and then, a move into integrative therapy that changed the course of this cancer journey.
Join me today as I speak with cancer thriver Jeff Charles, the Voice of the ECU Pirates. Jeff shares his encouraging story of hope as he battled and overcame stage 4 colon cancer at the age of 60. Jeff shares some intimate details of his battle, his amazing perseverance and part of a letter that touched and encouraged an ECU graduate and fan also battling cancer.
Connect with Jeff, The Voice, at Pirate Radio:
http://www.pirateradio930.com/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
and then, a move into integrative therapy that changed the course of this cancer journey.
Join me today as I speak with cancer thriver Jeff Charles, the Voice of the ECU Pirates. Jeff shares his encouraging story of hope as he battled and overcame stage 4 colon cancer at the age of 60. Jeff shares some intimate details of his battle, his amazing perseverance and part of a letter that touched and encouraged an ECU graduate and fan also battling cancer.
Connect with Jeff, The Voice, at Pirate Radio:
http://www.pirateradio930.com/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big podcast, the show where we take deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page and it's an honor to spend this time with you. Do you or someone you know need to hear a story of hope today? Have you been diagnosed with cancer and need to hear from someone who has been there? Has overcome great odds. We'll get ready because my friend, Jeff Charles is here with an incredible story to share. Jeff is a treasured voice for East Carolina University and begins his 35th year handling the play by play for ECU football and basketball. He is a two time recipient of the North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year award. And prior to ECU, he served as the voice of the Hokies at Virginia Tech. Let's go Hokies! Jeff is married to his beautiful wife, Debbie, and is a proud father to his son, Brit. Jeff overcame stage four, colon cancer at the age of 60 and has been cancer free for eight years. Welcome Jeff to the show.
Jeff Charles:Thank you so much Ivelisse. It's always great to see your smiling face and hear your voice. And, you always make me feel old when you talk about Virginia Tech, because I was well into my thirties as the Voice of the Hokies. And you were just a student at Virginia Tech at the time. So it was a long time ago, but it was great times there. And it's always great to get together with you. I hope you and your family and Jimmy are all doing well.
Ivelisse Page:Thanks so much. Well Jeff our listeners are always wanting to know what our guest favorite health tip is. Can you share yours with us?
Jeff Charles:Well there are a lot of them actually, but if I had to boil it down to one, I would say that do everything that you can to keep your immune system strong because when our immune systems break down and when we get older, our immune systems weaken, that's when we get illnesses and diseases. So every day I keep that in the back of my mind that what can I do today to keep my immune system strong? And there are a lot of different ways that we can do that through diet and exercise and nutrition. And so I try and incorporate all of those things every day in my daily life, and I take a lot of supplements as well. I don't really recommend supplements to folks until they talk to their doctor about what might be good for them, but I'm a strong proponent of wheatgrass. I take wheatgrass each and every day in powder form which tastes horrible, by the way. But have to have something close by to to chase it down, but I think it's well worth it. It's just a combination of a lot of things. I think we're talking about lifestyle. And we're talking about doing everything you can, again, to keep your immune system strong.
Ivelisse Page:That's great advice. Yeah. And Jimmy's on the same path as you every morning, he has his greens and he uses Athletic Greens. So you should check that out. It tastes great. And it's got really good quality, but he's like you, he has his green juice in the morning every morning. Let's get into it, Jeff. Your story is so inspiring. I know it's gonna encourage everyone who's listening today. Can you share about how you found out you had cancer and what you experienced?
Jeff Charles:Ivelisse, it really started and hit me like a ton of bricks. I was in this very studio at Pirate Radio in Greenville, North Carolina, doing my morning radio show and the day started like any other day. And then about 7:30 in the morning, I started to experience some stomach pain. And it was not the normal stomach pain. And I work out just about every day. I brought my bag to work out after the show and I just did not feel like I could go to the gym. So I went home and my wife was home at the time and I told her, I just was not feeling well at all. And the stomach pain at that time just continued to increase. And I actually thought I was still getting the flu at that point. And I was like, I've never had this happen before. So I said, there's something drastically wrong here. She said get up and, we'll take you out to the hospital at the emergency room, which is only about 10 minutes from our house. And I was in so much pain at that point that I absolutely could not get off the couch. And so she called the ambulance. They took me to the hospital and the only thing I remember about that day is going through those big double doors at the hospital and going into surgery and they discovered a tumor in my colon and they told me the next day on a scale of one to five, it was a five and it needed to come out absolutely immediately. That first day in the hospital was like a blur. The next thing I know, basically I woke up the next day and they had performed the surgery. The cancer word came into the conversation with the doctor, which I wasn't prepared for. That's how it all started. I'll give you the cliff notes version here because it is a long story, but after that first surgery, I had two more surgeries after that. So I ended up having three surgeries in nine days. Like you hear from a lot of folks who go into the hospital, I developed a really bad infection in the hospital. And it was to the point where the cancer was bad enough, but the infection was even worse. And so on the night of December the 12th, 2012, which has now been almost 10 years ago they told my wife in the middle of the night that I wasn't going to make it.
