Living with cancer: How one woman faced it and found a cure
Lisa Hanschu of Ramona was given six months to a year to live after being diagnosed in 2002 with an advanced stage of leukemia. Today, she is cured and living a full life.
By ROWENA PLETT
Staff writer
It was August 2002. Lisa Hanschu and her husband Ronnie of rural Ramona were sitting in an oncologist's office in Salina after she had undergone a series of tests.
The prognosis was grim.
"You have chronic myelogenous leukemia," the doctor said. "You have from six months to a year to live."
He told them that 86 percent of her blood and 100 percent of her bone marrow was cancerous.
The couple was surprised and stunned. After all, the petite, dark-haired wife and mother had always been an active person. She was busy with life on the farm, her children's activities, and her work as a sales manager for MachineTools.com.
On top of that, the couple was in the process of remodeling their farm house.
Lisa had had symptoms for some time. She often was extremely tired, bruises wouldn't go away, and sores wouldn't heal. She had lost 18 pounds in one month and had a low-grade fever. She couldn't walk a straight line.
"I figured it would go away," she said.
But as the symptoms dragged on, she became depressed. Dr. Max Long, her chiropractor in Abilene, suggested she get a blood test.
She went to doctors Christine and John Whitehead in Herington, who did an MRI and took blood.
An hour after returning home from the doctor's office, she got a call to come back immediately. She summoned her husband who was working in a field nearby and they went together, wondering why she was called back so soon.
The Whiteheads said they suspected leukemia. A follow-up visit to the oncologist confirmed their suspicions.
Strong-minded and determined, Ronnie took command of the terrifying situation.
"Lisa, if you believe the doctor, then you will be gone," he told her privately. "But I could push you into traffic on the street or you could be in a car accident and you would be gone today. We will take 72 hours to cry and tell family and friends. After that, we are going to focus on you."
Lisa's mother, Anna Mae Stika of Tampa, was the first to hear the dreadful news.
"I watched for her reaction to know how I should respond to this," Lisa said. "She took it extremely well. She buckled up and got strong for me."
Chronic myelogenous leukemia can be inherited or may result from a high dose of radiation or exposure to Benzene, a cleaning chemical.
Lisa, who is adopted, had found her biological parents a few years earlier. An investigation revealed that the disease was not inherited. The cause was a mystery since the other two possibilities didn't apply.
Ronnie wanted Lisa to seek natural treatment but he knew it was her decision to make. She was scared and felt compelled to go the medical route.
The doctor recommended chemotherapy three days a week and told her to stop taking herbal supplements.
"I didn't want to do the chemo," she said. "My life was centered around my children and the things in their life I refused to not be a part of."
Son James, 12, was into sports and daughter Anna, seven, was into dancing.
"I knew I wanted to be there for all of their activities," she said.
She opted to take a chemotherapy pill called Gleevec and took eight a day. She had her hair cut short and didn't experience much more hair loss and had no sickness. But her face swelled and she continued to suffer from fatigue.
Once a week, she went to Salina for red blood cell injections to keep up her strength.
Someone suggested she go to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center at Houston, Texas.
Accompanied by her husband, Lisa began going there every three months for a painful spinal tap to find out what was happening with the cancer.
"Every time I went, I was expecting the other shoe to drop," she said.
After nine months on Gleevec, the drug began attacking her liver. On July 4, 2003, she got sick with stomach pain and ended up in the hospital. Her liver enzyme count was extremely high. Her liver was shutting down.
In August, she returned to Houston, and doctors suggested she have a bone marrow harvest. A large amount of bone marrow would be removed from her body, treated to kill the cancer, and then frozen for a possible transplant.
On Oct. 18, 2003, she turned 35. A large benefit supper was held for her at Hope.
"My family and friends were tremendous," she said. "I could look in their eyes and see that they were aching for me."
The next day, Lisa and Ronnie left for Houston. The bone marrow was harvested in a series of painful procedures over a five-hour period.
Local fund-raisers covered the cost.
Finding another way
It was three weeks before Lisa was able to walk normally again. But the cancer still was there, and the Gleevec had ruined her liver.
"I was faced with seeking another treatment," she said.
She received papers from the doctor recommending a liver transplant, followed by a bone marrow transplant.
She wasn't ready to face such drastic measures.
"I broke down and told Ronnie, 'This can't be it, there's got to be more,'" she said.
