Here is how I remember starting my war against melanoma cancer.

1. I ate and drank only what would strengthen my immune system.

2. Ate no animal fat or meat of any kind for six months. After six months I incorporated chicken and turkey into my diet weekly.

3. No sugar.

4. No salt, white flour, processed foods, cured meats, no margarine, butter only!

5. Did not eat food with toxins such as nitrites and food additives

6. No heavy metals such as mercury, sometimes found in fish.

7. Avoided environmental toxins as much as possible. Such as solvents and pesticides.

8. Avoided city water supply.

9. Immediately started on vitamin supplements: wheat grass, barley grass, alfalfa grass. Plus 104 vitamins per day. Many of the vitamin pills and capsules were taken several times a day to add to the total taken to 104.

10. I turned to God for his help to uncover his divine plan of health for my body, soul, and
spirit.

All of the above brought health, nutrition, fitness, and wholeness to my life. Most importantly the above program deepened my fellowship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Wow!

Note: My food and drink intake was severely changed. My daily food was taken from this list but not necessarily limited to it!Cruciferous vegetables I could eat: Broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, kohlrabi, kale, cauliflower, bokchoy, turnips, Squash, rutabagas, horseradish, etc. All veggies were organic. I ate deep water salmon 2 to 3 times a week to help with omega 3 I needed. I also took fish oil capsules, tomatoes and lots of tomato juice. Green, red, and yellow peppers, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, turnips, celery, lettuce, onions, garlic, etc. Apples, oranges, bananas, tangerines, all berries, apricots, etc.I ate all fruits and veggies raw. Or would daily juice some together. I never put anything on them that might have made them taste better. I also ate several different kinds of nuts. . Did not take long for me to realize that if it tasted good, I was eating something I should not have.

But here is the real shocker. To this day, I can and sometimes will eat my vegetables raw. Truly, I learned to like raw veggies. Within a year and three months I can say I was back on what I considered normal food. Will eat foods I know I should not have, but certainly not very often. Except meat. I very seldom eat meat to this day. Except chicken, turkey, and fish.The year was 1972. I was told by a doctor at City of Hope Cancer Center in California that I had a very large tumor under my right arm. He said he had to operate and remove it immediately.

He took out the extremely large tumor. However, he saw what he said were many pieces of the tumor scattered around under my arm. He asked the doctor who assisted him if she would like to get some experience for removing all of those pieces of the tumor. He reminded her that I probably did not have more than three months to live. The assistant said yes, she really wanted to do it. I was later told by my doctor she worked with me for over two more hours taking out all the cancer pieces she could find. She told my doctor she could not get all of them, but did what she could.

Then she added “maybe what I did will give her three more months.”When I returned home from the hospital and saw my sister crying hysterically, I knew the reality of my life being cut short. Until this moment it, wasn’t clear that any of this was happening. Now I knew I had to win this war against cancer. No way did I know where to begin nor how hard it was going to be.I became very quiet because I was tired and extremely weak.

But my mind was working . Spent most of my time alone reading a book that I found in my large book shelf. To this day ,I have no idea where it came from. It was all about how to cure cancer! Because I was a Professing Christian the thought came to me to turn alii was or ever would be, over to Jesus. As I was praying asking Jesus to show me what was needed in my life to win this battle with cancer, He said to me “do you want to live or come home?;’ I was totally shocked. It was a tough choice for me to make. During this heavenly experience, this is the only way I know to explain the power in my room at that time. Something very important happened. For many years I had experienced, day after day, horrible memories that knocked me to my knees. I would feel hurt, pain, and hate throughout my body. It was always beyond my ability to cope. Often I thought living just one more day was not worth it. Suddenly as I sat there in my bed Jesus spoke again. He said he could and would heal all my hurts and pain and bad memories. I could hear him speak from the inside out. His presence was all around me right there in my bedroom. I asked him to heal me of bad memories and the cancer as I could not do it myself. His peace and healing power and love poured upon me. I could feel it within me. What an experience.Then my mind was on myself. I knew Jesus was healing me.