Ivelisse Page:Wow.
Jeff Charles:It was because of the infection. My body had totally gotten infected. I started vomiting all over and all the stitches and sutures and clamps and everything else that really keeping my stomach together, all burst open. And my intestines had filled with this infection, so it was not good. They had to perform the surgery in the middle of the night and it was touch and go. Thank the Lord that I got through that. And then I went into intensive care for 10 days. And finally I was released from the hospital. I was hoping to get home for Christmas, but with the way insurance works sometimes things get delayed. So I actually didn't get home until December 26th. I was in the hospital for 23 days. And really had not eaten much at all. And I finally got home very weak and I looked in the mirror I had lost 50 pounds in 23 days.
Ivelisse Page:Wow.
Jeff Charles:And it didn't even look like myself, obviously. So that was the first of the journey.
Ivelisse Page:I can't even imagine, but you know what a gift for your wife for Christmas that you came home and that must have been just incredibly scary and difficult for her and your family. So what happened from there?
Jeff Charles:From there, an oncologist came into my room right toward the end of my first day and they wanna rush you right into chemotherapy. It was like two weeks that I went into chemotherapy, at that point I just did not know what had hit me. And what do you do? You just do what the doctor tells you to do. So mid-January, I started chemotherapy and I had chemo for six months. And it was pretty much the normal routine. I would go in and I'd have a session every two weeks. And then I had the infusion pump on for three days after that. I was fortunate that I got through the chemo pretty well. I never got sick. I never lost my hair, but it does take a toll on you physically. The fatigue factor is a big one. I got through the six months went back, everything was good. Had another scan, everything was clean. At that point we're like nine months later, I naively thought that I had beaten cancer and I was quote in remission. I'm going back doing my normal daily tasks and life's good. I'm feeling good. Well, I have another scan. And then 21 months later they tell me that I have two tumors in my right lung and one in my left lung. The colon cancer had metastasized to my lungs. Oftentimes when you go to the doctor and you don't hear anything back from them sometimes no news is good news. I had not heard back from them after the scan for eight days. And then all of a sudden I get a call. I'd almost forgotten about it. I get a call in the doctor's office and they say, you need to come out here immediately. So I dropped everything and I went out to my doctor's office and, he says here's the x-rays whatever. And you've got these tumors and they need to come out. And so I had been almost I guess two years with this oncologist. He had known from day one what I had been through and I just asked him, I said, where am I in this journey? And he basically just shrugged his shoulders and said, you're just gonna continue to get more tumors.
Ivelisse Page:Wow.
Jeff Charles:And that's really not what I wanted to hear.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah.
Jeff Charles:And so the light bulb went on in my head at that point. And I said, this isn't working. So I got on the internet and I guess by dumb luck, I found Believe Big when I got home from that doctor's appointment. I called you and I was fortunate to get you on the phone. And we talked for a few minutes. And you said you need to get out to the Namaste Health Center in Durango, Colorado. So I hung up from that conversation and I called out there immediately. And I started the dialogue with the folks out there who are wonderful, by the way, I went ahead and had the surgeries. I had'em two weeks apart. I had the surgery in my right lung for the two tumors. And then I took two weeks off, went back, had the surgery for my left lung. And the tumor in my left lung actually was larger and in a spot that was tough to get to more than what they thought. And so I ended up having half of my left lung taken out in that surgery. I was determined to get out to Namaste as soon as I could. I recouped for a couple of weeks after that last surgery, and then I got on the airplane and I went out to Durango.