Then he asked the definitive question: "Are you better off today than when you were first diagnosed?"
She thought about that for two days, she said, before she could look him in the eye and tell him she was worse off. "I had to be truthful to myself," she admitted.
Then he asked, "Do you feel you have anything to lose to try something completely new?"
Lisa had gotten to the point where she didn't want anything else to be done to her body. She decided to refuse chemotherapy.
It was a hard decision for her to make.
"I think people thought I was a little crazy," she said.
Her Houston doctor called, trying to persuade her to continue her medical treatment.
"This is your only choice," he said.
"No, it isn't," she said. "I choose to go another way."
She went back to Dr. Long, who gave her Silymarin, a pure milk thistle supplement. She also began taking large amounts of aloe vera juice and bovine cholostrom tablets from Future Mart in Herington to build up her immune system.
After two weeks, a blood test showed that her liver was healed. She began to feel better. Her strength was returning.
The next month, she made some dietary changes. She cut out refined carbohydrates such as things made with white flour and sugar. She started eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and limited herself to one portion of meat a day. She also quit drinking soda pop, which is high in acid. Her body needed alkalinity to heal.
When she returned to Houston in February, 2004, she was excited. She knew she was feeling better and she predicted to Ronnie that her cancer would be reduced by 50 percent.
When her prediction proved true, she broke down and cried. The doctor gave her a hug and apologized for saying she had no choice. He wanted to know what she was doing. She simply told him she was taking no medication.
On her next visit to Houston in June 2004, the doctor found a minimal amount of cancer and told her she was in remission.
A month earlier she had met Judy Cox, an herbalist from Texas who survived uterine and breast cancer. She put her on several natural products which work to detoxify the body.
In August, Lisa still was in remission.
"I was having a good quality of life again," she said.
When she returned to Houston in November 2004, she told the doctor what she was doing.
"He was blown away," she said.
In February 2005 and again in August, her situation remained stable, and she was released for six months at a time.
At her appointment in February 2006, the doctor grilled her with many questions but continued to offer medical treatments. This time, he released her for a year.
Cancer free!
This past February, she was pronounced totally free of cancer. Of approximately one million bone marrow cells that were aspirated, not one was cancerous.
"You've stunted the cancer," the doctor told her. He said a cure like hers was "medically undocumented."
She continues to have blood tests taken locally and constantly has her body chemistry monitored by Cox.
She has had no colds or flu and has an abundance of energy and strength. Her skin has a healthy glow and her hair and fingernails show rapid growth.
"My body is healthy," she said. Her whole family is on an herbal regimen.
Working out of her home, Lisa is the national account manager of MachineTools.com, an eight-year-old Internet company she has been with since the beginning. She also attends trade shows all over the country, from Las Vegas to Massachusetts.
However, she doesn't let her work interfere with her children's activities.
"My healing was for my children," she said. "The future holds college, weddings, grandchildren, and many other wonderful things I'm looking forward to.
"God gave me a new lease on life and a new opportunity to in some way help other people. I think there are many more people who are more deserving of healing than me. I'm not anyone special, but this has changed my life and my family's life.
"We're all equal in death. We're all going to die. I'm so grateful for my healing. My heart aches for those who have lost or are losing someone to cancer.
"I never thought of myself as a strong person, but I know without a doubt that God gives you the strength you need."
Lisa is thankful for all the people who prayed for her and encouraged her along the way.
"God sends us angels, we call them friends," she said. "Whenever I felt down, someone was there to pick me up."
Friends helped remodel the farm house while Lisa was ill.
She credits her husband with not letting her give up.
"What hurt him the most was that he couldn't do this for me," she said. "But he was stubborn and strong-willed and his determination gave me strength. He had a hardness with so much love behind it."
The couple has had to deal with the financial aspects of the experience. They sold land and worked hard in various other ways to raise the money to cover their expenses.
Ronnie is a partner in H&H Ag Services, which provides custom planting, drilling, and fertilizing for area farmers.
Lisa considers herself cured and doesn't believe she will have to deal with the disease again.
"Herbs always will be a part of my life because my body needs that nutrition," she said.
(Footnote: Lisa Hanschu said when she last was in Houston in February, the M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center was establishing a new center for "complimentary and integrative healing." She said the new facility was in response to demand from patients for all-natural alternatives or compliments to medical treatments. Hanschu also noticed the hospital was including more fresh fruits and vegetables in its dietary menu.)
