"Reprinted from The Raindrop Messenger, a free eline newsletter, with permission from Dr. David Stewart. To subscribe or download back issues, visit the archives at www.RaindropTraining.com."
8. OTHER FOODS SERVED
For supper we had salad and plain rice again, sometimes brown and sometimes white, along with the broiled fish (Tilapia) with no seasoning except for a little parsley or cilantro as a garnish.
Sometimes the rice contained a few diced carrots, a few green peas, or kernels of yellow corn mixed in, but no salt. At supper we also sometimes had some mixed boiled vegetables—asparagus, kale, spinach, sweet peppers, red cabbage, yellow carrots, broccolli, cauliflower, parsnips, mushrooms, celery, zuchini squash, or green beans with some mild onions. Sometimes for supper they would serve a whole green pepper, a whole tomato, or half of an acorn squash stuffed with an unidentifiable mix, which usually included corn, mushrooms, onions, and quinoa. There was never any hamburger or meat in the stuffing, but sometimes there seemed to be a trace of cheese, but we weren't sure what it was.
We had some form of potato every day, either for lunch or supper or both, which was boiled or mashed, (but no butter, sour cream, or gravy, and never fried). Rice, quinua, and potatoes were the most frequent foods served at the clinic.
In order to endure the monotony of the menu, I purchased plain yogurt ("El Pino" brand) to put on my rice, with a little salt and red pepper. I also purchased some mayonaise to put on my boiled potatoes with a little salt to make them taste like potato salad. Since I wasn't a patient, but a care taker, I could break the dietary rules and do that. But Lee bravely ate her rice and potatoes plain.
Two or three times a week we got a baked banana (plantain) as a supper or lunch entre. They were baked plain. No butter or seasoning. All the vegetables and fruits we had were raised on the Young Living Farm and were totally organic. That was sure a big plus. Even so, the tomatoes in our salads were tasteless. I don't know how you raise tasteless tomatoes. Maybe it was because there was no salt.
Most of the time, for breakfast and/or for supper, there was a bowl of various chopped fresh fruits. It was usually a mixture of pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, watermelon, and an occasional piece of mango. Papaya, or kiwi fruit. Some days, as a special treat, they served us a smoothie of watermelon fruit in coconut milk, which was delicious. The watermelon and coconut combination tasted remarkably like raspberries.
After the first week, we splurged and bought a bag of apples, some lemons, some strawberries, and some grapes to which we treated ourselves each evening by making a smoothie in our room with our Magic Bullet Blender. That was our desert and usually the best tasting thing we had all day. An "apple a day" is said to "keep the doctor away," and recent research has shown that it is also "keeps cancer away."
The Nova Vita anticancer diet is basically salt-free, sugar-free, fat-free, caffeine-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, black-pepper free, (and, I might add, also "taste free"). Lee also drank two or three quarts of alkaline water every day. So there you have it: ”The Ecuadorian Nova Vita Healing Diet and Cancer Healing Protocol.”
One good thing about the clinic diet: Lee and I both lost weight, probably about 10 pounds each. It also modified our taste buds so that we don't crave the sugar and salt, like we used to. However, it did not completely modify our sense of taste after ten weeks on that diet. As soon as we got back to the U.S. we went out and ate in some good American restaurants, with spicy foods, a little grease, and ice cream for dessert with chocolate sauce, etc. While we were in Ecuador, we kept thinking about the chocolate fountains in some American restaurants where you can dip marshmallows, rice krispy bars, and strawberries. Such visions were an incentive to get well quickly and get home. Yummie!
9. THE COST OF TREATMENT AT NOVA VITA
You can go to Nova Vita for two levels of treatment. Healthy people can go for a few weeks of "Rejuvenation and Cleansing." There is a beautiful outdoor pool with a slide and a diving board, a completly equipped gymnasium, and an outdoor trampoline for exercise. There are also plenty of hiking trails throughout the farm and lots of opportunity to bathe in the tropical sun. Rejuvenation candidates also receive various IVs and colonics along with use of the sauna and floral baths in the hot tubs. The diet is the same for everyone, the same as what cancer patients receive. You are normally expected to stay for at least four weeks, but you can stay shorter or longer periods of time.
There are only four completely furnished bedrooms, with private toilets, sinks. and showers, in the clinic itself, but many patients stay in a hotel in Guayaquil and come to the Spa during the day. There is also a large tree house with three bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen, and a living room. Rejuvenation candidates can choose to stay there. The fee varies for rejuvenation, but normally comes to between $1,000 to $2,000 per week, including all the treatments and your food.
People with various illnesses or maladies go to Nova Vita for the natural therapies available that cannot be received in the United States because the FDA, the drug companies, and the American medical profession has made them illegal. For a "Therapeutic" stay, the cost is $4000 per week, with a minimum usually of four weeks, and $10,000 to be paid in advance, with the remainder due upon departure. This includes all therapies, oils, supplements,and supplies used at the clinic. Services required elsewhere, for which you go to a private practice or hospital in Guayaquil, are not covered. You have to be prepared to pay cash or use a credit card for them.
