Dear Friends:

As you have no doubt heard, my dear wife Anne Frahm went home to be with Jesus on Feb. 5th. On the 9th we celebrated her life with several hundred friends and family who gathered in tribute. Many in the audience were there because Anne had given them help and hope in the face of their own health battles. Hers is now over, but the ministry of HealthQuarters remains as a reflection of her heart for others. The kids and I miss her, but rejoice that she's in good hands and loving it. She's run away with a better man, and that's OK by me.

So what happened?

The autopsy reads that she died from cancer that had returned to her backbone and pleural lining of her lungs. Fluid was also accumulating in the sack around her heart, which in the end caused it to quit working.

But why did this happen? Wasn't Anne doing what she knew to do to keep cancer cells in check?

The answer to that is yes. We were working very hard at all that we knew to do. Through our years of study we'd come to subscribe to the notion that there's really only one disease of the body, and that's toxicity. Cancer, and all other so-called diseases, are really just symptoms of a system in disrepair--a body that has become so overwhelmed with a toxic buildup that it can't perform the self-healing and protective functions God designed within it.

For the last year or so Anne had been plagued by troublesome symptoms in her system. Blood tests revealed a rise in her CEA rate (a tumor marker), to which she'd responded by redoubling her efforts at juice fasting and internal cleansing. We'd also begun seeing a "wholistic-minded" MD who traced the source of the development of a small tumor in her ovaries to infection in her jaw bone beneath a certain tooth. A "biologically-trained" dentist (a dentist who recognizes that what goes on in the mouth impacts the rest of the entire body) drilled a little hole in the bone and flooded the infected area with homeopathic medicines to kill the offending bacteria. The ovarian tumor went away.

That experience taught us how devastating jaw bone infections (known as cavitations) can be to one's health. Little did we know then that there were other cavitations yet to be detected. Finally, afier two more rounds of identifying and injecting various cavitation sites, oral surgery was strongly suggested. A month and a half before her death, in some back-pain at this point but not to the point of being immobile as she later became, Anne had three areas in her jaw laid open. Two were places where bone had never healed after the extraction of wisdom teeth 25 years previous. These empty holes, in direct contact with her sinuses, had become breeding grounds for a bacterial build up. The third site, a place in her lower right jaw, proved to be a nasty mass of pus. Early indications show that both aflatoxin and botulism, two very toxic and life threatening bacteria, were present. (By the way, cavitations are not only potentially deadly, but for the most part silent. Very seldom is there any pain associated with their existence. Guess it's important for us all to regularly call upon professionals trained to be able to identify them.)

Although all three cavitation sites were cleaned thoroughly, the lower right quickly became reinfected. In fact, getting that cavitation dealt with (and any others that might've shown themselves) was top on our list of priorities as I loaded up our van on February 1, preparing to drive Anne down to see our specially trained dentist (in another state). Anne's body, however, would not cooperate. She had become so depleted and immobile over the last weeks that she couldn't raise herself that morning from the recliner she'd used for sleep over the last six months. Her pain was excruciating. It became abundantly clear to me that I needed to get her into the local hospital and get her some spot radiation to see if that would help her regain mobility.

Radiation was something she swore she'd never do again to her body after her first experience nearly ten years previous. It was an emotionally hard decision for me to make, but my only option. My intent was to see if we couldn't get the tumor load on her spine reduced, then get her back to doing all the dental detoxing and immune system rebuilding.

Perhaps that raises yet another question worth trying to address. With all the juice fasting, internal cleansing, and immune system building Anne had been doing for years (and in fact helped her get well the first time around), should that not have taken care of the jaw infections without the need of injections and surgery?

Theoretically, yes. However, in Anne's case there were complicating factors weighing heavily upon her body's ability to build and maintain immune system power.

In teaching people who come to our Lodge to work at improving their heath, I liken our bodies to cars. As we go through life we tend to pick up various rocks (through our own choices or the impact of things outside our control) and put them in our "trunks", which puts a growing burden on our whole system. At some point the growing pile of rocks may get too heavy, causing a break down.

In Anne's case, at least five very large rocks remained in her trunk up until the end. The cavitation rock, of course, which I've been explaining. The other four was mercurv toxicity (having to do with dental fillings in her mouth), parasites, iron poisoning (having to do with blood transfusions) and bitter-root-judgements (having to do with emotional/spiritual issues).

Mercurv toxicity. Over the years Anne had collected a total of 14 mercury fillings in as many teeth.

If you've got silver fillings in your own mouth, they're at least 50% mercury. Mercury, although easy to use in dentistry, is also the most toxic non radioactive substance on the planet. It's so nasty that it's now illegal to bury it in the ground. For many years the American Dental Association claimed that once it's buried in your teeth, however, that it's all right. In 1985 that notion was proven conclusively wrong. Mercury fillings do leak mercury fumes every time one chews.

