to hold, but we were going to trust the Lord to provide for us, and they were. They were fantastic. It's still something all of them are sifting through, but they were helpful and they have learned to trust the Lord in new ways and it's given them great compassion.
Speaker 3:And I totally get that initial shock when you get the news. It's like being knocked out by Mike Tyson, but in your days for a while. But then you do get back up, especially if you believe in God. I don't know how people handle stuff like this if they don't believe in God. I was like in a daze for a while and then I just started seeing signs of God saying hey, don't worry about this, I've got you.
Speaker 3:And I remember and I don't think I've told this part of my story, but I remember because I was at Disney when that happened and I have some friends who live at Celebration, which is like the neighborhood there for rich people. Their backyard is Disney but I went to see the fireworks. So I was with them watching the fireworks at Epcot and as we were leaving in the mass crowd I don't know if you ever left Epcot after fireworks, but it's just like the whole earth is shifting while people are going to their cars I told my friend what happened, how I was just diagnosed with cancer, and he just stopped everything and just started praying for me and the whole crowd had to kind of walk around us because we're standing right in the middle. It was just a weird feeling because I thought my life's probably almost over. But here it is, my good friend is stopping, no matter what's going on around us, and he's praying. And he's praying pretty good, and I thought that's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and his wife is standing off in the distance thinking what's happening here. And she found out. But yeah, yeah, nice. I just happened to remember. I don't think I've ever shared that, so there you go.
Speaker 1:No, that's a new one. He was, yeah, he was taking you to Jesus in the middle of all the crowd. That's like the men bringing their friend down through the roof on the pallet. I was like he didn't care about the traffic. He was going to stop and take you to Jesus for a minute. That was awesome yeah.
Speaker 3:I was impressed with him basically, and happy to get the prayer. Did you go to the oncologist right away, or what was your plan of attack here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my internist helped get me in with an oncologist. We first saw a general oncologist and that was our first experience in the middle of that 2020 time, locally at our local cancer center, and that was that in and of itself was an experience, because a lot of people had postponed treatments during the pandemic because of the difficulties in going anywhere and a lot of appointments had been delayed. So by August of 2020, people had started coming back to get caught back up and so it was a sea of humanity and you couldn't go in. So the line is out the door and everyone is masked up and they're stopping to ask everyone have you had any shortness of breath or coughing? And you know, check your temperature? And they're asking you the 20 questions.
Speaker 1:And of course, I had just cause on top of my pleural effusion, the fluid in my lung, within that week. So the night we told our kids there of course they're all at home I started having another pain and it would not go away and turned out it was a pulmonary embolism and I had to go to the emergency room. And that early that next morning, and even though there wasn't anyone in the emergency room, they would not let my husband come in with me. I could hardly speak, I was having trouble breathing and I had to stagger in in my pajamas by myself and they're asking me all these questions and I could not speak. I do believe it was by the grace of God that he broke it up enough for me to be free of pain by the time they got me back to triage. But then when they did a CT scan, they still saw a pulmonary embolism there. So it, so it. It got crazy really fast. But it was not easy to get in and get answers because of this backlog of people. You know, our local cancer center has three levels and and it was just people everywhere, lots of people in wheelchairs who are, you know, lots of people not doing well at all. And I just felt I said, lord, you have landed me in the land of affliction here. It was really sad, and it was. It was hard to navigate but anyway. So I had to see a general oncologist who then, after they got some results from CT scans, connected me with a gynecological oncologist and they discovered that I had an eight and a half centimeter tumor on my right ovary. At that point they determined that it was an ovarian cancer and because it had spread into the fluid of my lung. They said it was a stage four cancer. They were ready immediately to get me scheduled for surgery and like this is within the initial meeting of an oncologist and I could not process my brain around it. All I could think of is oh great, now I've got a serious comorbidity issue.
Speaker 1:But given all that was going on and the threat of illness and then the last thing I wanted to do in that season was to spend a lot of time in the hospital because our hospitals were suffering like hospitals everywhere. The nurses were overworked. It was a very traumatic place to be and I knew too because the surgery for ovarian cancer it's called a debulking surgery and basically it's a dumpster fire, like they are removing your omentum, your uterus, your fallopian tubes, your ovaries, and usually they take lymph nodes and while they're in there, if they need to take your spleen and some liver and your appendix. And I just didn't trust anyone enough to go there at that point. And then I was very overweight as well at the time and I knew that that would not help my recovery process from a surgery like that and I would have had to have been alone. Like the surgery is five to seven hours, sometimes longer, with a hospital, say, a five to 10 days on average.