Insertion of Lee's two PICC lines were in a Guayaquil hospital and cost around $400 each, counting the charges of both, the hospital and the doctor, each time. If you need CT scans, xrays, MRIs, ultrasounds, hyperbaric oxygen treatments, or anything outside Nova Vita facilities, you pay for that directly to the facility or professional providing the service.
In the ten weeks we spent living and being treated at the YL Clinic, we spent around $50,000 total and were able to pay cash. We thank Young Living for providing us the opportunity to build our Essential Oils business such that we could afford that, and pay for our flights to and from Ecuador as well, which were not cheap.
Nova Vita, and all of the outside hospitals and services, accept the major credit cards: VISA, Master Card, Discover, and American Express. As for cash, Ecuadorian currency is American currency. They deal in U.S. dollars and coins. They prefer American one-dollar coins to American paper dollars, but they accept the paper currency.
Be sure to count your change when making a purchase in Ecuador. There are worthless car wash tokens which are gold and exactly the same diameter and size as an American gold dollar. Merchants will try to mix these in with a few real dollars, hoping you won't notice until it is too late. This happened to me and I did not notice until I got back to the United States and tipped the man carrying my baggage at the airport with a couple of what I thought were real American coin dollars, but turned out to be Ecuadorian car wash tokens.
10. HOW TO CONTACT NOVA VITA
Nova Vita will not accept cancer patients who have already undergone chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery and are hesitant to accept cancer patients who have had a biopsy, since biopsies can spread cancer and can cause other serious complications. Nova Vita can cure cancer, and has done so in many cases. But they cannot heal the damages of allopathic therapies. The Nova Vita therapies are all designed to strengthen your immune system so you actually fight off cancer by your own powers. If your immune system has been irreparably damaged by chemo or radiation, the very thing you need for their therapies to work has been destroyed.
Neither can they gurantee that you will be healed by what they do. There are factors beyond their control, such as your attitudes and emotions that may underlie your sickness, and which they may not be able to reach. To experience success in overcoming cancer, the patient must constantly maintain a positive frame of mind and hold on to a belief in the effectiveness of what they are receiving. Patients that give up and cannot believe anything will heal them usually die. Patients that believe the therapies they receive are working to free them of cancer, usually get well. You must be an active participant in your own healing, at least on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level.
To go there, you must apply and answer some questions for them to consider to decide whether you are a good candidate for their services or not. They are a small facility and can only accept a limited number of inhouse patients. You may have to go on a list and wait for an opening. The clinic also has a good number of day patients who live in Ecuador, or who come and stay in a Guayaquil Hotel, and commute to the clinic every day for treatments.
Their contact information is as follows:
Nova Vita Natural Healing & Wellness Center
Cdla. Urdesa Central
av. Las Monjas #115
e/Circunvalacion y Costanera
Guayaquil
ECUADOR
Telf: 593-4-2883408
FAX: 593-4-2883460
novavitacenterdr@hotmail.com
Most of the staff at Nova Vita speak only Spanish, so take your Spanish/English dictionary with you. A couple of the staff speak fluent English, and several can understand or speak a little English, but most speak Spanish only. Gary Young has instructed all of the staff there to start studying and learn English, but that may take a few years.
If you are a truly sick person that will require a lot of daily therapies and attention, take a friend to be your caretaker. The $4000 per week charge includes them sharing the room with you and provides all of their food. There is no extra charge for a caretaker to accompany you, and they encourage it. In some cases, they may require it. If your caretaker speaks Spanish, that is all the better.
I served as Lee's caretaker and translator, and it was pretty much a full-time job. I knew enough Spanish to do simple translations for her and get by. I had a couple of Spanish books for English speaking people, which I actually bought after I got down there. They were very helpful. If you already have a general knowledge of Spanish, a few weeks at Nova Vita is a great opportunity to improve your language skills.
11. THE CLIMATE IN GUAYAQUIL
Nova VIta Clinic is south of the equator and within the tropical zone. That means that when it is summer in the northern hemisphere (like North America or Europe), they are experiencing winter. When it is winter in the northern hemisphere, it is summer down there. There are two types of climate in the tropics. The tropical Low and the tropical high. Because of the tilt of the earth on its axis, Guayaquil moves back and forth between these two climatic zones from season to season.
In June-July-August it is their winter. The barometeric pressure is high and it is dry. It is tropical desert time. Almost zero humidity. You may need lip balm and body lotion for the dryness. There is no rainfall during this time.
In September-October-November it is their Spring. The barometer is low and it is wet. It is humid tropical monsoon time, with rain almost every day. The rain is warm and evaporates quickly when the sun comes out. Most Ecuadorians don't carry umbrellas, but just get wet and let themselves dry out with the sun, which usually doesn't take long. However, there can be real downpours where several inches of rain can fall torrentially in a few minutes, unlike any rainfall you may experience in the temperate zones.
In December-January-February it is their Summer. It is tropical desert time again, and it is dry and hot. Your perspiration evaporates quickly, so you don't feel "sweaty." It is easy to dehydrate, so drink plenty of water.
