Latest / Radically Genuine / 139. Conquering Cancer Against All Odds

Transcript

139. Conquering Cancer Against All Odds · Radically Genuine

• Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (00:01.542) Welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. When I started the Radically Genuine Podcast, my primary intention was to publicize the corruption and misrepresentation of science that was driving the use of psychiatric drugs and the mental health industry. I believed I had an ethical obligation to do so. This journey and the post -COVID awakening has taken me down paths I've never expected. an awareness of widespread industry corruption and even a transhumanist and anti -human movement behind Western medicine. Our health, vitality, and fertility has been on a dramatic decline that coincides with the rise of pharmaceutical interventions as healthcare. This naturally has led me to develop a curiosity about the rising rates of cancer and how it's treated in the United States. I remain in a state of constant curiosity, a beginner's mind, eager to explore how others understand cancer and how they've recovered outside of the allopathic model. I believe this information is purposely suppressed to support the cancer treatment industry. I admit, I don't know what I don't know, but I want to learn given the rising prevalence rate of cancer. especially for younger and younger people. We are a sick culture and we require transformative change. We need to learn from each other. In 2020, Christian Hegarty was told he was out of compelling treatment options for his bone cancer at just 23 years old. The former star baseball player had faced countless surgeries, and brutal cancer treatments over the years. But his story was far from over. His older brother, John, left his job on Wall Street and Christian and John refused to give up working together to take a comprehensive, natural, and holistic approach, considering everything from lifestyle changes to alternative medicine. To the surprise of Christian's doctors, he succeeded against the odds that conventional medicine gave him and he's coming up Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (02:29.158) on three years in remission. Since then, they've started goingwell .org 501c3 nonprofit for zero cost to the patient going well allows anyone facing a difficult cancer diagnosis to hear from a natural holistic survivor of similar disease via dedicated and personalized video by hearing from someone who was in a similar position but managed to take control of their health, situation and disease. The person facing cancer is able to gain a strong sense of hope and inspiration to take positive action and change the course of their life. Today we learn. I would like to welcome Christian and John Hegarty to the radically genuine podcast. Jon Hegarty (03:18.78) Thank you so much for having us, Doc. It's absolutely incredible, the level of transparency and information that you're bringing to the world. I really recommend you for your work. Christian Hegarty (03:31.982) And we can totally relate with, you know, your reasoning for starting this podcast. We kind of felt the obligation to start going well, to kind of spread the word and do the same for patients that might not know about other options. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (03:47.686) Yeah, thank you, fellas. I've ventured down this topic before talking about alternative approaches. And I think it's best to start Christian just with your story. It's a compelling one. And, you know, you're very young. Of course you are an athlete. Why don't you tell us the, from the beginning, you know, about the diagnosis and what you've gone through. Christian Hegarty (04:08.27) Okay, we'll go back to when I was 16. So this is my diagnosis was actually on 11, 12, 13. I was a junior in high school and for the past year prior, I had been feeling knee pain, going to doctors, they would tell me, Arsh Goodschlatter. I had grown almost a foot in a year and a half. So, You know, growing pains and, you know, my parents and I were, my entire family had always been just finance focus. Everyone has studied finance, nothing about medical. We've got, you know, trusting that blind authority of the medical authority, at this time fully. And, so it just gets to a point where I can't really, you know, walk to class anymore without. serious pain, you know, starting to hop on my left leg type pain instead of walking on my right. So when it got to that point, they finally got me in for, I had had scans on it prior, but I guess they weren't read. Ended up getting an MRI and it was shown to have, I had a, massive about a softball sized tumor in my knee. And you know, the next day they sent me from Cape Cod to Boston Children's to get further full body scan. And it was found, I had cancer from right around my, just above my right ankle to my mid right thigh. And it's a bone cancer. So it's all along the tibia and in my knee and above. And then also 24 nodules in one lung, 16 nodules in the other. So it had metastasized stage four. It was a really brutal case. And I was given about a 15 % chance to see my 21st birthday. So obviously, you know, tough, tough news to hear. Fear is going