Speaker 1:Like my brain, I was trying to think through all the things and just like I'm not going to be in the hospital without an advocate that's not you know. So I just had to weigh all of those things and so I ended up seeing three different oncologists before I made a decision. And what I came to through prayer, first things we did because it took time to get those. Second opinions, and so there were a lot of things that I did right off the bat. I had bought Chris Wark's Crispy Cancer when my brother was battling cancer, and at the time I'd watched all the modules and in my mind I'm like, okay, this is what I'm going to do if I ever get that diagnosis. I'm just going to jump into this.
Speaker 1:I never anticipated getting a diagnosis, only to find I was already in a stage four. It's like, oh, great Lord, you put me in the fourth quarter of this game. I'm not even at halftime. Like you landed me in this game when I'm not even gonna have a chance. Like I don't. I just don't understand. So it affected, you know, the fact that we're in a pandemic, the fact that we don't have any naturopathic oncologists in this area, the state of Tennessee. It is not legal, to you know, to be a practicing naturopathic oncologist. You can't market yourself in that way. So I didn't have that support person for my team here locally and so it took time to find a team.
Speaker 1:But I definitely pulled strong from Chris's book and I immediately knew that I needed to get off all meat, all dairy and all sugar. So I did. I knew I needed to start juicing, and which we did with a vengeance. I knew I needed to move every day, so my husband started going for a 30 minute walk with me at 630 every morning. I knew that there was value in hydrotherapy and so, because I was having trouble breathing, I knew I needed to move my lungs. So I did hot, cold showers, like I'd turn as hot as I could stand for seven to 10 seconds, then turn it to as cold as I could stand for seven to 10 seconds.
Speaker 1:When I wasn't doing those things, I was researching manically, trying to look for any survivor stories from people who were diagnosed with you know, whose disease burden became evident through a pleural effusion and how they made it through because the first oncologist I saw said oh, your lungs are just going to keep filling up with fluid. They told me that I had six to nine months is basically what he said. If I were to do nothing, I would have six to nine months. So it was 30 days. We prayed over it. I really agonized over whether to do chemotherapy or not because that would not have been my first choice and I really wrestled with that decision. So it was not easy and you could probably do a whole show on all the factors that go into even deciding and I know I'm kind of getting into the weeds, but it is hard because you know, with Chris and Courtney, when they were making their treatment decisions, a key factor for them was maintaining or protecting their ability to have kids.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Those were really big levers for them, that that made it a no brainer. They're like no way. I'm not going to ruin my chances to have biological children of my own, I think, when we're in the next five years, while they're home doing protocols or do I want to try to nip this thing as much as I can, and then with the possibility of being fully present at least for the next five years, I don't know Then that might sound really weird, but the dynamics of the decision are a little different, I think, and they're hard. There's no easy button on any of those decisions. But, in the goodness of God, even after juicing and eating raw for the first 30 days, I lost 20 pounds, I was getting stronger and my lungs stopped filling up with fluid.
Speaker 1:If I had had a coach at that time, I think they probably would have told me well, hey, let's give it three months and see if your numbers improve. And now, looking back, that I think I probably had that option. But, like I said, the whole world felt like it was on fire. So I'm trying not to go back and second guess, but, in the goodness of God, he did so. I chose an integrative path at that point and I decided to do three rounds of chemotherapy first and then the surgery, and then followed by three more rounds of chemotherapy. But the surgery I did not have locally. Locally I reached out to Mayo and we flew there because I like.
Speaker 1:I said, you just try to make the best decisions that you can make with what's available to you, and God has been good, so I'm now try to stick with plant based whole foods as much as possible. I'm still feeding a lot of teenagers and they like their meat. My husband likes to eat meat, so anyway, but that's you know and the goodness of God. By the time I even had the surgery, there were no visible tumors. It had shrunk that much within three months. So he definitely made his presence known throughout the whole journey, which I'm so grateful for.
Speaker 3:Plus, you're practically neighbors with Chris Wark, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I do have occasional Chris sightings.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, it's a good person to have around. He's pretty knowledgeable about things.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, oh my goodness. Yes, in fact, he's friends with my younger brother. I told my brother I said look, you don't understand. Chris Work is a rock star. He's really a genius. So he's not an ordinary guy. He is really amazing. I said he's a hero to a lot of people, which he definitely is. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Now is that how you heard about Healing Strong through him?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 1:Sure, it is Of course. Sure, it is Of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah so and honestly, jim, it's so good to even get to talk to you. This is such a full circle moment because the podcast has encouraged me so deeply since it started and it helps that you have this voice that's dripping with cheerfulness and it does. But it just helped me remember that healing is possible, because even as I went through treatment in the back of my mind I really felt as Elijah. I'm no better than my ancestors. If God brings healing, it's not going to be because I figured something out that they didn't, and that was just hard Because I also wrestled with that. Whether God healed me or not, it didn't change the fact that he's still good.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But your podcast just reminded me of the goodness of God, reminded me with all your interviews that healing is possible and your cheerfulness definitely helps. So I look forward to it. Dripping, absolutely dripping with cheerfulness.