Ivelisse Page:You've shared so much and I wanna take a step back for a moment because you said something very powerful. It's sometimes we hear when there's no news it's good news. And after a scan, people feel like I'm done. I rang the bell and I'm ready to go. That's something that we're hoping to change here at Believe Big is to inform people that's just the beginning. That's when you have to double down and say, okay, this is the best opportunity for me to restore, to reset, to recharge my body back and to keep it strong. And we go back to our own routines and naively thinking that, okay, we're fine. And everything's good to go. We want to put that behind us, but cancer is a wake up call and thinks what caused this to grow in the first place. And that's something that oncologists don't even talk about. It's, what is the root cause so that it never happens again. And I just recently had a conversation with Dr. Connealy from California. Who's one of our top integrated practitioners and something that I found was fascinating was she said that chemotherapy and radiation don't get rid of the circulating tumor cells or the circulating stem cells. And that's why these natural therapies are so vital to do. Because you don't wanna have a recurrence of cancer. And most of the time, 70% of the cancers recur. And it's things that people aren't aware of. So thank you for sharing that because it's important for people to know that hey, we need to do things differently. We need to individualize our care. We need to make sure it's not standardized and we need to be our own advocates like you were and said, okay, I'm not willing to just keep doing the same thing over and over again, and hoping for a different result. And so that's just an incredible story that you've shared thus far. And so explain to us what the difference in your care was when you went to Namaste and one of the integrated practitioners that we work with. What was the difference of what they taught you versus what you were being told on the conventional side?
Jeff Charles:It was like night and day. And I know you had Dr. Kirsten West on one of your podcasts here recently as well.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Jeff Charles:And she was my doctor.
Ivelisse Page:Wow.
Jeff Charles:At Namaste, and Ivelisse I will remember this for as long as I live when I got out to Namaste and she was assigned as my doctor, we sat down in her office and she said this to me. She said, we make miracles here and we will fix you. And I'll take those words to my grave, because that was the first time a doctor had ever given me any type of encouragement at all. It's like a new lease on life. And then, we started the whole treatment at Namaste. I started the mistletoe treatments and I was out there for three weeks and I took mistletoe every day I was there. They start you on a low grade of it, just to see if your body can tolerate it. And then as the days go on, they give you a stronger dose. By the time the three weeks is over, I was getting zapped pretty good with it. I was very fortunate because I wasn't having any adverse reaction to it.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, and that's one of the great things with mistletoe versus chemotherapy is that most people find that it doesn't cause any side effects compared to what you experience with chemotherapy. It has chemotherapeutic agents in it, helps to relieve pain and nausea and all those things, but it's helping your body to fight for itself. So I really love that.
Jeff Charles:Yeah, it was terrific. When you go out there, when you look at the total care, it's body, mind, and spirit. It's not only the mistletoe, which is very important, but I did a bunch of other stuff. When I went out there, I told them I said, I'm just gonna be a guinea pig here. You throw everything at the kitchen sink at me. Because I need to get well and I need to do whatever I have to do. I did all the hypothermia and I did the acupuncture and everything that they offered. It was just a total health care plan, that as they say they looked at your entire terrain and everything. So I can't say enough good things about the folks out there. They were terrific. Dr. Stacy Mulkey is my doctor now, and we get together every four to six months and do my blood work and stay in touch. Those folks were wonderful.
Ivelisse Page:And so tell me what happened after those three weeks. You go back and how long before the tumors didn't show up again, or, how often were the tumors showing up prior to going to Namaste in your lungs and then returning? How were things different?
Jeff Charles:They haven't returned since I've been back from Namaste.
Ivelisse Page:That's amazing.
Jeff Charles:Yeah, that's the good news because I do have the regular scans and knock on wood, there's nothing. It's been amazing, it really has.
Ivelisse Page:What does your oncologist say? Or what did he say when you got back and the tumors haven't come?
Jeff Charles:I changed oncologists.