through. Christian Hegarty (06:33.55) all of our minds fully. We've seen that in the years since. We've seen a lot of fear in the medical industry, especially being driven by them. So we hop in. I'm going full force. I'm going to do what it takes. I'm going to take, I'm really proud of myself. I had to stay above the 135 pound threshold. I'm six foot one and get athlete now I'm battling to stay above 135 to continue taking the harshest chemo's. you know, it's just crazy looking back at how now I'm looking at it so differently, but at the time, the sicker I got meant the better I was, I was, you know, the harder I was going. And, you know, I, I was on the map IE protocol, which is five harsh chemo's. Did it for a full year every week. The first week would be a one day session, methotrexate. Next week will be a three day and the next week would be a five day. And each day is, I'm the first guy in, last guy out. This isn't, getting there at 8 .30 AM, leaving at 6 PM. The nurses are upset, they're staying late for me every day. So. That's the type of situation that this was. You know, osteosarcoma as a cancer is just so brutal. I think that five -year success rate, that five -year target, you know, of the 15 % of people that were to make it to five years, I think the vast majority of them would still be battling and in a tough spot. So I think that might be a bit. I personally don't know any osteosarcoma survivors from my treatment and I've met all sorts of them. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (08:42.534) So, so Christian, you're at this time, the prognosis is very poor. They're giving you about a 15 % chance just to make it to age 21. But it seems like you're taking the attitude that you're going to be one of those 15 % that you're going to fight this. you know, I was an athlete myself. I certainly understand the mentality. You're gonna, you know, you're really going to go in a fight, right? You're going to take it. You're going to beat this cancer. We even. I think as a culture describe it that way. We communicate cancer as something like a war that we're in that we're going to defeat, that we're going to beat. So you take it with that mentality. I want to check in with John here and just get a sense of where you are in your life when Christian was diagnosed and kind of the family's approach to this. Jon Hegarty (09:26.844) Yeah, you know, so when Christian was diagnosed, I was in college and you know, like any other brother, I wanted to be there for him. I wished him the best, but I didn't really have a super active role at that time. So this is 2013. Christian, you know, I'll let him continue the story, but he ends up reaching remission and stays there for five years. And then in 2020, Christian's cancer comes back. And that's when I was working in finance in New York City. I liked what I did. I was meeting with CEOs and CFOs and it was really interesting work, but I started to feel a little bit empty inside and I was ready for that next big challenge. And we were actually living together in 2020 when he got that dreaded call from his oncologist that said, Hey, Christian, on your six month scans. we noticed two small nodules in your lungs. This is positive for osteosarcoma. When osteosarcoma comes back, it tends to be much more aggressive treatments, much less effective. And our whole family was just absolutely devastated. And that's when I went from being just this sort of distant. brother who wishes brother the best to someone that he was really going to rely on. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (10:59.174) Christian, take us into the experience of a cancer patient who's undergoing chemotherapy. I mean, essentially you're being poisoned, right? And to try to kill those cells. What was it like going through that treatment? Christian Hegarty (11:13.134) Yeah. I actually, so it was a full one year of treatment. and actually the best, the best times I had, throughout that year were for major surgeries because I had a few weeks off to get my blood levels up. you know, it's basically you look at me that entire year. I'm green. I'm sick. It's like the most brutal, you know, it's like a flu that just never ends and you can't keep food down. The reason I mentioned the 135, you lose all sorts of weight. you know, and, and I'm just eating whatever I can to, to keep weight on at that point, to stay, to, to keep getting the harshest chemo. So I'm eating, you know, I had chicken Alfredo pasta every, every day and, you know, ice cream sandwiches, whatever it was, I just had it, whatever I could eat. You know, and that, that experience under chemo is, is it's worse than, you know, I've had six surgeries that are a year long recovery. It's the chemotherapy is, it's much worse than, than, anything else that I've been through. you know, it's just not a fun situation. And then you see your family around you and it's taxing on them too. you know, you, you physically and emotionally, you can, you tell that it's impacting the people around you and that's probably the worst part. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (12:46.598) Yeah, I've heard others speak about it where death becomes welcomed to the hell and poor quality of life of that type of treatment. I mean, so that's another aspect about this is, you know, what is the quality of life like for somebody who is going through these conventional cancer treatments? And then how does that just influence the human spirit, right? How does that impact you and your will to want to go on when your life is that difficult and challenging? Christian Hegarty (13:15.535) Totally. And you know, that's, that's where kind of, I think for me having the family around me, such a good support system, you know, I kind of wanted to, to keep doing it partially for them. it, you know, so it was brutal, but I had, I had the motivation for it. And, you know, like John said, I ended up, ended up getting through that year ended up five years clean. you know, And for those five years, I'm, you know, conventional treatment did it like, you know, I'm, and then when the recurrence came, you know, that's kind of when everything did a 180. So in 2020, I get a scan on my chest and, looks like osteosarcoma. They do a surgery and confirm it is. There's a tumor that they cannot get to and that's left. We continue on. My options are basically to take a life extending chemo, two chemotherapies, two of the five that I've already had that didn't work. And they were the, of the MAP -IE, they were the IE, etoposide and nifosfamide. And you know, so just the option was to take two chemos that hadn't worked. For me before, they're both guaranteed harsh side effects, be bald, that type of lifestyle back again. But the benefit would be it would extend my life about six to 12 months more. So I had the options of taking the chemo, dying with a bald head, but making it maybe a year later, or just kind of living my life and going out. end up just go hospice at the end, maybe. So those are the two options. Obviously that, that those weeks, days, months were the harshest out of anything because you're being told there's no chance at all. So, that's when John kind of thought to himself, you know, John's always been the guy taking extra courses. We went to. Christian Hegarty (15:38.158) Boston College together, we overlapped for one year. He's the guy taking extra courses. He's the guy talking to, you know, talking with professors after class about how they can improve their course. And, you know, cum laude, you know, that type of guy. He's just out of our family. He's like the one that's just different in that way. He like, he loves research. He loves reading. He loves, you know, 18 hours straight, that type of stuff. I could never do that, especially, you know, in the mental state that I found myself and, you know, lucky enough, John dove into some research and he was going crazy. COVID brought us back home. He was in New York city on wall street. And I was at, I was in my senior year at BC. COVID brought us to this two, you know, two bedroom apartment on Cape Cod near our family and we're living together. And all of a sudden he's got whiteboards everywhere and he's putting in more work than he was in private equity. And he came to me with this idea to try alternative treatments and my entire life I have thought that is totally loony. These conventional doctors, they all went to Harvard, they know better. But I can't just watch him put in all this effort and then not do anything and just, you know, sit back and, and, and wait for hospice. Not going to watch, you know, my brother in the next room bust his ass for me and, and then me not act on anything. So I, my, you know, my plan was to do the chemo's, but John insisted that I just take just. He just wanted to try for a little bit at least. So I said, look, I'm going to tell the doctors that to give me five weeks to think about it. And I'll see if they'll give me a scan in five weeks. Christian Hegarty (17:53.006) then we can determine from there. But otherwise, I don't have much time. This is growing very rapidly. And we do it. So in those five weeks, I changed my diet to no sugar at all. And I was doing high dose vitamin C injections as well as grounding. And just those three, after the five week scan, My doctors called me and said your tumors somehow have shrunk. We no longer recommend chemotherapy. And you know, the kind of, the rest is kind of history from there. I think John can, can talk more about, you know, what his type of research was, but. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (18:38.086) Sure. Yeah. I want to, I want to go back a little bit here because getting that news appears to be like soul crushing. And I just want to get a sense of, like just where you were mentally after you were given those options, basically you were facing your own, your own death less than a year, potentially of, of, of living. Christian Hegarty (18:58.944) Yeah, totally. It was, you know, getting to sleep was tough, you know, just thinking about what's my family going to be like. They don't even know this, but I made videos for each of them while I was still looking good before I started chemo, you know, telling each one how much I appreciate them and, you know, keep pushing on without me, you know, that type of stuff. So it was really a dark period for me. And for them, you know, but after that five weeks, I remember getting the call, had it on speaker next to John hit end. And we just wait, I think we, we swung arms and chest bumped and said like, let's do this. