What’s Your Sh*t Pickle?

As part of my blog series about Pink Medicine, I wanted to share with you the story of an exceptional patient, who I’m blessed to have as a friend. This woman has made straight A’s in activating her Inner Pilot Light and being her own healer. She’s a rock star woman who has earned her honorary white coat like nobody’s business. You’ve met her before in her posts on Owning Pink and in the interview I did with her. Meet my friend Kris Carr.

Kris Carr was 32 years old when she found herself in what she calls “a shit pickle.” She was diagnosed with a rare type of blood vessel cancer for which there is no cure. Her cancer was stage 4 – meaning it was all over her body in her blood vessels. And there is no wham-bam-thank you ma’am treatment for this kind of cancer. No surgery. No chemotherapy proven to work. Basically, she sought out the best medical advice she could find, and her highly educated doctors told her that her tumors were likely to be slow growing, and the best thing she could do was take good care of herself. Which was all Kris needed to hear to radically change her life.

Healing 101

Until she was diagnosed with the big C, Kris was an actress more obsessed with staying skinny and drinking cocktails with the Hollywood set than with healing or curing. But once she saw those tumors in her liver light up on a CT scan, she signed up for the fast track of Healing 101 and set about changing everything because Kris believed she would not only survive, but thrive.

Kris didn’t just ditch the Cosmopolitans, Big Macs, and potato chips and ditch the “Unwrap, nuke, GO!” strategy. She also said adios to chicken breasts, cheese, eggs, fish, white bread, and milk and howdy to fresh-squeezed veggie juices, salads, quinoa, nut butters, and other cancer-fighting raw, alkaline, and vegan delicacies. Kris went about learning how to turn a grocery store into a pharmacy lickety-split, but she didn’t stop there.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Debbie C.

10:31AM PDT on Mar 28, 2012

I think we've all been in Sh*t Pickles through the years. Some are easier to get out of than others.
We just have to keep working at it, to get out of them!!

send a green star

Ruth P.

4:55AM PST on Mar 5, 2012

Yes, I absolutely agree that all cancer victims deserved their fates for not being positive about their terrible lives, eating expensive food you can't afford if you're undergoing cancer treatment and saying things like "made straight A’s in activating her Inner Pilot Light and being her own healer. She’s a rock star woman who has earned her honorary white coat like nobody’s business" (how does your life get to the point where you think stringing words together like that is a good idea?).

I'm glad Kris Carr's cancer has become dormant. But surely she knows that people have smoked and drunk their way out of stage 4 cancer, too? It's rare, yes, but so is surviving several years after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. There's false comfort in believing that we can control these things, but real freedom comes from accepting just how little control we really have.

Kymberlee F.

10:17AM PST on Mar 3, 2012

I have read a lot from Kris Carr and she is just great. So positive, happy and just all herself!

Dale O.

2:36PM PST on Mar 1, 2012

Fascinating article!

Lika S.

2:30AM PST on Mar 1, 2012

I'm very glad she found herself. :)

Butterfly K.

9:12PM PST on Feb 29, 2012

Yes we can heal ourselves to a certain point, change diets, excersise more, relax, etc, I do like that expression - shit pickle, may have to use that sometime.

Sandi C.

3:03PM PST on Feb 29, 2012

THANKS!

Tom Y.

7:38PM PST on Feb 26, 2012

The sh*kle was a corporate washout -- plus the realization I've got around thirty years left to get going on what I always wanted to do instead, all along. Tandem to that, I'm on an ongoing switch to an organic diet, working out a lot more, and struggling to drop some old dietary cheat temptations. The work I'm doing ultimately won't just be for me.

Penny C.

10:17AM PST on Feb 25, 2012

Im with her on this.It is important to eat non processed healthy foods to avoid cancer.

Danuta W.

12:44AM PST on Feb 25, 2012

Thanks for the article.