Sample Chapter

Writing This Book
“You cannot surprise an individual more than twice
with the same marvel.”
— MARK TWAIN
~ For a PDF of Chapter, Click Here ~

WRITING THIS BOOK WAS an experience full of surprises. When I first began the project, I knew I wanted enough case stories of pets whose cancers were cured or greatly helped by Essiac Tea to show how effective the formula can be. I also wanted to present details of what others had learned about administering Essiac to animals so that readers could achieve the best possible results with their own pets. For this, I needed to talk to pet owners directly, not just report about cases that were posted on the Internet. In fact, my original intent was to only present cases I wrote up after personally speaking with the pet owners directly so I could inquire about important details or rule out cases that used another treatment at the same time that might possibly account for the pet’s recovery.

As I started looking for cases on the Internet, I was pleased to find a broad collection of pet cancer recoveries through the use of Essiac alone—many presented as unsolicited product reviews from people who posted their dog or cat story on various sites. But my jubilation was short-lived when I discovered it was much more difficult to reach the pet owners for details about their stories than I had expected. Companies selling a product don’t give out the contact information of their customers. I did realize, however, that the fact that there were so many success stories posted online was of interest in itself. So I decided to list a few examples here to show readers that they, too, can find such testimonials on the Internet with very little searching. These particular reviews are from Amazon.com for the brand “Essiac International” in capsule form, which, for me, makes them even more impressive since I tend to think that Essiac in capsule form is not as powerful as the brewed tea.

February 6, 2020 — “My Cat is Alive”
My Beloved Kiki was given a few weeks to live after he was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive cancer. We were sent home with the phone number of a veterinarian who comes to your house to euthanize a pet in the comfort of home. I found Essiac in a desperate search for something to alleviate his suffering and perhaps give us a little more time together. That was a little over three years ago. He is a happy, healthy, active cat who still warms my feet at night and my heart always. Our vet . . . and the specialists who diagnosed him call it a miracle.

June 15, 2015 — “I Credit This Product for My Dog Still Being Alive. . .“

I credit this product for my dog still being alive. She has been diagnosed as having terminal bone cancer in her leg. She is a Basset Hound so amputation is not a viable option. I read about this product on www.NaviTheDog.com. She too developed cancer and has lived for over 2 years more than the Vet predicted with the help of this product. For myself, I can only say my dog is still alive and more active since I started giving her this product.

March 15, 2016 — “Miracle Herbs”
My cat had an autoimmune condition that produced a sore on his lip that kept growing larger to the point that his lip was almost gone. My vet had him on prednisone for almost 3 months — it did not clear up the sore but kept it from getting larger — he began to lose weight & just not feel good. I knew it was the prednisone so I took him off it. I tried a bunch of holistic concoctions which did not seem to do anything. Then someone suggested Essiac. It was expensive so I was hesitant, but it was my last resource so I thought I’d give it a shot. Within 3 days his lip began to heal — I thought it was just my imagination, but within 5 days there was marked improvement. I’ve had him on this as a daily supplement for 3 months now, the sore is completely gone and the Essiac is used for daily maintenance, as I know that his autoimmune condition is still present. This stuff is an all natural miracle healing herbal mixture and I would not hesitate to recommend it for human or animal use.

Of course, not everyone will have success with their pet, and that might be reflected in some of the testimonials on Amazon or other websites. But keep in mind that failure to achieve a full recovery can be due to many factors. For instance, the pet owner may not have given their pet a strong enough dose for its weight and size, . . . or maybe the pet owner skipped days and did not administer the Essiac consistently . . . or possibly the pet only had a few days to live when the Essiac was started and was therefore beyond the point of being strong enough to recover. I say this, not to downplay all unsuccessful reports, but simply to remind pet owners that an unsuccessful case does not necessarily mean Essiac doesn’t work. The unsuccessful cases do remind us, however, that there is never a 100% recovery guarantee that comes with Essiac Tea.

The cases that do reflect success, on the other hand, are often phenomenal. The problem for me in terms of writing this book was that the Amazon reviews gave me no contact information, so I could not call or email any of those pet owners for the details of their stories. And when I emailed other websites and Facebook forums that mentioned pet cancer recoveries, I rarely received replies. I also called every Essiac distributor I could find, even one in England, but the answer was generally the same. They knew of people who had used their product successfully on pets, but they had no write-ups of cases and could not reveal any contact information about their customers. It was frustrating to see that there were plenty of great cases out there but I could not contact the pet owners and report on them.

I was finally able, however, to slowly accumulate enough case stories for this book. One thing that helped was that some of the pet owners I did reach were able to refer me to other pet owners they knew who’d also had success with Essiac. Every story in this book that has a photo of the pet was a case I was told about first hand from the pet’s owner, and every photo inside the book is genuine.

The interesting thing was that, as I gathered more and more cases, I kept finding myself pleasantly surprised. Keep in mind that, with my 20-year history of investigating alternative non-toxic cancer treatments, I am not easily surprised by alternative approaches that work well for cancer, as many other people might be. Nevertheless, I was surprised by the incredible effectiveness of Essiac Tea. This was partly due to the impressive dog and cat cases I was able to find and also due to the amazing human cases that kept unexpectedly surfacing in my conversations with friends or pet owners. Though I did not originally plan to report such second-hand cases, some of these stories were so surprising I would like to share them here.

For example, this unexpected human case was relayed to me one day when I happened to be speaking to a Naturopathic doctor I’ve known and respected for a long time. I was telling her I was writing about using Essiac for pets and she responded by saying that she had been recommending a capsule form of Essiac Tea from the supplement company Nature’s Sunshine to people with pets for thirty years. (I didn’t even know Nature’s Sunshine had a capsule form of it.) She then told me that her own daughter-in-law had been diagnosed with a benign tumor on her pituitary gland several years prior and, upon my friend’s suggestion, merely took one capsule per day of Nature’s Sunshine Essiac Tea. After a year, the brain tumor was gone.

