We always joked that when Laura started to stink it would be good news.  Mid-week it happened.  The blood from Laura’s tumors turned rank.  ‘I smell like old dog,’ Laura wailed.  Today as Laura’s fever hit 103 and rising, her whole body started to smell like a family of Gerbils was in bed with her.  In Gerson’s original book A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 Cases (our new Bible) he says that during healing reactions patients’ perspiration can becomes so offensive and powerful it impregnates the room and ‘cannot be removed by soap and water or other cleaning methods.’  At his clinic, they sometimes had to repaint the rooms after patients left!

Today Laura’s fever rose steadily to 103.2. Late afternoon it broke and now at midnight it is normal again. She was ringing wet with sweat and coughed all day and tossed and turned in pain. Now she is newly bathed, in fresh sheets and sleeping again. It felt like Laura passed through the eye of the storm over the last 24 hours. In Gerson-ese this massive healing reaction and the fever are the body’s attempts to kill off the tumors. According to Max Gerson, cancer cells are damaged at temperatures over 102 degrees and fevers are coveted as signs that the patient’s immune system is kicking in.  Fevers are not to be lowered artificially if at all possible. However Dr Cervantes recommended Laura take acetaminophen this evening so as not to let her high fever go on too long.

Dr Cervantes sounded excited by the news of her fever.  ‘She is in the middle of a very important healing reaction,’ he said.  The most significant one occurs around the 3rd-4th month of treatment which is where she is now. He said to keep Laura well hydrated, stop her supplements and because she was having lots of bile, heart burn and nausea and was unable to eat or drink her usual juices today (instead she took lots of orange, lemon and honey juice with distilled water and a little gruel) he said to do only a few enemas using only half the quantity of coffee (however she only managed 2).

This week has been harrowing.  Seeing your soul mate suffer so much is almost unbearable.   In our darkest hours this week we’ve both wondered  if Laura is on the right path.  It is incredibly hard to heal the Gerson way.  It is not just the long hours of juicing, enemas,  shopping, cleaning and planning.  It is the little discussed and incredibly arduous detoxification process.  The clinic barely mentioned it to us and the Gerson books give scant advice on what to do. The trouble is everyone experiences detox differently.  Some sail through with a few days of discomfort. Others struggle.  Many give up around this time.  Dr Cervantes thinks Laura’s liver has been poisoned  by years of taking anti-depressants, which is why she is having a harder time detoxifying. I only hope and pray she catches a break soon.