Choosing Faith and Resilience in Cancer Care with Ivelisse Page

Riordan Clinic [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to the Real Health Podcast. Today’s episode might sound a little bit different because I want to tell you about our Cancer Care Reimagined speaker series. When we began planning our 25th International Conference on Human Functioning, Dr. Ron Hunninghake sat down and created his dream team of speakers. Now, we reached out to all of them and we were so delighted that they all said yes. These speakers are leaders in integrative oncology, functional medicine, and research who are truly shaping the future of cancer care. Each week leading up to the conference will feature one of these extraordinary experts right here on the Real Health Podcast. They will be sharing insights, innovation, and inspiration to help you reimagine what’s possible in cancer care. Now, this series and the upcoming Conference and Gala would not be possible without the generous support of our presenting partner, Empower. Did you know that Empower is the most advanced compounding and 503B outsourcing facility in the nation? They are licensed to serve in all 50 states and they are deeply committed to improving access to safe and affordable and personalized medication for the patients, providers and caregivers who rely on them. Their belief is simple but powerful. Behind every order is a person in need. And with that knowledge, they approach everything they do with compassion, innovation, and a drive for excellence. We are so grateful for their partnership and their support of this important conversation around Reimagining Cancer Care. Now. If you’re looking for tickets, they are on sale now and you can go to our website at cancercarereimagined.org you can also find tickets for our 50th Anniversary Gala at cancercarereimagined.org/gala. Now these links will be posted in the show notes below. We hope that you will join us here in Wichita this November for both unforgettable events.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:01:44]:
So welcome everyone. It’s another episode of the Real health Podcast. I’m Dr. Ron Hunninghake. I’m the Chief Medical Officer here. I’ve been here 34 years. I am really excited today because we have a very special guest. Ivelisse Page is the Executive Director and Co-founder of the nonprofit Christian organization Face, Fight, and Overcome Cancer. It’s called Believe Big and she herself is a survivor of stage four cancer. So, Ivelisse, welcome to this podcast and wow, and you’ve been doing this since 2011?

Ivelisse Page [00:02:31]:
Yes. Thank you, Dr. Ron. You know, I really appreciate. It’s quite an honor to be here with you today because what you guys all do at the Riordan Clinic, we hear about it every day at Believe Big from the patients that see you all. And your work is remarkable. And we have such a great admiration for what you do and the physicians that are working for you. So thank you for having me.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:02:55]:
Well, I think we’re exactly on the same page together. We’re getting ready to have a big conference. Cancer Care Reimagined. But you’ve been doing that since 2011, helping people reimagine their cancer care. So I thought maybe that would be a good place to start. First of all, tell me a little bit about how you were motivated to begin this organization and how it has evolved over time.

Ivelisse Page [00:03:26]:
Yes. Well, back in 2008, I was a busy mom of four. I was homeschooling during the day, working at night. And when the summer hit and I was getting exhausted and we couldn’t figure out why, I was so tired, and I just thought I was burning the candle at both ends. And when we finally kind of kept digging in, because we know that with my family history, I had lynch syndrome. So my father, his mother, and half of her siblings died of colon cancer. I was very vigilant about having regular colonoscopies, doing all the right things by conventional standards to make sure that I never got a cancer diagnosis. And yet the search for why I was so tired and exhausted and taking three hour naps during the day discovered that I indeed had stage four cancer. I was diagnosed at the same age with the very same type of cancer that took my. My dad’s life and my family. It decimated his side. We started along this path of, what do I do next? Like every patient who gets diagnosed with cancer, you hear those words and it’s complete overwhelm. Where do I go? I mean, at least now we do have the Internet and resources that we can get information on our fingertips. But back then, in 2011, 2008, I didn’t even have a smartphone. So doing all the research, research, my husband, you know, was at night, you know, searching for anything that could help me. And he wasn’t finding much. And sure enough, two people from two different walks of life told me that I had to go speak to this physician, Dr. Hinderberger at the time, who trained in Switzerland. And I took that as a note from God to say, I need to listen to this. And I went and made my appointment. And he was the one that first told me about mistletoe therapy.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:05:28]:
Oh, okay.