My part in the healing of the cancer and all the other horrible memories was to completely forgive everyone and everything that caused me such deep hurt and pain, but I had to do it HIS WAY not my way.I had to let go of all the negative thoughts right at that time. It was also clear to me I must never allow any of them or any other trash to enter my mind again. I have never felt so humble in my life. There would never be space within my body, mind or soul for trash again because as the trash was leaving, Jesus’ Holy Spirit was filling up every cell in my body. I said come on my sweet sister let us begin the cancer therapy. I want to live and we are going to win this battle. She just seemed to glow. We went to the vitamin store and the open tent market along the highway where I bought nearly every kind of vegetable they had and some of every fruit. All were organically grown right in Riverside. We bought wheat grass seeds to start growing it in the house. I bought what I needed for my coffee enemas, ordered a special juicer that really juiced everything. It was great. We cleaned out the refrigerator of things not on the new daily menus. Next day I started my three day fast. After three days, I felt like I could take on the world. I told Deanne God was removing all the cancer, but we had to get my body on the healthy side or it might return. I was not taking any medication. Just the vitamin supplements. There are a few I still take today.After a few days of eating raw vegetables, fruits, and juicing all combinations of veggies and fruit, I began getting very hungry for food, such as hamburgers, hotdogs, meats, pork, ice cream, cookies, cake, etc. Oh the hunger for these foods was so strong. I was sure I was going to fail and go off the diet. With Deanne’s help, I did not go off the diet.Deanne and I were busy from morning to night stuffing veggies, fruits, wheat grass, barley grass, vitamins, and juice down me every half hour. As I think back about all we went through I cannot imagine how we went through it without giving up. Deanne said it was the love and power of God that leads us through. She didn’t get an argument from me. During my glowing times with Jesus the big lesson I learned was I had to do things HIS WAY, not MY WAY.After four months, my food intake was still fresh veggies, both raw and juiced. Wheat grass etc. However every three months I added other foods to my diet. Such as: Breads, chicken, eggs, potatoes, onions, garlic, cheese, peanut butter, raw nuts, etc.It is so interesting to me that I have not been sick since the cancer left my body.

That’s approximately 30 years ago, no colds, no flu’s, etc. There has been no more sadness, depression, pain, hurting, or suffering. I’ll be 76 years old in two months. My body and mind are slowing down, legs are weak, no pain in my body. Even so life here on earth may be short for me. That’s OK! I’m ready to go home anytime.

One more thing I want to share. I was pronounced cancer free approximately one year after I first went to City of
Hope. The doctor said he wanted to see me every three months because the cancer could return. I gave him a real funny look and said I don’t think I’ll be back. I reminded him of the many times I had tried to tell him about the cancer cure program I was on. No one would listen. The Dr. wrote on my medical file that it was a “MIRACLE HEALING” as there was no other explanation for it. I was speechless. The doctor asked me to tell him one more time what I had been doing to get well. Using the love and patience of the Holy Spirit within me I asked the doctor to step out into the halls. Then tell someone what you see. In fact tell yourself all that you see. If you see anything? Then I left and have never gone back. By the way: the walls of all the halls were full of beautiful frames with pictures of beautiful healthy raw vegetables, fruits, bible, and bible scriptures, and I saw a picture of a supplement bottle tipped over with vitamins coming out. Can you imagine that? I wonder if the doctor ever saw them.

A delightful 86-year-old gentleman came to our clinic in December of 2007 with a laboratory report that showed a form of cancer called “adenocarcinoma” in the colon. He and his wife asked for our help, but adamantly refused to have any form of chemotherapy. So we provided nutritional and homeopathic medicines for several weeks along with energy balancing therapies. His condition was not very advanced and it did not seem like more aggressive therapies were really called for at that time.

In March of 2008 we had a laboratory report called a PET/CT that showed “no evidence of activity” of the area of tumor in his colon. That means the therapies were very effective and his cancer had actually gone into remission.

He lives in Michigan and stays there for the summer. He just had a new colonoscopy which shows evidence of a cancerous tumor. Of course his doctors are recommending immediate surgery. His daughter told me he has not been taking his nutritional medicines quite as regularly as he should, and he now believes that what he had done with us may have been a waste of timeand money.

The actual truth is that his condition is much better than it would have been without nutritional therapies, and he has been able to avoid surgery and chemotherapy to this point. I advised her to have him continue his nutritional products and ask for a reevaluation of the PET/CT test to see if the tumor has become “active” again.

He actually participated in less than half of the therapies that we are able to offer. I told her that he should increase the therapies, and monitor the cancer growth carefully. If his tumor doesnot regress as would be expected then surgery is always an option. But surgery is certainly not his only or even his best choice at this time.

It would make more sense to continue to use what has worked in already and to redouble his efforts to maintain a regular schedule of nutritional medicines.

“Doctor, if it was you that had cancer would you have chemotherapy”?

     I have always lived by a basic “company policy” that I would not do for patients what I would not do for myself.  I have tried, tested and tasted every product and every procedure that we offer to patients.

    “No, absolutely not!”  I replied, without hesitation. 

     Chemotherapy is one thing I would not do for myself or my wife or anyone else in my family.
Not even in the low-dose format.
     The root cause of cancer is not low blood levels of chemotherapy drugs.  It comes from the physiological stress of nutritional deficiencies, accumulation of toxins and many other emotional factors over a long period of time. 
     I believe the best treatment for cancer is not to treat the cancer but to treat the patient.  Reduce the toxic burden, repair damage that may already be done, replenish nutritional deficiencies, restore the harmonious function of the body’s organs, and reverse the reason the body allowed cancer to grow in the first place.
     These 5-R’s of recovery can best be accomplished through the thoughtful and judicious use of foods and products from Mother Nature.

