How to Get Yourself Infected By Chronic Good Health

My wife and I are both survivors. I had an open heart surgery in the summer of 2010 for ischemic heart disease due to coronary artery blockages. I am now completely symptom free and I have not taken any pharmaceutical drugs for over 2 years. My wife, Viola, was diagnosed with dreaded lung cancer in May of 2012. It was a 5cm x 4cm sized tumor in her right lung; very close to her heart. A biopsy a couple of weeks later confirmed her lung cancer to be a non-small cell adenocarcinoma. She did both radiation therapy and chemo therapy starting early June 2012. Twenty-two weeks later, the third CT scan since her ordeal began showed not only no significant change to the tumor in her lung, but also a new indefinable mass in her lower abdomen. At this point Viola decided to stop having treatments by the oncologists, since all they could offer was more of the same, apparently, ineffective treatment. She started on alternative remedies at home instead. She is now, about a year later, seemingly doing fine. Her earlier "club-nails" of her fingers and toes are now growing and looking like normal nails again as well. She has regained her weight from 88 lbs back to her normal 105 lbs. She has her color back as well as most of her strength and energy. A chest x-ray at St. Thomas Radiology confirmed that her lungs had cleared with no abnormality evident. She is currently on her second version of home treatments, with a third version planned - just in case. There are no side effects except improved health, so why not? It seems to me that most people live their lives without much thought or interest in their own health. It also seems that the younger people are the most pronounced in their disinterest in a healthy lifestyle. Not only is there this genuine disinterest, but an unfortunate dose of ignorance about health as well. This certainly applied to me and my wife until we got to the "wake-up call" point when various age-related aches and pains started to intrude into our lives in quite a rude fashion. At that point, Viola was 60 and I was 62. The year was 2007. We were both still smoking cigarettes, a habit we both had since our youth and each of us were puffing on about 40 cigarettes (two packs) every day. Clearly neither one of us are, or were, particularly close to anything we could call "healthy", but we are taking our health back little by little every day and hope to have a few more good years. I stopped smoking cigarettes May 26, 2010. My 48 years of non-stop smoking ended "cold-turkey" that day. As a young lad I smoked maybe 10 cigarettes per day and within a few years I smoked about one pack, or 20 cigarettes per day. That eventually grew into two packs, or 40 cigarettes per day for the next 40 years, which is about one cigarette every 24 minutes while awake. I really surprised myself by being able to stop smoking cold turkey, particularly since Viola continued smoking in our home and around me. Somehow I did prevail and have not had a cigarette since that day in May 2010. Two years later Viola stopped smoking which was a major accomplishment, because it was not as easy for her. At that time she already knew something was wrong with her lungs, which made her able to make that extra effort. Only about three weeks later she was diagnosed with lung cancer. I have a Merchant Marine Unlimited Master's License and I work in the capacity as a Harbor Pilot which also requires a First Class Pilot License. Both of these licenses are issued by the US Coast Guard. The US Coast Guard requires annual physicals and now, in my case, due to my coronary artery disease, also a more thorough heart stress test every 2 years. This test involves "nuclear profusion" blood flow images in combination with a Bruce protocol stress test and is a major, half-day check-up. So, therefore, I had to have my first nuclear stress test of the heart in the spring of 2010. I failed this test, which turned out to be due to the fact that the inserted stents were now 100% blocked. An attempt to open up the blocked stents failed, and I was told that bypass surgery was the only option available to me. On June 19, 2010, I had a quintuple bypass surgery (five bypasses) at the Florida Hospital in Orlando. The surgery was successful and without any complications. Such an open heart surgery procedure required many months of rehabilitation due to the fact that I climb rope ladders up ship sides at work. It takes time for an opened rib-cage with an overlay of muscles to heal well enough for rope ladder climbing. I did not return to my job until February 2011. During this time, I studied alternative ways to heal, while I also did daily walks and swam in the ocean at Coki Beach. I also took special care with my diet and incorporated certain supplements with the intention and hope to reverse my disease and removing the need for the pharmaceutical drugs I had been prescribed. In this endeavor I was certainly most successful and I was able to drop the Lipitor, the Plavix and the 3 different blood pressure medications one by one, until I was taking no drugs at all in early May 2011 - 10 months after the bypass surgery. I have not taken any pharmaceutical drugs (prescription or over-the-counter) since. In fact, not as much as a single pill. The findings in my latest nuclear stress test of the heart dated November 05, 2012, says: "1. Excellent exercise tolerance. 2. No evidence of ischemia at rest and stress. 3. Nuclear perfusion images showed no evidence of ischemic heart disease.” It says further that I “received a total dosing of 15 mCi of technetium 99 Sestamibi at resting dose and stress dose of 36 mCi of technetium 99 Sestamibi. There was no evidence of active ischemia and patient remained clinically stable. The test protocol followed the Bruce protocol for 6 minutes and 45 seconds. Peak METs extended was 8.1. Peak heart rate of 181 beats per minute was achieved, representing 118% of the target maximum heart rate. Peak blood pressure was 160/80 mmHg and baseline blood pressure was 150/80 mmHg." So, it seems to me my previous coronary artery disease has been reversed.