Ivelisse Page [00:05:30]:
And I was sitting there going, wait, isn’t that what you see at Christmas time? And he was, yes, but it has so many cancer fighting Properties that most people don’t know about. And that day in his office, he educated me. He shared me all the benefits. And sure enough, that was my first exposure to mistletoe. And I started my journey at that point, and that was two weeks before my liver surgery. And since that point, you know, I’ve been on mistletoe therapy, integrative therapies, including homeopathy, nutrition, you name it. It’s not always one thing. And through this process, after the surgery, my integrative oncologist. My oncologist at Hopkins was not very sure about how I was going to be. And we kept asking him, after my surgery, what are the chances that the cancer is back? And this was 10 weeks post liver surgery. And he said, ivelisse, you really want to know this? And I was like, yes, I want to know what we’re facing. And he said, 10 weeks post surgery, 75% of the time, the cancer’s back.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:06:37]:
Wow. Yeah.

Ivelisse Page [00:06:39]:
And my husband looked over at me and he said, you know what, Ivelisse? You’re going to be that 25%. And he was that lightning rod for me. I think the mental game is also a huge factor in healing. And so all these things kind of led us once I got well, well. And since that point, since my surgery, I have, you know, the colon cancer never returned. And two years post is when we started the mistletoe clinical trial with Johns Hopkins. And that’s kind of where Believe Big got birthed. It started with this passion of saying, I shouldn’t be the only one that benefits from this amazing plant that has healed me. And now thousands of people that we work with through Believe Big. And again, we’re not just about mistletoe. It’s really what you do at the Riordan, which is about integrating what is best for the individual based on their needs and where they are on their cancer journey.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:07:33]:
Well, one of the things about mistletoe that intrigued me is, first of all, this was new to me. We now have naturopathic oncologists on staff, and I’ve learned so much from them. Mistletoe was one of the new things for me, and I wanted to know how it worked. And when I started looking into it, it’s actually. And this is going to sound weird to the listeners, it’s actually kind of like, toxic, but in a gentle way such that it develops resilience. So this is what we call hormesis. It’s a hormetic treatment. And a lot of things that are toxic, though, don’t develop resilience. They basically just take you down. And I think one of the beauties of what we’re doing in the integrative oncology arena is that we’re looking for those things that, I mean, even vitamin C, high dose vitamin C, in a way, it’s creating oxidative stress in the cancer cell. And we, we put it at such a high level that the cancer cells can adapt to it. But at the same time, the vitamin C in a healthy cell, actually, it’s a detoxifier, it’s an antioxidant, it reduces pain, it does all these things. So these are these new things that we’re learning in the integrative field that philosophically doesn’t make sense to the traditional oncologist because basically it’s killed the cancer. Killed the cancer. Even though the side effects of what they’re using can be not hormetic. Sometimes I think it is, but a lot of times it’s just devastating. And that’s what’s tough for the patient. So trying to build up that resilience in the patient and then use a kind of natural targeted therapy like mistletoe. To me, this is cancer care reimagined. And I think a lot of people, once they understand it, they’re going to say, bring it on. You know, I want the best. Best of both.

Ivelisse Page [00:09:35]:
Yes. Yeah. A lot of people don’t realize that it’s the most widely researched substance out there that has the most benefits for a patient. And I mean, I used it on its own. I did not do chemo or radiation. It would not have been effective for me at a stage four diagnosis. Which makes it even more remarkable how effective it was in my situation post surgery. But it also helps with going through the cancer journey. An article just got published and I just found out about it this week, that patients who started mistletoe therapy with their frontline therapy, meaning their chemotherapy, their first substance that they give them with their cancer, when they do mistletoe with the front line, the study showed that their overall survival rate increased five, five fold.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:10:28]:
Wow.

