This poignant memoir of Rodney Stamp’s emotional cancer journey details the often uncommon choice to forego traditional medicine’s solution to cancer and venture down an uncharted path when one has been issued the death sentence of “only 90 days to live.”
When Stamp was initially diagnosed with Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, he was emphatically told by his oncologist that chemo was his only option and if he did not go that route, he would likely die within months. “One thing’s for sure. If you don’t take the treatment, you will die. Chemo and radiation aren’t pleasant treatments, but the alternative is death. If you take treatment, you can expect to live another five to ten years. However, if you don’t start treatment, with your symptoms, I’d say you have less than ninety days to live, but that’s only a guess.” There’s an equation for life expectancy? ” Even after he heard this from a medical professional, Stamp considered chemo a sort of surrender as it offered no cure and a sub par quality of life. He states that he certainly kept an open mind but after researching and reading the informational pamphlets from his oncologist, it only solidified his belief that chemo was not the path for him.
Stamp clarifies that he really liked his oncologist but he was shackled to a predetermined set of procedures. ” They can cut it out, burn it out, or poison it with high-priced pharmaceutical drugs. They are safely within the rigid confines of the AMA. To deviate is professional suicide. ” Stamp forges forward without his oncologist’s support but with his wife Paige and their two daughters on board to pursue a different path. So begins Stamp’s cancer journey as he and Paige delve into the world of alternative treatments. Rodney and Paige soon discover that the drug companies have a foothold in cancer treatment, decades in the making. Unfortunately, their part is not one of altruism, “The drug companies openly, actively, and without shame sponsor ads in textbooks and in numerous other ways have infiltrated medical schools. And chemotherapy is a huge moneymaker for them.” Stamp realizes that the ideology of chemotherapy and radiation has little basis in sense – well – only sense for big pharma. “The thing I can’t wrap my wits around is why chemo would ever be the first line of therapy. It just didn’t make much sense to me to poison a system that is obviously full of poison already. It obliterates the immune system, making it hard for anything else to work. There’s no fallback.” But after exploring the reasons why chemo drugs were so popular, he learned that it all came back to being a big money maker for the drug companies.
Stamp discovered, as many alternative treatment seekers do, that the solution was relatively simple. So much of what he needed to do was dependent on his diet and lifestyle. Make those hard changes fastidiously, and he had a chance to live and possibly be cured. This discovery was made after a close friend brought him a copy of One Answer to Cancer by Dr. William D. Kelley and this would be a quintessential life changer for Stamp. “How many hard-working entrepreneurs gave any thought to the basics such as healthful food, clean, uncontaminated water, and adequate sleep? It just wasn’t the norm. The plan centered on a good diet. Fresh, raw foods, the addition of organ meats, like kidney, liver, and other ones I would have never considered ingesting. I was struck by a comment he made—that we eat too much dead food. And he warned that smoking, drinking, and any use of drugs were out of the question. “Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem for me. ”
Stamp’s light bulb went off after reading that ” the American Medical Association had little interest in curing disease. It was more profitable to let people get sick on the current food supply and bad habits that generate billions of dollars in revenue helping them. ” The idea, although sickening, is the unfortunate truth and armed with this knowledge Stamp knew modern traditional medicine offered him little hope. Although, Dr. Kelley’s recommendations seemed somewhat strange, both he and Paige pledged themselves to this rigorous program including the twice daily coffee enemas! Fascinating but true, ” The coffee enema may have been first used in modern Western nations as a pain reliever. As the story goes, during World War I, nurses kept coffee pots on the stove all day long. Battle surgeons and others drank it to stay awake while working horrendously long hours. Enema bags hung around, as some patients needed help moving their bowels. Pain medications were in short supply. Doctors were forced to save the pain drugs for surgical procedures, with little or none for follow-up after surgery. When surgical patients woke up from operations without the benefit of further morphine injections, they would scream in pain and agony from the surgery. They were also constipated from the anesthesia drugs.” Rodney and Paige both prescribed to the enemas knowing that in this day and age there was plenty of garbage they could both stand to get rid of and flush out their systems.
The next step was diet. “We bought a juicer and set up a schedule to visit the organic health-food store three times a week. From that moment on, we were determined to eat only organic produce. ” Additionally, Paige insisted they use only stainless-steel pans as aluminum leaches into the food, and Teflon’s just evil. “The big chemical companies are well aware of the links to cancer, but they still manufacture the stuff. It’s crazy.” There was little good to be gained from processed foods and sugar. The strict regimen was imposed on all members of the Stamp household in support of Rodney’s quest to survive.
Stamp also conferred with an alternative treatment doctor who had other insights to share, including enzymes and an infrared sauna.
Before the enzymes arrived…I did a liver-gallbladder flush and continued with my coffee enemas every morning and evening. Pamela also recommended that we build a near-infrared sauna, as a way to detoxify faster, and recommended me to an M.D. who specialized in near-infrared sauna treatment. You can’t see near-infrared, because the wavelengths are longer than visible light. This sauna used incandescent heat lamps, which we could pick up at a normal hardware store. Rather than using high heat to sweat out the toxins, infrared heats from the inside, through the skin. I liked the idea of a cooler sauna.
Check out the Ayre Clinic for Contemporary Medicine’s promo on infrared sauna sessions!
Stamp states, “My protocol was pretty routine. I’d get up at six in the morning most days and check my urine to make sure it wasn’t too acidic. If it was, I mixed a powder that balances pH levels in a glass of water and drank it. Then I’d have a cup of tea, switching between Chinese Green Tea, Essiac, and Pau de’ Arco each week. Next came the 12 enzymes, six probiotics, and then the Zinc, Manganese, Magnesium, and Chromium drops. I had various other supplements to down before I took the Metal Free drops and hopped in the sauna for thirty minutes.” Not only were enzymes important, but rest and good rest at that, at least eight hours in a cool, dark, quiet room.
Following this protocol, when Stamp visits his oncologist for testing annually, “My LDH count, a protein that indicates cancer when elevated, was decreasing drastically. For me, the best visible sign that I was getting better was watching the tumors shrink each month. I could see them expanding with the enzymes and then contracting on the off-cycle. With each cycle, they were getting smaller and smaller. We moved in at just about the one-year anniversary of that fateful doctor’s appointment, when Dr. A. told me I had cancer and would have only a few months to live, if I was lucky. ” Stamp was defying his oncologist’s predication with audacity! He continued to see his oncologist until the two year mark and began to share his success with others. Stamp set goals and attained them, but only because he adhered so closely to this rather “charlatan” routine, as his oncologist referred to it. He succeeded in not just surviving, but truly living and certainly past his initial 90 day death sentence.
We recommend reading Stamp’s tale and learning more about Rodney’s journey. His commitment and strength are an inspiration for all on their own cancer journey or supporting a loved one on their journey.