When Rick Hill, who was diagnosed at the MAyo Clinic with very aggressive embryonal cell carcinoma at a very young age, learned about a nutritional clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, that was treating terminally ill people, he journeyd south. Hill, a f The Cancer Conundrum Stop Dying—Start Living By Rick Hill iUniverse, Inc. Copyright © 2012 Rick Hill All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4759-1534-1 Contents Preface..........................................................ixAcknowledgments..................................................xiPART ONE: Detroit, Michigan 1966.................................1"E" Is for Eunuch................................................3The Key That Would Unlock a Lot of Doors.........................6OCD Heaven: The Mayo Clinic......................................9Selling the Family...............................................15Decisions, decisions.............................................17PART TWO: Tijuana, Mexico 1974...................................21The Rabbit Hole..................................................23Life among the Dying.............................................26The Mystery of the Santa Ana Wind................................31The Pink Elephant in the Room....................................33Hit the Reset Button!............................................36Guidelines for Hitting the Reset Button..........................39Back to Reality..................................................41Mowing the Lawn with My Teeth....................................42Our Food Bible: The Laetrile Modified Diet.......................43Detoxification, Supplementation, Affirmation.....................46Feed, Starve, Build..............................................56Life after Hitting the Reset Button..............................65And I Thought Cancer Was Bad.....................................69 Chapter One "E" IS FOR EUNUCH Detroit was a magical place in the fifties and sixties. Financially, it was one of the focal points of the entire planet; the auto industry held a prominent place in the postindustrial US economy. Henry Ford's new company, which would eventually become known as FOMOCO, (Ford Motor Company) to the residents of Detroit, or the Blue Oval, led the way and spawned General Motors and Chrysler. Growing up near Detroit, in Roseville, I lived and breathed cars as a kid. My father, Bill Hill (Wild Bill Hill to many), was a VP of sales for Dodge in the fifties and later worked for the Hurst floor-shift company. This meant I got to meet many of the famous dragster drivers and even Hurst's own Miss Golden Shifter, Linda Vaughn. A young man tends not to forget her attributes. The winters, though harsh, were often like a picture postcard, with snow-capped roofs and pine trees trimmed in white. Hudson's twelfth-floor Christmas display, a jaunt down Lakeshore Drive to see how the mansions were decorated, a Vernors' cooler on a hot summer day, the roar of the hydroplanes on the Detroit River, a lazy day spent on the Bob-Lo boat—all of this made the Motor City a grand place to live in the golden era. We were Greasers back then in Roseville. We wore our hair in Fonzie-style water falls and dressed in full-length leather coats and skin-tight pants. All we wanted in life were fast cars; blond, curvy girlfriends; and jobs to keep it all going. Lucky me. I had a '57 Ford, my girl was two inches taller than I was, and I was manager of the highest volume shoe store in Detroit, Flagg Brothers, at 7 Mile and Gratiot. I was consistently voted the most improved athlete because I was a late bloomer. Looking back, I think it was highly likely that I was allergic to wheat. This is now known as celiac disease. For me it went undiagnosed for fifty-five years. One of the characteristics is failure to thrive, or not developing on time. This was embarrassing for two reasons. First, the physical education teacher usually had the boys shower together, and around the seventh grade it became obvious if you were the only boy wearing his towel to the showers. Second, the girls were suddenly taller—much taller. It would have been obscene for me to slow dance with any of them, since, as you may recall, public breastfeeding was frowned upon in the sixties. Other characteristics of gluten intolerance are bloating, gas, diarrhea, and constant headaches. None of the aforementioned characteristics lends itself to successful dating. When my hormones finally did kick in, I threw myself into weight lifting in a nearly futile attempt to buff up and catch up for the ladies (see the gratuitous topless photo of me for proof). During a 175-pound bench press one evening, I felt a sharp pain in my chest when the bar came down. It would later prove to be one of four nonmalignant tumors removed from my chest area. This limited my future career with the International Federation of Body Builders—and I threatened my brothers and sister that I'd kill them if they told anyon