Author: Poppy Fair

Out with the conventional, in with the alternative: Fighting cancer with alternative medicine

Published on by Poppy Fair1 Comment

I think it’s safe to say that the word “conventional” was never used to describe Mum. She viewed life through a lens just a little bit different to everyone else’s and it was often very beautiful. But I think the area where her unconventionality was most evident was when addressing health. 

When I was about 8 years old, I clearly remember Mum claiming that if she ever had cancer then she would refuse conventional treatment (like chemo), fly to Mexico and go to an alternative medicine centre there. Little did I know just how accurate this statement was. 

Making big decisions

When Mum was diagnosed with cancer, she spoke to the doctors about the different treatment options, but I knew exactly which medical path she would take. As you would expect, she received a lot of push back from medical professionals and friends, it’s not often people decide to take on cancer in the way that she did. 

I remember saying to her that whatever decision she makes, I’ll support her. I also felt the need to point out that if she did change her mind and wanted to go down the conventional route, then that’s ok too. 

But essentially, doctors told Mum that she would likely die in around three months without any medical intervention. They said that with their treatment, there was a 65% chance she would live for a few more years. Understandably, those figures were not enough to convince Mum.

We were also very aware that the information given by doctors was not definite. No human can be sure. But we have a God that knows the exact number of minutes we have left on this earth, and Mum chose to trust Him instead. 

The alternative route

So it was decided. Mum was going to fight her cancer naturally. She had been watching a video series called “The Truth about Cancer”, which looked at cancer through a range of lenses, such as emotional, dietary, biological. This is something that really helped her. I think it made her feel like she was approaching her disease in a way that resonated with her. She would come back from the hospital feeling depressed and discouraged but these videos brought her hope and filled her with life. 

From the day she got her cancer diagnosis, Mum radically changed her diet. She cut out all sugar – this was a massive feat for her because she was definitely a chocoholic – but she believed that cancer fed off of sugar and it would make her more ill. And so, other than the odd special occasion, she cut it out!  

The next step was finding somewhere that would help her fight cancer in the way she wanted to. 17 years before her diagnosis, Mum had heard about a clinic in Mexico called the Hoxsey Bio-Medical Center. This is where she knew she wanted to go. But it would cost money. 

On 13th June 2022, we set up a GoFundMe page with the aim to raise £3,000, which would pay for her travel costs and treatment. In less than a month we reached our goal. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every person that donated. Your generosity was astounding. I know that it really touched Mum, and she was overwhelmed with appreciation.

The Hoxsey Bio-Medical Center – Tijuana, Mexico

A picture of the author's mother stood on a platform, waiting for a train to travel to Mexico for alternative treatment.
Mum leaving to travel to the Hoxsey Bio-Medical in Tijuana, Mexico (6th July 2022)

On 6th July 2022, Mum left North Devon to travel to Tijuana, she was heading to the Hoxsey Bio-Medical Center.

Once at the clinic, Mum was hooked up to an IV for five days that was full of vitamins and supplements, with the purpose to strengthen her impaired immune system. She was then given a herbal remedy called “Hoxsey Tonic”, which helped to detox her system. They also gave her a detailed diet plan with meal ideas because there were some foods that she had to avoid because they counteracted with her tonic. This tonic and diet plan became an integral part of the rest of her life. Details of how the Hoxsey Bio-Medical Center addresses cancer can be found here.

The Bio-Medical Center’s ‘About’ page states:

“Hoxsey Bio Medical was founded on a desire to share hope and help people heal… Since its inception in 1963, Hoxsey Bio Medical has allowed over 250,000 patients to face cancer on their own terms. Many of our original staff and trusted partners remain at the clinic, preserving the mission of empowering each patient to face their diagnosis with strength and stability.”

I truly believe that this is what they did for Mum. They empowered Mum to fight cancer in her own positive way. The hospitals she visited in England were responsive with her diagnosis and testing but Mum didn’t feel heard or seen. As soon as she spoke about alternative methods of approaching cancer, she was often demonised and neglected. Whereas, below is a message I received from her once she’d returned from Mexico:

A WhatsApp message from the author's mother, describing how positive she was feeling after her alternative treatment.

What do I think about all of this?

Now you may be wondering how I feel about all of this? Mum has of course died now, so she was not healed by these alternative methods, or God. I think the most important thing to recognise is that this was never promised – through either conventional or alternative treatment. 