There is no safe exposure to mercury. Those who have studied these things say that more than four mercury fillings in one's teeth present a very dangerous situation. As I said, Anne had 14.

Afew years back she'd had all her mercury fillings (otherwise known as amalgams) replaced with nontoxic substances. She'd turned off the mercury 'faucet". Unfortunately, there were still the pools in her body to mop up. Once in the bloodstream, mercury has an affinity for the brain, kidneys and liver.

In Anne's last year, our 'wholistic-minded" MD did some testing which revealed three things: 1) Anne's body was detoxing mercury from her brain tissues, 2) her kidneys (the only way out of the body for mercuries) were under heavy stress, and 3) her liver was in reverse spin, no doubt caused in whole or part due to mercury. (All organs in the body have an electrical spin to them, and they spin in the right direction. Nutrients are spun in, toxins spun out. When an organ is in reverse or left spin, toxins are spun in and nutrients out-- the exact opposite of what is healthy.)

In addition, he told us that parasites are attracted to and feed off mercury. Further testing revealed that Anne was battling two specific types of parasites in her system: 1) Giardia, a microscopic parasite often found in mountain streani water and surrounding tap water, and 2)Taenia, also known as a tapeworm.

It's not unusual that Anne was dealing with parasites. Most of us have them. Growing up in the Midwest we knew that farmers made it a practice to de-worm their livestock and their kids twice a year. It's a good idea for all of us to do a parasite cleanse at least twice a year. Anne's problem with getting rid of them was the chow line of mercury locked up in her system. And when parasites find the mercury, they bring with them bacteria, viruses and very toxic excrement.

Well, that's a lot of info, some of which you may not understand. Suffice it to say that mercury in her system was putting heavy stress on her body's ability to heal and protect itself. Mercury rapidly depletes the immune system. We were doing some things to help her body purge it as fast as possible, but as I said her kidneys were having trouble. Mercury has the potential to impair kidney filtration by 50%.

Dentist Edward Arana writes, "Mercury and other heavy metals from dental fillings contribute to all chronic disease states."

Iron poisoning. During the bone marrow transplant which she'd undergone some eight years previously, Anne had received in excess of 150 blood transfusions. With each introduction of new blood to her system came a whopping load of iron. Had she still been menstruating, her body would have been able to discharge any excess iron accumulating. However, chemotherapy had sent her system into menopause.

Excess iron had no way of escaping her body. Theoretically, chelation therapy should have been able to help. Chelation is the introduction of a certain chemical agent into the bloodstream via an intravenous drip in an effort to bind with excess iron and /or other heavy metals and flush them from the system. Trouble was, every time we tried it, very little impact was made on her iron (ferritin) levels, while at the same time it wreaked havoc on her magnesium stores. (Same thing happened when we tried to use chelation to fitish the mercury from her system). When magnesium is low, muscle pain is high. Hers would sore off the charts! She would get muscle spasms in her feet that would drive her to tears. They would be so intense that I'd fear she'd break a bone.

Although the normal range of ferritin (iron) in the blood is between 10-291, Anne's was near 1600 at the time of her death. Chelation had not been working for us. We'd thought about bloodletting, basically having blood drawn and throwing it away. However, unsure her system could handle that, we never tried it.

So what's the problem with having too much iron in one's blood? First, according to Maria de Sousa of the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Institute, bacteria have a ravenous need for iron. What a food supply the bacteria in Anne's jaw bone and elsewhere must have had! No wonder we were having trouble killing it off.

Secondly, white blood cells, our protective agents against both bacteria and cancer cells, are attracted to the iron in bacteria, thus making contact and killing them. However. when there are excess stores of iron in a body, our white blood cells attach themselves to this excess iron and are thus unavailable for our protection. Bacteria thrive. Cancer cells multiply and form tumors.

Iron poisoning was indeed a heavy rock in Anne's "trunk" which we never did figure out how to unload from her system. I suppose there would have been a way had we given more attention and priority to it--maybe bloodletting would have helped after all. Bottom line, with all else that we were trying to do for her, and with our frustrations with her body's response to chelation therapy, we just didn't know that dealing with iron poisoning was as important as it was. Only as I've had time to review the battle plan in retrospect was I able to put two and two together.

And finally, the other significant rock in Anne's trunk--bitter-root-judgement. Let me confess right up front that I'm not as informed in this element of the emotional/mental side of fighting cancer as I expect to be shortly. It was only in the last six months of Anne's life that I began to see more clearly how the judgements we form against ourselves and carry- around inside us play perhaps the most important role in the health of our bodies.

John Diamond, MD observes that the emotional components of cancer are ~the most important and least addressed by conventional medicine. As children, sometimes even as babies or in the womb, we are wounded by circumstances (parental attitudes, relationships with siblings, and the overall family environment). To survive, we produce a response--many call it a wall--to maintain emotional and biological balance and protect ourselves."