Ivelisse Page:Good for you
Jeff Charles:I just did not feel comfortable with the first one that I had. I have an another oncologist here now. I would not say that she jumps up and down and says how great that a natural approach is, but she's very receptive to it. And she's, this is working for you. And thank you for having me as a part of your team here locally. And I'll do whatever just keep doing what you're doing. I know other doctors, not my personal doctor, who are friends or acquaintances and those kinds of things, and to be honest with you, they all kinda shake their head as to what I've been through and where I am today. One thing I tell people, I think sometimes we can get caught in the weeds with all the statistics that are involved in what your life expectancy is and how long you're gonna survive this. I really never believed all of that because if you look at some of the stats, someone who was as ill as I was, 88% of the people are no longer with us after five years. I believe everybody's body is different and everybody responds differently to cancer. I think that's a blanket statistic. Your mental attitude is so incredibly important. You just gotta feel like you're gonna beat it every day. People will say did you go through depression and did you go through a lot of tough stuff? I always tell'em that, I felt like I was so ill that I couldn't spend the time feeling sorry for myself, that I had to spend every waking moment fighting this thing. So I could get back on my feet and get healthy again. I talk to folks who start going downhill mentally. And when they do that, oftentimes the outcome's not very good. You really have to stay positive.
Ivelisse Page:I completely agree. It's more than just the physical, it's the emotional and the spiritual side that really helps your body to heal and takes your body from fight or flight to rest and repair. And, you really did that. I also wanted to point out something that you shared that is so vital that sometimes again, people think, okay, I'm, I've been free of cancer for two years, three years, four years. And you're now eight years N E D no evidence of disease, and you are still getting your follow up care and your blood work. And that is so vital. Sometimes people, again, wanna put that chapter behind them, but after you've had a cancering process, it is so important to continue to do correct testing to make sure that your body never gets into a cancering state again. I really love that you're continuing your care with them. Even eight years later, I'm 13 years out and still, go in for my bi-yearly and yearly checkups to make sure that I stay well and healthy. Did you have the support of your family and friends when you veered off the conventional path?
Jeff Charles:Yes, I think the biggest thing was people just didn't understand it. So you would say I'm trying this alternative approach and I'm doing mistletoe. And people would just look at you wide eyed because they didn't know anything about it. And here's what's really interesting when I told my surgeon who was a great surgeon and he did a great job with me here. And he was a young doctor. He was probably mid to late thirties, and I told him that I was gonna start mistletoe. And he looked at me like deer in the headlights. And he said I don't know anything about this. He said, I'm gonna go to the internet right now and find out about it and learn about it. And this is a doctor and other doctors I've talked with, who've been oncologists for years. They don't know the first thing about mistletoe or a natural approach. The biggest fact wasn't a pushback of you shouldn't do this. The reaction I would get is I don't understand it or don't know what you're doing.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah. Did you work during your treatments and if so, how did you handle the demands of your job while battling cancer?
Jeff Charles:As a sportscaster, you're required to travel and go broadcast games. And so when I was really ill, I did not go on the road, but I was broadcasting home games and I joke about this. I was broadcasting basketball games with an infusion pump underneath my coat pocket. I continued to do that. I tried to keep as regular of a routine as I could. Now that wasn't always possible. That was a challenge. I got to the point where I was feeling better. I went out to Utah and broadcast a basketball game that East Carolina played and I was not in very good shape, but I was fortunate that the East Carolina people allowed my wife to travel with me to that trip. And so she was able to go with me on trips when you know I needed some help with stuff. I tried to do the best I could. There are some days though, you're physically wiped out with the fatigue from the chemotherapy that it's tough to do. It's tough to do work related kind of things.
Ivelisse Page:Because you love what you do so much. I bet it actually helped you heal to be around the people that you cared about and the joy that you have being a broadcaster. I'm sure that they gave you continued purpose in what you were doing. So I'm sure that it also helped you outside of many jobs people have that they do it just for a job. You do it because it's a passion.
Jeff Charles:Yeah, you're And doing what I do, Ivelisse, I always say it's not really that important, but it is visible. Being here as long as I have been here you touch a lot of people. So I'm still amazed. We've got shoe boxes full of get well cards and letters and all those kinds of things from people that you don't even know who they are but, they've listened to you, watched you or whatever for a long time. I had incredible support from what we call here, the Pirate Nation the Pirate fans and people in the community. They were just wonderful. And we'll always be grateful for that.