Speaker 3:Well, I have napkins here for that very reason.
Speaker 1:Oh, so funny. Never would have thought that four years later, on the other side of my own diagnosis, that I would get to speak with you and share the story that God has given me to also share with others that God is good, no matter what.
Speaker 3:Well, there you go. Yeah, you didn't have to run 200 miles either, did you?
Speaker 1:No, I didn't, but it felt like it, it was. It was definitely a marathon, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, and so now you had no idea you're a group leader, right?
Speaker 1:I am, yeah. So, like many people that you have interviewed on your podcast, I went looking for a group, knowing that I needed that healing community, and there wasn't one.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:And so I went ahead and started one in July of 2023, right, yeah, we just had our one year anniversary.
Speaker 1:Wow, no-transcript say prof profits without honor in his own country. That's true. So, uh, you know, I I think he's putting his focus where it needs to be and I've given them an open invitation to come and sit in with our group anytime. So I don't think, if he were to show up, I don't think I would be able to speak, because that's like you know, trying to speak intelligently in front of the professor and I just I wouldn't be able to do that. But if he were to come, I would just let him take over.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my first meeting we had, of course, I met at the Cancer Survivors Park, which my first meeting there, I should say had an oncologist sitting in just to hear what we're doing. I thought, oh my gosh, I can't speak with you sitting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be intimidating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everything I'd say. I'd have to check with him. Is that true? But he liked it, he liked it, he liked it. So it worked out well. As you know, with my podcast, I like to ask people what they would do. What would they say to somebody who's listening right now for the first time and they've just gotten their diagnosis? How would you encourage them?
Speaker 1:Wow, and that's a question I've thought about before, as I've even looked at what I would have told myself. Yeah, and the first thing is that you do have time and Chris tells everyone this too you have time to do the research, to ask the questions, so take the time to have your questions answered. And another would be that it is going to take a team One thing we've talked about in our group. There's not one person that has all the answers to deal with all the factors involved in a disease occurring in the first place and and to deal so. So you know, take advantage of your conventional doctor for the things that your insurance covers and then look for the other resources, but definitely use what you have. See what's in your community and available to you. Is there somebody that does high dose IV vitamin C? Is there somebody who offers a hyperbaric oxygen therapy? Is there someone that is knowledgeable about oncology, nutrition and not just powders or you know, but real, real food and seek out what use what you have first, and I love that Chris mentions that there's no beware the magic bullet. There's no magic thing. You got to look at the whole picture.
Speaker 1:I'd encourage people to dive in and just move forward utterly prayerfully, that God, as God met Elijah and his need, god met me and my need. That same God is still at work and he's's still a miracle-working God, to the praise of his glorious grace, and he still reveals himself to others by working those miracles. And I experienced that, and it's possible for anyone to experience that. To experience that and so that, and knowing too, you know my verse when I was walking through, I held very strongly to Deuteronomy 31.8. You know, the Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. He truly does hold our hand when we walk through these Red Sea roads that he ordains.
Speaker 3:Yes, very good, excellent, you get an A+.
Speaker 1:Thanks.
Speaker 3:Well, Stacey being one of three Stacey Loftus that I know, but the only one on the podcast, so that's nice.
Speaker 1:That's right. I'm the only one who got to see you today.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:That makes me really special.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how special that would make you, but that's great. Well, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. You've been listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast, a part of the Healing Strong organization. We hope you found encouragement in this episode, as well as the confidence to take control of your healing journey, knowing that God will guide you on this path. Healing Strong is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to connect, support and educate individuals facing cancer and other diseases through strategies that help to rebuild the body, renew the soul and refresh the spirit.
Speaker 2:It costs nothing to be a part of a local or online group. You can do that by going to our website at healingstrongorg and finding a group near you or an online group, or start your own, your choice. While you're there, take a look around at all the free resources. Though the resources and groups are free, we encourage you to join our membership program at $25 or $75 a month. This helps us to be able to reach more people with hope and encouragement, and that also comes with some extra perks as well. So check it out. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a five-star rating, leave an encouraging comment and help us spread the word. We'll see you next week with another story on the I Am Healing Strong podcast.