Mum was terminal and, unless done miraculously, she wasn’t going to be healed. However, she was able to fight cancer in her way. Because of her strong opposition to chemo, I truly believe that she would not have responded well to it. Whereas because Mum had the freedom to fight cancer in this alternative way, she was full of life, up until the very end! 

The doctors gave her a prognosis of a few months without their treatment, but Mum lived for another year and three months! And you wouldn’t have even known she had cancer until her very final couple of months. 

The path she took also helped her to grow in her faith. She saw an opportunity to trust God, to look at the natural world he created and to recognise it’s goodness and healing properties. She died with dignity, hope and faith, knowing that she did all that she could to fight the horrible disease that she had.  

Furthermore, through Mum’s cancer journey – from completely changing her diet, to following her gut and fighting her disease in her way, to deep diving into the alternative ways to fight cancer – I really recognised what an amazingly strong, determined and resilient woman she was. I’m so grateful to be able to call her my mum and for the resilience and trust in God that she has taught me. 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) 

Learning to love, even when it’s hard

Published on by Poppy Fair2 Comments

As humans, we have an innate habit of responding selfishly. We naturally look at a situation through a blinkered lens that focuses on our own feelings and not others. When faced with challenges, we react rather than think. 

One of the biggest things I’ve learnt, and am still learning, over the last couple of years is learning to love especially when it’s hard. I still haven’t perfected this, and it’s something I’ve really been struggling with this week, so I thought I’d put down some of my thoughts around the topic. 

So first of all, how can we define love? 

What comes to mind when you think of love? Motherly love? Brotherly love? Puppy love? It comes in many different forms, and I think our definition of love is greatly influenced by films and songs. 

Very Well Mind describes love as “a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust”. They claim that it is one of the most studied behaviours, but the least understood. 

Similarly, most dictionary definitions describe love as a “strong feeling” or “passionate affection”. It’s all very ‘feeling’ based. But what if love is more of an action than an emotion?

The Bible talks a lot about love but I think it is summarised well in the famous verses of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

When I am struggling to love, I look back on these verses. How can I be patient and kind? Are my feelings coming from envy, pride, or selfishness? Am I trying to honour this person, or am I self-seeking? 

But most of all, love delights in truth. This means that sometimes, being loving means saying truthful things that are difficult to say. But not saying them from selfish ambition, but because you want what is good and honourable for that person. 

Now, I don’t always do this well. Often, when in the heat of the moment, I am easily angered, I do think about all the ways a person has wronged me, or sometimes I just want to give up on someone and not persevere in love. But it’s helpful to remember that this is not what we’re called to do. 

Under the heat

I think when facing trials is when we can be the most unloving. In the first few months after Mum was diagnosed with cancer, there were some rather rocky times. Getting such a scary diagnosis is hard. There were times when Mum really lashed out at others. It was also tough for family and friends, sometimes we lashed out at each other too. 

God sees, knows and understands the difficulties we face, the Bible often refers to these as “burdens”. When facing trials, the human in us wants to lash out at each other, but what does God call us to do? Love one another through them.

“Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:9)

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:9-10) 

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

Showing love when it’s hard

This is all very easy to say but when you’re in the thick of it and strong feelings of anger, hurt and pain are present, it’s a lot harder to love. I’ve been in situations where I think I’m showing people love and yet I’ve been hurting them, or the loving thing isn’t what they want to hear. What then? 

Well, when I’m finding it hard to love, that’s when I think about the love of Jesus, and His command for us: 

“Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12-23) 

Now, it’s not often we’re in a situation where we actually have to die for each other. But how about: lay down one’s pride; lay down one’s anger; or lay down one’s envy. If Jesus died for us and showed the greatest love in that, and that’s the way we’re called to love, is it really that difficult to put aside our selfish ambitions? 

Well the answer to that is yes, it is – because we’re human! But thankfully, by recognising the difficulty to do this, and asking God to help us, we can respond in love, even when it’s really tough. 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6) 

But sometimes we really don’t want to show love to someone. They’ve hurt us or wronged us, and we want to harbour that discontent towards them. And that’s when I also think of Jesus, I don’t love for me, I don’t love for other people, “I love because He first loved me” (1 John 4:19). 