Then, I was interviewing a pet owner named Louise whose dog’s benign lipoma masses and arthritis had been cured by the tea from GenuineEssiac.com. Though not a cancer case, I included her dog, Buck’s, story in Chapter 3 to let readers know how effective Essiac can be for treating lipomas and arthritis—since these are both common ailments that plague older dogs. When I asked Louise how she and her husband found out about Essiac Tea in the first place, she said that, before giving Essiac to their dog, her husband had used it to cure himself of Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer.

But her husband’s pancreatic cancer cure was not the only remarkable case Louise knew about. She then described to me an extremely advanced case of brain cancer in a man whom she and her husband had helped to use the same brand of Essiac Tea they had used (the one from GenuineEssiac.com). This man was unable to stand up on his own and unable to walk because of his malignant brain tumor when Louise and her husband showed his wife how to brew the tea for him. As Louise put it, “The man was gray in color, one side of his face was paralyzed, he could no longer speak normally, and he spent his time lying on the couch with his funeral paid for, waiting to be put into a coffin.”

Three weeks after starting this man on Essiac, Louise and her husband called to see if he was still alive. They were amazed to find him shopping at Home Depot. He’d started feeling well so fast that he and his wife had resumed their outdoor gardening and needed more supplies. Amazingly, this man was now walking, talking, and driving his car. According to Louise, he continued to improve and had a complete recovery.

Below is yet another impressive human case that I came across unexpectedly, this time on the GenuineEssiac.com Facebook page: Unsolicited Online

Testimonial from Oct. 2019

My mother was diagnosed with melanoma in 2006. She had a growth on the bottom of her foot that was biopsied and came back with positive results [for cancer]. She had  multiple surgeries to get clean edges around the spot. She then had some lumps in her leg biopsied and found the same results. The doctor said if he took out all the tumors in her leg, [her leg] would look like Swiss cheese. We took my mother to see an oncologist. She recommended chemo or removing the leg at the groin. My mother had other health problems including having had a kidney transplant several years prior to the melanoma find. She felt like the chemo would cause problems with her kidney and she didn’t want to lose her leg, so she chose to do nothing. The oncologist gave her 6-12 months. This was in 2006.

At this time my mother spoke to a friend who knew a man who had experienced some healing from cancer by drinking this Essiac Tea. My mom determined she had nothing to lose by trying it so we ordered some and she began taking 6 oz three times per day. Miracles began to happen. The tumors in her leg began shrinking. A follow-up scan showed drastic differences from the original scan. My mother continued to drink the tea. We scheduled an [appointment with her doctor]. When we showed up in his office, he walked into the patient room and asked my mom, ‘What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead.’ We laughed. We told the doctor about the Essiac Tea. He took a picture of the empty tea bag we took with us showing the ingredients. He said he wanted to show this to the oncologist my mother had gone to see the year prior. We never heard another word from this surgeon or the oncologist.

My mother continued to drink the tea for several years. She was nearly 83 when she passed away last year—12 years after her melanoma diagnosis and 6 to 12 month death prediction. She passed away from pneumonia.

I’m a believer in the Essiac Tea and grateful to my mother’s friend who spoke up and shared the tea information with my mom. I’ve also taken the tea at different times for short periods of time when I heard that it helps with arthritis. It has no doubt given me relief. I just ordered more. I read through the pamphlet yesterday and determined I’m going to drink this to detoxify my body and give my body some
good nutrients to be proactive in my future health.

Of course, none of the examples of cases in this chapter are, by themselves, convincing. The compelling part is that, when investigating Essiac Tea, these types of stories are ridiculously common.

Then, I discovered that even just mentioning “a Native American cure for cancer” sometimes produced interesting personal reports. Though not about Essiac Tea, one such story truly took me by surprise. I was speaking with a woman I had just met at my Church and found out that she had worked many years earlier at various Indian reservations in the United States. When I happened to mention that I was writing a book about an Indian herbal remedy for cancer, she excitedly told me that one of her daughters had been diagnosed with brain cancer a long time before. The daughter began undergoing conventional treatment that the doctors said might slow down her brain cancer, but they told her that the treatment would not be able to cure her. Sadly, the daughter was told there was no hope for her survival. Since the woman I was speaking to had worked on Indian reservations, she and her daughter went to a Native American healer. The healer showed them how to gather the leaves from a wild strawberry plant and prepare them in a certain way as a treatment.

The daughter did as she was told and said that the first night after taking the wild strawberry leaf preparation, it felt like her brain was on fire. After that, her brain cancer regressed, disappeared, and she has been cancer-free ever since. In 20 years of studying alternative non-toxic cancer treatments, I have never heard of using the leaves of a wild strawberry plant. Unfortunately, my church shut down shortly after that due to the coronavirus pandemic and I have not had an opportunity to speak to the woman again to get more details of her daughter’s story. Given how difficult it is to cure people with brain cancer, I would love to know more about the wild strawberry leaf remedy.

The Mark Twain quote at the beginning of this chapter was selected because I was intrigued by how the quote may apply to “normal” things in life, but not so much to things we’ve been heavily indoctrinated to believe. In other words, just about everyone has been raised with the mindset that nobody is going to be cured of advanced cancer with something as simple as an 8-herb brew or the leaves from a wild strawberry plant. This type of ingrained belief is not easily overcome and even an old pro at writing about effective alternative cancer treatments, such as myself, can be surprised at times. All this is to say that, when it comes to looking into a treatment such as Essiac, you really can surprise an individual more than twice with the same marvel!

~ For a PDF of Chapter, Click Here ~