That is my personal philosophy at the deepest level. Pay attention to what works. Know how to tell the difference between what works and what does not work. Learn and learn well how to do and use what works, and then do that. The decision-making that I use for every patient is based on this principle - “Do What Works”.

As I grew into the profession of medicine I saw that indeed a small portion of what was being taught to me really worked. Most of it however did not work well at all. Mainly there were a lot of attempts at management of disease and treating symptoms - and not really making a difference in the health or quality of life of the people being treated.

But things were about to change. Just before graduating as a D.O. I experienced a medical miracle through a family member. My stepfather was literally at death’s door. He had advanced illness and was constantly weak, gray, and pale. He could not go up three steps to the front door without stopping to catch his breath. Walking from the bedroom to the kitchen was an effort. He was taking a handful of medicines three times a day and was continually getting worse. Both of us knew it would be easier if he would just breathe his last and call it quits.

He had already gone through two major surgeries in 10 years with a “patch-up” repair job in between. At that point I knew enough about medicine to know everything that could be done had been done. There was nothing else I knew of to help my step-dad.

Then during their very last two weeks of my training I found myself in a doctor’s office who was doing Chelation Therapy. He invited me to talk some of the patients in his office. I could not believe what they were telling me - they were recovering from advanced degenerative diseases of several kinds. Because I was (nearly) a doctor I knew enough to know that this had to be medically impossible. It could not happen - at least it was not supposed to happen. People should not be able to improve so much from these kinds of advanced conditions. But it was true, so they told me. And I had to accept that I saw it for myself.

The doctor was gracious and began to give Chelation Therapy treatments to my stepfather. In just 15 sessions he had turned pink again, and had an energy and zest for living that we both thought he had lost. “Dad” worked with me for another five years in the office before his condition finally did catch up with him. His favorite thing was talking to patients in my office and sharing his experience as they would be receiving similar therapies.

“Now here is something that works!” I said to myself. I am going to learn to do this.

There is another medical miracle in my family - my mother cured herself of cancer many years ago. She had been diagnosed with a very serious form of lymphoma with melanoma and was given three months to live. That was 30 years ago.

Upon her diagnosis she refused to have chemotherapy but did have surgery to remove the bulk of the tumor mass. The doctors were polite but the prognosis was grim. She had the support of her mother and her sister - they moved in with her and basically “force-fed” her for several months using organic vegetables, large amounts of home-squeezed juices daily and an all-around healthy diet.

She tells me that when she would go back to see the doctor she would try to tell him what she was doing but he did not pay much attention. A year later he finally said “You should not be alive - what are you doing?” Now she had his attention. She told him what she had done and of course he could not believe what he was hearing.

Her doctor has long since moved on and her medical records are so old as to be no longer available. She is alive and well today and living in southern California - 76 years young, taking no prescription medications and sharing her story with anybody that will listen.

“There is something that works!” I said to myself. I am going to learn about this.

Pursuing training in Chelation Therapy led me to earning an additional medical license in Homeopathic Medicine and that became the beginning of an entirely new education. I found that homeopathy worked very well. It helps reduce the toxic burdens and restore and rebalance our natural energies.

This was followed by learning to use whole foods and herbal medicines to help restore the body’s ability to heal itself. Hippocrates is credited with saying - “let your medicine be your food and your food be your medicine”.

Again, here is something that works very well. I am still learning about this.

Over the years I have accumulated several means of objectively measuring one state of health. It is as if we are able to open a window and a peek inside to see what is actually happening in the body. Now we have organized these sensitive instruments into a comprehensive Functional Health Profile. The Profile forms a picture of one’s state of health and vitality from heartbeat to heartbeat - a living picture of what is happening. This additional insight allows us to design treatment plans directed specifically toward one’s individual needs.

For over a decade I have found that the combination of whole food nutrition, herbal medicines and homeopathy has worked very, very well. My lovely wife is a natural healer and is bringing energy medicine therapies to our office.

By now I am not surprised to find that energy medicine works very well. My wife is learning about this.

Today it is my firm belief that using several forms of therapies that work well together as individualized treatment plans is an absolutely unbeatable combination in helping our patients recover from - or successfully live with - some of the most serious and severe of chronic diseases of our time.

We hope you will enjoy the updates and information from Dr. Charles Schwengel and Malonie Gabriel.

Note to patients: Please contact us directly to discuss your specific medical care. We are happy to privately discuss your care.