Then comes March-April-May which is their Fall, and it is rainy season again and very humid. Tropical fall is much like tropical Spring except that the blooming trees and flowers of the field are different. For unkinown reasons, this year, 2014, was an unusually dry rainy season and the lakes on the farm, that provide irrigation water during the dry seasons, did not fill up.
Young Living has to irrigate its crops and trees daily during the dry seasons. They have built several reservoirs to capture the rainfall in the wet seasons to carry them through the dry seasons. The Nova Vita Clinic overlooks one of the larger lakes of the farm, which is abundantly populated with fish, frogs, and waterfowl.
No matter what season, the temperatures in and around Guayaquil normally never falls below 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celcius), night or day, but can get to 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (32-38 degrees Celcius) in the daylight. Short pants and short sleeve shirts are appropriate most any time there, but indoors it may be cool, even in the summer, because of air conditioning at the Clinic and most offices or businesses. The mid-day sun is very intense during all seasons and one can easily burn. Even native Ecuadorians, who naturally have dark sun-resistent skin, have to wear protective clothing during the mid-day hours when working out of doors.
12. BUGS, FROGS, LIZARDS, & SPIDERS
Ecuador is a tropical country and the Young Living Farm was created out of a jungle. The jungle there is not what you may visualize from Tarzan movies, where there are tall trees with lots of grape vines hanging down. The term, "jungle," implies intensely thick growth of vines, bushes, trees, and grasses such that you cannot walk through without hacking your way with a machete or pushing your way through with a bulldozer. That was the status of the land when Gary Young bought the 1000 acres in Ecuador that is now the Young Living Herb Farm (Finca Botanica).
There had been no human habitation on that land for at least 20,000 years. The remains of an ancient Native South American village was there, but its existence was not known until it was discovered during the clearing of the land for the growing of plants for essential oils. Young Living is preserving the site, rather than cultivate it. At this time, only about 300 acres of the 1000 acres Young Living owns have been developed for crops, while a portion is reserved as a Palo Santo Tree Forest, which grow wild there.
While there are no ticks or chiggers in Ecuador, as they are in the Eastern and Midwestern United States, there are an abundance of mosquitos, flies, spiders, and crawly creatures like millipeds and centipeds. It is impossible to keep them all out of your room. The clinic provides fly swatters in every room, but every day I picked up crawly bugs and centipeds off of the floor and put them out of doors.
We also frequently had frogs or toads in our room, sitting on the sink, under the bed, or just hopping about anywhere. They are harmless, but I was always afraid of stepping on one in the dark when I got up at night. All you can do is catch them and put them back outside.
There are a few snakes, but in the ten weeks we were there, we only saw two. One was only about a foot long crawling in the grass outside our door. The other was big, about four feet long, with yellow spots, that was seen in the yard just outside of the clinic. Neither was poisonous. Snakes stay out of doors and won't come into your room. They prefer to remain in the tangle of jungle vines and underbrush where people cannot tread. They are rarely to be seen or encountered by people.
Lizards are another matter. There are lots of lizards in Ecuador. The Iguanas look like frightening little dragons, but are actually docile and harmless. Their frightening appearance is a bluff. They range from one foot to over six feet in length. You can touch and even pet them. They are vegetarians and and are not aggressive toward humans. They won't bite. One was found in the clinic waiting room one day and I just picked it up and carried it outside. It squirmed a little when I first grabbed it, but then quieted down as I took it outside and let it go. It never made any attempt to bite me. It was a beautiful green color with yellow and red markings. It would have made a great pet. But I doubt if they would have let me bring it on the airplane.
13. CHATTERING GECKOS
The most common lizard around the clinic is the gecko, which is relatively small and does not look like the Geico gecko featured on TV Ads for Geico Insurance. Neither do they have an Australian accent. They do make noise, however. They eat insects and love to hide in your room during the day, behind furniture and up in your window blinds. They come out at night and when you turn on the lights and they can be seen crawling up the walls and scampering away to hide. Geckos are the only known lizard that makes a noise. They go, "chip, chip, chip, chip, chip..." and do so randomly throughout the day and night. They say the geckos make that sound every time they eat an insect. I grew to like their sound, knowing that they were helping keep the spider and fly population down in our room.
There were lots of spiders, but no black widows or brown recluses like we have in the United States. None were said to be deadly poisonous, but their bites can be toxic and cause a rash or make a sore that is slow to heal. We used our fly swatter on them when seen crawling across the floor in our room, which was almost every day.
There are lots of colorful birds in Ecuador, not seen elsewhere in the world. There are red ones, yellow ones, and orange ones There was one, in particular, that is completely white with black wings and a black strip in its tail, which is quite attractive. If you get too close to their nest, they hop down on the ground, flap their wings to shoo you away, and scold you with angry bird chatter. Each species has their own songs and unique behaviors.
There are lots of water fowl that live around the main lake in front of the clinic, including ducks, geese, and cranes. There are also large buzzards and an occassional hawk soaring over the clinic. One evening after dark, as I was out on the Nova Vita patio, an owl flew out from under the eaves above the entrance to the clinic. If you like birds, you will love the YL Farm in Ecuador.