Ivelisse Page [00:10:28]:
Five fold. And then when it was introduced second line therapy, the overall survival rate was twofold, which is still amazing. So the earlier you start integrative therapies like mistletoe and others, the better. Not only are you going to have great quality of life, but also extension and survival. So that’s why it is so integral to incorporate these things into your care so that you feel well, so that you feel like you have your life back and that it is is a disease that can be managed and not. Not a death sentence that most people feel as soon as they get diagnosed.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:11:06]:
Yeah, I know a lot of people, I’ve told them this when I first see a cancer patient. I’ll say if, you know, if you really play all your cards right, if you really do the best of both worlds, but especially learning how to take better care of yourself, you’re going to be stronger and better than you’ve ever been, because you will have evoked this hormetic effect, not just physically, not just immunologically, but I think spiritually, you know, that if you can. If you can have that spirit of I will make it and you. And it’s strong in you, you’ve got to have that in this. This whole cancer. It’s really a. A kind of spiritual war that you play with yourself. And if you don’t get on the winning side, it’s so scary. A lot of people, they literally are scared to death. So I don’t know. How do you deal with that? Through your organization?

Ivelisse Page [00:12:05]:
Yeah, I think that’s. I’ve always said the mental side of cancer was always tougher than the physical battle for me, and especially with my family history and knowing how it decimated my family. I know I come from the background of a Christian faith. And so for me, that’s where I really had to dig deep and say I needed that strength. I needed truth that was solid and that I could hold onto. That didn’t waver, unlike the news that I was getting from the doctors. And I can tell you that the hardest thing for me and my husband was I’d be sitting there about to wash my face, get into bed, and I would heal the evil. One would say things like, why are you bothering? You’re not going to make it through this year. You’re not going to see your kids get married. You’re not going to see them graduate. Your dad didn’t make it. Who are you to think you’re going to make it? He’s the accuser, right? And at every point, he’s throwing these arrows of discouragement and doubt and trying to discourage us from really holding on to our faith and standing strong. And I always feel like whether I lived or I died, cancer had something to teach me. And what was it? And so for me, it was really my husband and I went back and forth so much on what treatments to do, what not to do, and he had this heavy weight over on his shoulder saying, ivelisse, if you don’t do this, I Feel responsible, like I’m going to be left carrying the weight of our decisions. And finally we kind of both came to this conclusion that, you know what? I could do everything right and I could die, I could do everything wrong and I could live. Ultimately, my life is in God’s hands, and did I trust him no matter how this situation turned out? And then what happened in that process is when I released my tight fists of wants and opened my hand and say, okay, Lord, take from me what you want and give me what I need, it really put this peace upon me that also helps me to heal. You know, they say that when your body is caught in that fight or flight mode, your body cannot rest and repair and heal. So when you surrender and you, you just open your heart and your mind to peace that God gives you, you’re able to walk in confidence no matter what’s ahead. And I think that’s kind of what helped us to get through those dark days of fear.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:14:39]:
Well, the beauty of the, the integrative approach is this whole concept of terrains. And oftentimes, I think doctors are afraid to enter into the spiritual, you know, terrain. You don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. But on the other hand, I think that is a, is an important area that gets omitted. But I think there’s a lot of areas, you know, the, the whole, the, the, you know, the. There’s like 10 terrains in the body. You know that when you start getting into this and most doctors are only thinking about killing, let’s kill the cancer. Okay, well, but how does that affect your microbiome? How does that affect your, your sleep? How does, what’s going on with your important relationships, you know, you know, cancer diagnosis can be devastating to a family’s kind of peace of mind and integrity and all that. But if, but if you can see it, yes, it’s a huge threat. It’s probably one of the biggest threats people will ever get. But it’s a huge opportunity to look for, what can I do to be better? What can I do to improve my digestive system or whatever system you want to look at? And this is where the integrated practitioner is so much different than the oncologist is. Are they better? No, they’re. They’re part of a team. But at least what, what the integrative does is it looks at all these different domains of health, making sure, like, if you take your car in and they plug it in and they check, they don’t just check the battery, they check all the components of the Car And I think with integrative medicine, we’re trying to look at the nutritional, we’re trying to look at the immune system, we’re trying to look at the digestive system. All these different parts, if they’re working well, you have a much greater chance of healing the cancer 100%.