So, there are my thoughts. This was all rather Bible verse heavy, I know. But when I’m facing such a challenging issue, I’m so very grateful for the wealth of help and knowledge that’s offered in the Bible.  

I’ve definitely felt challenged writing this, and it’s been really helpful to reflect on. So just one more verse that I want to take away from all of this: 

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

Responding to a Cancer Diagnosis: The beginning of Mum’s battle with cancer

Published on by Poppy Fair2 Comments

Here I am writing again, look at me go! I guess the tips from my last post have been somewhat effective. Something else that helped me schedule in time to write was starting to think about what I would write, which I found rather difficult at first. I have a lot to write about, but how to communicate it in an orderly fashion, that’s the challenge. 

Well, as I mentioned before, my last year or so has been particularly eventful so I thought I’d start at the beginning of that – my mum’s cancer diagnosis. Some tough stuff to talk about but I think it’ll be good to reflect on it, and I pray that my experience can be helpful to others too. So here we go…

10th May 2022

Mum had a lump. It turns out she had had a lump for quite a while but due to the busy-ness of life, and the chaos of the ‘Covid years’, she didn’t go to get it checked. In the months of March – April 2022, Mum was changing career from co-ordinating expeditions up Kilimanjaro to training to be a taxi driver – quite the dramatic change. This seems irrelevant, I know, but this shift of career was more life changing than you can imagine. To become a taxi driver, there are all sorts of tests you need to do – including medical. During her full body examination, Mum’s lump was found. 

A small reflection on this: God really does work in mysterious ways. What a random change of career – expedition co-ordinator to taxi driver. But if it wasn’t for the providence of this timing, who knows when Mum’s diagnosis would have come about.

So anyway, at this point all we knew was Mum had a lump on her left breast and it needed to be checked. On 10th May 2022, Mum had a confirmed breast cancer diagnosis that was “at least” at Stage 3 but we were waiting for further test results. These results later confirmed that Mum was HER2+, meaning that the cancer would grow more quickly. A month later, it was discovered that the cancer was at Stage 4 because it had spread to her lymph nodes on the right side. 

Responding to a diagnosis 

A diagnosis effects many people in many ways. As soon as there was any mention of cancer, I sought advice from online resources and found Macmillan’s “Supporting Someone” page particularly helpful – it really talks through the emotions of the person receiving a diagnosis, which is useful to understand if you want to support them well. Personally, I feel that I responded in the following ways: 

  1. Being there – My mum lived in North Devon and I live in Bath – sometimes being there didn’t mean physically. Even before a confirmed diagnosis, I phone and messaged Mum regularly. I wanted her to feel supported and seen. I travelled down on the day of her diagnosis, and then rather regularly as her journey transpired. It was important to me that Mum knew she wasn’t going through this alone.

  2. Research – There’s a lot of terminology that comes alongside a diagnosis. This can be confusing. There is also a lot of information on the internet – plenty of which can be rather unhelpful, and cause more anxiety and fear than is needed. I did research terminology to gain a basic understanding, but I tried to not go down any rabbit holes of what symptoms and longer term prognosis looks like. I felt that the most important research I could do was practical stuff. How can I support Mum emotionally? What’s helpful and unhelpful to say? What are the likely emotions I will feel during this time, and how could I process these?

  3. Faith and prayer – In moments of such uncertainty the only way I know how to respond is by praying – and when I say praying, I don’t mean praying that this bad thing will go away. I mean praying that God will give the strength to get through such a storm. Recognising through prayer that I know God sees past these current events, and He will carry me through to the other side. Praying that Mum will remember who God is and that He’ll be with her when everything feels dark and scary. To pray such things, had wondrous results. I had to keep reminding myself that death, pain and suffering is not the way that God wanted this world to be, and it pains Him as much as it pained me. This scary situation was an opportunity to draw closer to God, who wants to comfort and love me through such situations – what a hope to hold on to.

  4. And finally, choosing love – This is going to be a recurring theme as I discuss Mum’s cancer journey because during this whole experience, I think I’ve learnt the many forms that choosing love can take. I also learnt that the best way to know how to love Mum and the people around me, was by remembering who Jesus is and how He chose to love me. To love well, you must take a real look at your own heart, where your intentions lie, and who you are doing things for. Sometimes choosing to love someone means saying the hardest truths, sometimes it means not saying anything. But overall, I knew that the best way I could love Mum during this devastating time, was by pointing her to Christ and the love that He has for her. 