Ivelisse Page:Recently you came and spoke at one of our dinners years ago, and it was just such an incredible story and night. And you shared with me prior to us coming on today, that you had someone who shared with you a story they had that picture of you on our stage and they wanted you to sign it. Do you mind sharing a piece of that letter? Cuz I think it's really important for individuals to know that every story matters. Every person that you speak to is encouraged to know that someone is on the other side of this. Keep fighting. Keep working towards your healing. Keep believing big. Keep realizing that nothing's impossible with God and seek out people who are on the other side that can give you that hope, encouragement that you need. And you are one of those individuals. So would you mind sharing a piece of that letter that you recently received?
Jeff Charles:Thank you, Ivelisse I appreciate the opportunity to do this. It's ironic that we're visiting today. And I got this letter yesterday.
Ivelisse Page:Wow.
Jeff Charles:From a gentleman, his name is Scott He is from Lewisville, North Carolina, the ECU graduate. He's a Pirate football fan. And I'll just read you a couple paragraphs. He wrote a terrific letter here. He just started out by saying I know of your situation, but I didn't know many details. I knew you had a serious bout with cancer. During the days that I underwent chemotherapy, surgery, scans, and doctor visits, I looked at a lot of places for comfort and hope. And one of those places was your speech at the Believe Big event, which I found on YouTube. I watched it at the kitchen table with my worried elderly parents. And I'm sure I watched it at least a hundred times on my own during my journey. What a comfort this was. Whenever my mind would drift to negative places, I would pull up your speech and watch it. Honestly, I think I can almost recite the whole thing at this point. And then he goes on to say, your story rang so true for me and really did sustain me on many days. I'm so glad that you're doing well. As I know somewhat the road you have traveled. Thank you for what you shared of Believe Big. Also by my rough calculations, your 100 birthday is about 30 years away. Considering I will be a spry 80 year old Pirate at that point, please go ahead and put me on your invitation list. You remember at the speech, I invited everybody that was there that night to come to my 100th birthday party.
Ivelisse Page:I love it. Man, that's just incredible. You just don't realize the impact and the influence that your story can have. And so that's why I'm really grateful that you're here today to share it with others that are listening to this podcast. I would love to know if you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently at the start of your cancer journey?
Jeff Charles:I would've started a lot sooner with the alternative treatment. I'm not saying that I wouldn't have done chemo. I probably would have, but I almost feel like, there was a time period there where I could have gone and gotten better treatment earlier than what I did. It's a learning process. You don't know you just hunting and pecking and trying to figure out what's the best thing to do. I would probably have done that earlier than what I did. When you're faced with with your back against the wall, then you have to make those decisions.
Ivelisse Page:Absolutely. One last question here, now that you are years out, from your cancer journey, what advice or encouragement can you share with someone that's listening today that's in the middle of their cancer journey?
Jeff Charles:The best thing I can say is keep a positive attitude and just don't ever give up. Jim Valvano, the former North Carolina state basketball coach, coined that phrase, don't give up, don't ever give up. And I think that is so important because the mental part of this is a really a key part when you're battling cancer. And also I think with your family, especially in your friends, lean on them. I had wonderful support. And do your own research. I think we all grew up in this society, Ivelisse, where the doctor was the God almighty figure. Sometimes, they might not know everything and you might you might wanna look into different things yourself, and that's the wonderful thing about the internet today is so much information out there that we can all learn. And so do your own research and talk to different people and get different opinions. And don't necessarily just follow one path and think that's the only path you can go.
Ivelisse Page:That's great advice. And so Jeff, thank you again for being with us today. Thank you for all that you have done and shared over the years. And we look forward to celebrating that hundredth birthday with you. I wanna be on the invite list too.
Jeff Charles:You're gonna be on there for sure. And thank you, Ivelisse. That phone call that I made to you that day, and it was only a five minute conversation, changed my life. Because I don't know if I would be sitting here today and doing this interview with you if you wouldn't have suggested going out to Namaste and doing the the natural treatment and getting mistletoe. You've been a big factor in this journey that's put me on this path now to, to where I'm healthy again. And I can never thank you enough for that. And thank you for everything you're doing. What you're doing with Believe Big is absolutely remarkable. And I just wish you the best and your family, the best.
Ivelisse Page:Thank you, Jeff. You're gonna make me cry. I appreciate you and your kind words of encouragement, and thank you all for listening today. And please make sure to share this with someone that needs some encouragement. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support our podcast, please subscribe and share it with others. Be sure to visit believebig.org to access the show notes and discover our bonus content. Thanks again, and keep Believing Big!