Chapter 10


The Grape Fast

The lump, in my throat, had grown back considerably in just a matter of a week since the operation, by the time someone phoned us about an article that they had seen in the newspaper recently. My father contacted the newspaper for a back issue. The article was about a Victoria woman who was in remission from Hodgkin’s disease (a form of cancer of the soft tissue). She had been working with a fellow in town and following his advice had been on an extended regime, where its main factor was a grape fast.


Somehow my father was able to obtain the phone number of the lady the article had been written about and talk to her. She was extremely supportive, helpful, and obviously healthy, we were convinced that this grape fast had merit worth looking into. Through her we were able to contact the fellow she had been working with. This was to be our first alternative effort at beating the cancer.


I remember the elderly gentleman whom we contacted lived high on a hill somewhere, in the older part of town, in a big white old character house. He had a wonderfully impressive library, (I have always been impressed by books), and seemed knowledgeable in many areas of non-traditional medicine. He was kind, non-aggressive with his views, and I trusted that he knew far more about what he was talking about then I did.


He didn’t profess to be able to cure me; he was just knowledgeable about things that I could try. He mostly counselled us on nutrition, (this was the pre-healthy diet era that most of us live in now), what and when to eat, what vitamins I should be taking and why. What foods were hard to digest and would strain my body’s limited energy supply, we learned how to read labels on foods, to see what is actually in them. One of the biggest eye openers for me was to find out that most of peanut butters on the market have icing sugar in them!


From him we learned about how dead cells and toxins are forever being eliminated through various organs, kidneys, bladder, bowels, as well as others, with the skin being the largest organ of them all. I learned about the importance of drinking plenty of liquid for eliminating toxins, and to eat in such a way as to enhance the action of the bowels, again for the elimination of toxins. That it was important to help elimination through the skin by bathing in water with pure peppermint soap than thoroughly scrubbing with a rough towel after bathing, even scrubbing the skin with a body, natural hairbrush till the skin was pink. We learned that if my body couldn’t keep up with this elimination process I could have a problem with toxaemia, and even die of it.


He introduced us to therapeutic touch for the first time, similar to Reiki, which I, as well as my children, have level two of now, as well as how to properly go on a supervised fast. He had me start on a regime of black purple grapes including chewing and eating the seeds, pure grape juice, as well as a full stock of vitamins. This and water was all I was to eat and drink for thirty days. I didn’t mind as it was at least doing something and within 3 days my energy was building. The headaches were gone, I was sleeping better, had more energy and the lump in my throat was disappearing again.


I learned how many extra hours there are in a day to think about food, when you don’t use any of them up for eating? I had energy, time and a positive outlook. All I wanted to do was cook, cook, cook and bake. Everyone in the house was gaining weight just to keep me happy. I figured if I couldn’t eat it, I could at least enjoy watching everyone else eating. Except for beginning a life long hate for grapes, I had no difficulties at all with fasting.


All the information we got while on the grape fast, I still believe, to this day, was indispensable, going as far as to say it was at least 50% of the reason I survived through the extensive Chemotherapy program I was later to be involved in.

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