When Life Gives You Lemons: Cancer

Sometimes life hands you lemons and sometimes… life decides to chuck them at your head to see what you are made of. One of those chucked lemons… more like anvil… was when my husband had cancer.

Back story before the cancer diagnosis

My husband Mike and I had only been married a few months when he started struggling with his health. The doctors couldn’t figure out the cause. This was a man who had been healthy his whole life, barely a sniffle most days. Worse yet, Mike is a cross country runner and loves it… Ick haha. If you see me running, something is chasing me so please save me!

Anyway moving on…

On more than one occasion we had to go to the ER. He was in so much pain he couldn’t breathe. The doctors would practically accuse my husband of faking it because they couldn’t find the reason. Now that I look back at it, they probably thought we were there for drugs…

All I could think about was what was happening to my husband!?!?

The long road to the diagnosis

He would go through ups and downs. A couple of months go by and we find out we are pregnant.

YAY!

We just keep truckin’ along as best we can. Just as our first is born, my husband accepts a job at a university a few states away. So we load up and move with our little newborn in tow, thinking life isn’t so bad.

About two months into working, he gets sick again. Only this time the symptoms aren’t going away. We were fortunate to have a wonderful family doctor who was quick and determined to find the cause. Not long into the diagnostic tests, he broke the news that he thought it was cancer. We needed to get an official diagnosis so Mike could start treatment immediately.

My husband was sinking and sinking fast.

I will spare you the details, but it was a six month-long process due to specialists being unconvinced and us fighting to get that diagnosis. By the time we made that happen, my husband, who was in his early 20’s at the time, weighed as much as he did when he was a freshman in high school and was getting around like a man who was at the end of his life.

Finally! What we had been waiting for.

Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was the official diagnosis… so we celebrated Christmas and our son’s 6 month “birthday” with Mike’s first chemotherapy session. We were strapping in for six months of aggressive chemo. Besides feeling sick and weak all the time, his worst side effects of the chemo was being in constant pain as well as struggling to sleep more than 2 hours a night.

See… anvil…

Doctors prescribed medications to manage the pain and sleep, but unfortunately the side effects persisted. The doctors continued to just up the dosage or change the medication but still no improvement. If anything, he was worse off.

A change in direction

I never held any strong holistic views. I believed that eating healthy was a good goal to strive for. There were also benefits in teas and meditation and so forth but we weren’t really into it.

My husband and I had been quite healthy so far in our lives, so we didn’t see the need for change… well, up until now. I watched as my husband struggled for his life. The quality of his life was in the rocks and I felt completely helpless.

Extremely desperate for help, for my husband to find some relief, I decided to do some research and make a leap into the unknown. By happenstance, I stumbled onto essential oils (my mom had started to use them in her home).

Essential Oils

Like great moms do, she sent me some. I also bought particular ones that I was interested in like Frankincense, which is known for its cancer-fighting properties. Being a complete dummy on the subject, I made Mike a cancer blend with Clove, Frankincense, and Lemongrass; each to help with cancer to fight off infections and help manage the pain. Since he also struggled to sleep, I made a sleep blend: Serenity, Lavender, and Past tense.

If meds weren’t helping might as well give this a try, right?

The turnaround

Like I said, I wasn’t holding this to be the miracle. My husband was way more cynical about this approach but we gave it a try anyway. After a few weeks, he was able to wean himself off the pain killers and sleep aids. He was sleeping ten times better using the oils than the medication. While the pain was still present, the oils helped make it manageable; all with no side effects for him. We were very fortunate that he didn’t get sick during treatment. I would credit the oils for helping with that.

We are pleased to report that my husband has been cancer free for three years now. I can’t say he is back to where he was before. Chemotherapy is a nasty thing to bounce back from as well as cancer. However, I can also say that he is enjoying life again and we are firm advocates for essential oils.

Disclaimer! I am not saying the essential oils are the miracle we are all looking for and will cure everything that life, or our choices, can dish out but I am saying that they can help if we give them the chance.

And really, it’s not the essential oil providing miracles out of thin air. It’s more like giving your body the resources it needs to do the miraculous things that our bodies are capable of doing. I really do think that the oils helped Mike get through a very scary time in his (and my) life.

A side note; something that can accompany chemo is mouth sores. A friend of mine gave me a basic recipe to help keep mouth sores at bay. While Mike used this mouth wash recipe, he didn’t see any sores during his treatment.

When life decides to test what you’re made of, know that you are not alone. You are capable of much more than you may realize.

Happy lemon ducking!

Related Post(s): How to Use Essential Oils: Intro, Homemade Mouth Wash, Pain Relief with Essential Oils

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