Ivelisse Page [00:16:34]:
Yeah. And another side that I feel that is very not really addressed at all in the conventional side is the emotional side of healing. And, you know, I’ve learned so much within the last three years as to how much traumas from the past or even how you were raised, you know, how it affects your cells even today. And so, you know, we kind of here in the U.S. kind of said, you know what? We just got to toughen up and keep on going. And sometimes, you know, we need to just kind of look back so that we can move forward. And that’s kind of what I’ve done the last three years and really learned on how this emotional healing is so important. Almost like an ocean wave, right? It’s not that we. To linger on the pains of our past, but it’s almost when. When one of those waves of emotional grief hits us, whether it’s a loss or pain from a past, it’s okay. You hold onto it and say, okay, goes hard. And then you just release it again back into the ocean. And it helps you to address it and not shove it down and thinking that, you know, you’re going to bury it and it’ll never come to the surface.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:17:42]:
Yeah. Nasha Winters, who wrote the Metabolic Approach to Cancer, the whole concept of terrains. And talking with her, she says one of the terrains is PTSD. And people say, yeah, I know what that is. But what I think the real PTSD is that a lot of us carry more shame than what we’re willing to admit. And then when the. When the cancer hits, it’s like, oh, okay, now I’m finally God, or whatever. The universe is punishing me because of what. What I did. And a lot of times if you ask people, what’d you do? Well, I’m not sure. You know, maybe it was just something in my childhood or was something. But I. I have this sense of blame and shame and just being able to let that go and say, wait a minute, I am worthy of being healed and open yourself to all the possibilities of healing. Because really, there’s almost too many things to do to heal. I mean, a lot of our patients are saying, what else? My gosh, I’m loaded with things to do as opposed to, like, I’m helpless. I got too much to do. But at least what they’re doing is finding out what works for them.

Ivelisse Page [00:18:50]:
Yes. Yeah. And I do love her book because one of the things, when you go through it and you take that assessment, it really shows you what areas you really need to start with first. What are the areas that are most loaded, that need to be unloaded? And so there is a nice systematic approach where it’s not too overwhelming and you can take steps into your healing. And even when you’re well, I think, goodness, we have such a huge opportunity to prevent cancer, and most people don’t even start until it’s too late. What if. What if we started taking steps today, whether through our environment, whether it’s the toxicities in our home, the water we drink, simple things that we can focus on each month that would cause us to push us towards more healing and wellness.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:19:38]:
I’m going to let our audience know that you will be a recipient after our conference coming up here in November, we’re having a gala. It’s our 50th year anniversary, which is quite an achievement for all the people that’s associated with Riordan. But, you know what I was wondering is, tell me a little bit on you’re going to receive the Ripple Award, which is kind of a cute little name for the fact we do something and there are ripples that go out, drop that stone in the pond, and all those ripples. You’ve created a lot of ripples. And I was wondering, how has your organization done that? Tell us a little bit about Believe Big.