As I said above, a diagnosis affects many people in many ways. It’s tough news to receive and nobody responds perfectly. I’ve not written this to tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do. I just want to reflect, process and share my story of how I responded during a pretty tough time. 

I shared the below verses with Mum on the day of her diagnosis, and how true they remained throughout her cancer journey: 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

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A picture of the author in graduation attire with her mother that has passed away, stood in from of Bath Abbey.

Embracing the Joy of Writing and Faith: Top tips for finding a good writing routine

Published on by Poppy Fair2 Comments

I’ve been wanting to start writing for a while now, and I keep road blocking myself but I know that I just need to start. Once I get going the love of writing and the benefits of reflecting will kick in and the habit will become easy – that’s what I’m hoping anyway. So, here I am, giving writing ago… Perhaps I should start by thinking a little bit about why I want to write, maybe that’ll get the ball rolling.

The love of writing

When I actually get my act together and write things, or when I’m writing newsletters or similar content at work, I find a lot of joy in piecing words together to express opinions, thoughts, and ideas. It’s such a great opportunity to portray character and voice, and I have always admired the way that words work together to create a sentence that flows well.

So, if I find joy in writing so much, why on earth don’t I do it? Well, I think for many reasons: procrastination, feeling like it’s a much bigger task than it really is, plus I’m newly married so finding that quiet time, alone, in a small flat can be a bit of a challenge. 

Looking ahead, what can I do that’s different? I’ve been having a look online at some “top tips” for finding a good writing routine – because I think that’s what I need really, to make writing a part of my norm. Here are tips from various websites that I think I’ll find particularly helpful: 

  • Starting small and steady – one of my biggest issues is that this, writing, feels like a much bigger job than it really is. I think to just get going and start writing, whilst not putting big expectations on myself, will really help.
  • Finding your rhythm – this is a tough one for me, as I work Monday to Friday (and often Saturdays too) and I leave at 8am and get home at 6:30pm. My guess is that early mornings or late at night will be a good time for me – but let’s just see. Sunday afternoons are also a likely option. I think I may even try scheduling writing into my calendar – maybe that’ll help.
  • Accountability – this could play out in different ways. Getting a friend on board is always helpful; starting a blog where there is an expectation for a routine piece offers a deadline (but could add pressure); or even just setting a goal for myself, whether I want to write a whole piece monthly, or 500 words weekly.
  • Adopt a making time not finding time mentality – now THIS is an important one. It’s so easy to say that I never have the time and then spend an hour scrolling down my phone (a toxic habit, I know). I think a finding time mentality is a useful one to adopt in many areas of life, and is probably my biggest take away from my little researching task. 

A crazy old ride 

Moving on with why I want to write, my life’s been a pretty crazy ride – especially in the last year or so – and writing is a great way to process and reflect the many things that have happened. I also like to think that I’ve got through everything pretty well, and I would love to share with others some of the ways I’ve overcome difficulties and challenges. 

Just to touch on the last year specifically, my Mum was diagnosed with cancer in May 2022 and died on 31st July 2023 – this was quite a journey in itself. My mum didn’t want to have conventional treatment and went down the alternative medicine route which, by the way, I think was the best way forward for her – she had so much energy and life in her, you wouldn’t have really known she had cancer until the final few months. 

On a very different note, I also started dating, got engaged and then married my now-husband, all between November 2022 and September 2023. This was really quite a ride, especially alongside looking after my mum, dealing with her dying, and arranging her funeral, house etc. 

During that year, I also went to Tanzania for six weeks, Kenya for a week, Zanzibar on honeymoon, worked as a Ministry Trainee at my church, moved house and then started a new job in October 2023 as the Campaign Organiser for the South Cotswold Lib Dems – quite the whirlwind, but a real adventure!

Recognising who God is

Through such turbulence, uncertainty, sorrow and joy, I really got to know who God is and how He helps you in the big, the small and the mundane. I wouldn’t have got through that last year if it wasn’t for His constant love and comfort, and He so gently and lovingly taught me a lot about myself, and how He calls me to respond in a way that is more like Him too! 

I would love to share these truths with others, and for more people to recognise who God really is and how He shapes us through the good and the bad. 

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4

“But we glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)