As I mentioned. in the last year of Anne's life we'd had the pleasure of building a friendship with a 'wholistic-minded" MD--a godly Christian man--who knew the importance of asking and granting forgiveness. He taught us that, as mentioned above, things can actually happen to a person, even while still in their mother's womb, that are emotionally wounding. The resulting emotions, even if not consciously felt in later years, can be subconsciously retained. This can lead to what counselors refer to as "bitter-root-judgements".

The best I can describe a bitter-root-judgement, is a condemnation you make against yourself subconsciously based upon how you perceive others to have treated you. For instance, if you were the result of an unwanted pregnancy, the emotions of regret and anger expressed by your mother or your father even while you were still in the womb will be perceived by you, the fetus, as rejection. The subconscious judgement you might make against yourself is "I don't deserve happiness, health and healing" or "I do deserve sadness, pain and punishment".

Another example would be, suppose your grandfather began to sexually molest you at a very young age. Your parents had no idea, often leaving you and your siblings in the care of this man. When you finally told your parents, you felt their anger at your revealing something that had the power to destroy the family. You also felt rejection--their seeming unwillingness to have protected you from this most vile of childhood experiences.

And yet another example, later in your childhood, in fact in junior high school, a male teacher, much you're elder, begins to flirt with and fondle you. He calls you into his classroom repeatedly to stay after school. The blinds are pulled and the wrestling match ensues. When the principal and your parents are finally told, you get the impression that it's somehow your own fault.

Later in life you become a Christian, and you begin to learn the importance of forgiveness. You read in the Bible that we are to forgive others, just as God has forgiven us. And you do. You see the need and you dutifully obey the practice of forgiving all the wrong done you in your early years--your formative years.

But there are some things that happened to you that you don't even remember; things that your subconscious may be hanging on to but are not consciously felt. The subconscious which runs your body apart from your will--known as your autonomic nervous system--will actually begin to shut down various organs and systems in the body in response to the judgement that 'I don't deserve happiness,  health and healing".

Then too, every now and then something will happen in your life as an adult that will trigger that subconsciously held bitter-root-judgement, again resulting in negative shut down by the autonomic  nervous system.

The key to overcoming this barrier to health and healing is to spend a lot of time every day in  prayer practicing forgiveness--forgiving people at every stage (fetus, child, adolescent, adult), and every age within each stage. Keeping short accounts with God. Not letting things fester. All the examples that I've shared above of potentiallv verv devastating situations actuallv happened to Anne. Imagine the depth of shame and rejection she must~ve felt, and later the anger. Scientists tell us that emotions impact tissues. Without question the emotions deeply imprinted on Anne's psyche at an early age had an impact on her health as an adult. Yes, she was doing her best to practice forgiveness. If you asked her if she bore any anger or grudges, she'd have said no. To the best of her abilities, she'd forgiven all the wrong done her. But I do believe that her autonomic nervous system was still responding to that deeply held judgement that "I don't deserve happiness health and healing."

As I've mentioned, our MD friend was helping us learn how to detoxifi her mind and emotions. Still, she struggled. We were making definite progress, but the disease process overwhelmed her body before adequate emotional/spiritual healing could be reached.

Anne was a wonderful, caring, sensitive, artistic, cause-orientated woman whom I loved deeply and will miss always. She was also a deeply wounded soul, scarred by sin which so often surrounds us in this world--a world which she both loved and hated.

"I'm homesick for Jesus," she told a friend not long ago.

Well, not anymore!

So my friends, that's what I think was happening to Anne's body during her last months. By God~s act of grace, He led her to use nutrition and nontoxic therapies to help her win back her health when cancer first reared its ugly head nearly 10 years ago. The conclusion I've come to in watching is that for some people simply cleaning out their liver and colon, improving their digestion, changing to a health promoting diet, and taking supplements will be all they need to regain their health. And indeed, that worked for my wife the first time around.

But for many others (perhaps most others), the cleansing/detoxing process must not stop there. There may be other big rocks to deal within one's trunk. If left unattended they may get quite troublesome, creating an internal environment in which cancer can once again thrive.

In all healing there is a purpose. I'm fully convinced that His purpose in Anne's original healing was so that she could launch and lay a firm foundation for the work of HealthQuarters Ministries.

My wife's experiences have taught me much. Her life was a proving ground--a field studv for many of the things we now teach others who wish to be better stewards of their own health. Through what she experienced, I've learned and added to my own understanding of the broader scope of the detoxing process since we originally wrote A Cancer Battle Plan. The book I began writing shortly before her death, A Cancer Battle Plan Manual, will contain all that we learned these last 10 years.

Anne and I shared a common love for poetry. The following, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was our favorite and motivates me to press on in the face of the hollowness currently residing in my heart.