Ivelisse Page [00:20:22]:
Well, it is such an honor, especially in such a milestone year, to be recognized by you all. Truly. I was put to tears when I got the notification, so thank you. I am truly, truly honored. Believe Big. Honestly, it’s not just myself. We have a team of people, volunteers, board members, that give of their heart and souls every day to help the patients that reach out to us. We really focus on four things. The first is really on educating and prevention. For example, this September, we’re having an integrative cancer symposium where some of your physicians are actually speaking on what does it mean to live a life that you can truly thrive and prevent cancer? And even when you do have cancer, what are things that I can do to make myself healthier and better? There’s always something to learn. We’re hosting that in September. We have a lot of opportunities for education for cancer cancer treatment and prevention. We also have built a network over the years of physicians that are not only trained in integrative oncology, but that also have the specialty in knowing about what is mistletoe therapy and how to treat with that, along with nutrition therapists and others. So when patients reach out to us, they typically have an oncologist that they are working with. They just need to add to their team that important piece of integrative oncology that can help them to walk this journey with strength. And then we also, we also provide spiritual and emotional support to help patients and their families overcome that fear and anxiety that we were just talking about before. You know, we have healing prayer nights, we have an emotional healing journal, we have support groups that we’ve connected with other organizations with things like liberate resources that can really help you to get to the root causes of things so that your body can really benefit from the healing that it deserves. And then lastly, you know, we want to look forward into the future so we help the patients of today with those specific things. And then for the patients of the future, we are working with Johns Hopkins University and we finished phase one of the mistletoe clinical trial and we are about to start phase two. And the reason why that is important, people ask why are you spending money on a clinical trial? And because again, thinking forward, focused is that in order for mistletoe therapy to become part of standard of care and so that it can be made available to everyone, it needs to go through all three phases of this clinical process in the US Even though there have been hundreds all over the world and it’s been used for therapy for 100 years, it still needs to be done on our soil. And so once these phases are completed, it can be covered by insurance and then also be part of, of standard of care. And then our dream is really to build the believe big institute of health where people can come for two to three weeks and get evaluated and then they go back out to the Reardens or wherever they are in their locations to continue to keep monitoring similar to a St. Jude’s but of integrative oncology and for all ages where people will be served organic meals, where there’ll be regenerative farming, where it’s more like the hospitals that you see in Europe and Switzerland and Germany, that is really a healing sanctuary. And so that’s kind of what our long term goals are.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:24:00]:
The model that I’ve been developing in my mind as to what I see happening in this, this, this whole evolution of cancer care, you know, we, we have a really, we humans have a really strong left brain. You know, the left brain is the facts and figures. Just the facts and figures’.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:24:20]:
And. And that our medical system basically was born of that. And thank God we have that, so we’re grounded in solid science. Okay. But we also have a right brain, which is very imaginative and, And. And conceive in many different dimensions. And I think it’s a little bit more of what I. What I would call the spiritual dimension of life and the holistic dimension of life, which that’s been coming on, too.

Ivelisse Page [00:24:46]:
The.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:24:46]:
The. The left brain is not so sure about the right brain, you know. Well, we have. That’s. And that’s the. The right brain has been the second medical revolution. But the. The real kicker here is the corpus callosum, and that’s that wide band in. That goes between the two hemispheres that helps us communicate with both sides. And I like to think Believe Big and the Riordan Clinic and integrative medicine in general, that’s what we’re doing, is we’re trying to develop that corpus callosum so that both sides can feel comfortable that we’re doing the best we can do for this. This horrible illness, to help people regain. Regain their strength and their health and to feel good that they will stay healthy as well. So that’s the anatomy of a. Of a new age of medicine.

Ivelisse Page [00:25:31]:
I. I love that. You know, it’s what we say every day is we help to bridge the gap between conventional and complementary medicine.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:25:38]:
So we’re that awesome.

Ivelisse Page [00:25:40]:
Now I have a new word for it that’s amazing.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:25:44]:
All right, well, thank you so much for being on our program. And again, congratulations on this award that we’re going to give you. Congratulations on Believe Big. And congratulations that you had the faith and the integrity to find your own way to help. And with the help of your husband and your family and all. All the people that you work with, you serve as a. A very positive inspiration for all of us. So thank you so much. So much.

Ivelisse Page [00:26:10]:
Thank you.

Riordan Clinic [00:26:11]:
Thank you for listening to the Real Health Podcast. This episode was brought to you by Empower Pharmacy, the most advanced compounding pharmacy and 503B outsourcing facility in the nation. Licensed in all 50 states, Empower is committed to improving access to safe, affordable, and personalized medications for patients, providers, and caregivers. Learn more at empowerpharmacy.com if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe. Subscribe and leave us a review. You can also find all of the episode and show notes over at realhealthpodcast.org also be sure to visit riordanclinic.org where you will find hundreds of videos and articles to help you create your own version of Real Health.