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (19:44.742) Yeah. So Christian, at the time, like many of us, you just assumed we're kind of like the beacon of scientific supremacy around the world. And if you're working with Harvard trained physicians, obviously they have the best available evidence. And so what they tell you is the best option, the most effective option. And so if their most effective option is basically saying we can only extend your life, but we have to poison you to do that and your quality of life is going to be shit. I'm just imagining that is just, you know, crushing of the soul. but you're not accepting that, or at least your brother is not accepting that as like the, the only option, right? So John starts doing work around this. Christian Hegarty (20:33.038) Totally. And, and meanwhile, keep in mind we're all finance and conventional treatment, you know, proponents. So we are, there's a, there's a serious family debate over, you know, why, why are we not getting into chemo right now? And what are we talking about grounding and high dose vitamin C? Come on. so that's kind of where we were, but I saw, you know, John was in the next room next to me. I saw his. He had whiteboards everywhere, you know, trying to show me different things each day. And, you know, it kind of sounded like a crazy man to me at the time, but I was out of options. So, and I, and again, I'm not going to let him do all this work. And then me sit there and say, you're crazy. Screw that. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (21:21.286) Alright, let's bring John here. John, take us to that point. You started your doing your research. What were you discovering? Jon Hegarty (21:29.66) Yeah, you know, I thought to myself, you know, someone has to have been in our shoes and figured out a way to the other side. In a world full of 8 billion people, it's almost just a numbers game, right? Let's find the one person who's roughly Christian's age with bone cancer that had metastasized, who was told he was out of options and found a way through. So that was part of it. You know, we asked questions to his oncology team and we weren't getting sufficient answers. You know, I could see through the, you know, the kind of like, call them banal platitudes, just the phrases that had no meaning. Like, you know, there's no evidence to support that that'll work. Well, we're out of options here and you're telling us we're going to die. So let's lower the bar for our, you know, for the, you know, need for. a well -funded clinical trial to tell us what to do. I'm the curious type. I had watched a documentary previously called Heal on Netflix. I'm not sure if you're familiar, but it was the perfect prerequisite. I watched that in 2019 and he had his recurrence in 2020. To start to... Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (22:42.694) Yep, I saw it. Jon Hegarty (22:55.676) wonder what's out there and then be told you're wasting your time with no real evidence or no real no no willingness to debate or You know converse about it just completely dismiss everything that we asked about it just what didn't suffice and I said You know, I don't I just lot we lost total trust in his in his oncology team We use them for you know what they know? Of course, there's no one that knows what they know better than they do, but they don't have a monopoly on truth. And that's the realization that I had. And I had to really fight to share with my family to get them to see, you know, how much hope and power there is when you kind of think outside the box and don't get so, you know. so misguided or so dogmatic about the one size fits all approach that is conventional medicine. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (24:07.398) So when you did your research, what did you identify as like the potential avenues, like some of the top priority approaches to try to restore health? Cause I know you're, you're probably taking a very different perspective at this point. You're trying to explore what opportunities do we have as human beings to heal ourselves? Like what can we do in order to, you know, generate a strong immune response? whether this includes. mental training, meditation, grounding techniques, vitamin C. It's almost like you're looking at ways that we can try to restore some form of balance within the body in order to restore health. So what are you discovering down these roads? Like what has worked for other people? Jon Hegarty (25:04.604) Absolutely. So, you know, for us in Christian's situation with active disease and, you know, just a whole lot of fear around what's going to happen, I knew that we had to start with some of the more powerful things that if he could have a three -month scan and it showed that his cancer had shrunk, then his mindset, his belief would grow. So, you know, we started with... high dose vitamin C, which I view as one of the more powerful, almost like nature's chemotherapy. It's an IV that you get and you sit down. So, starting with that, I think was huge for us because it was sort of like a gateway into what else is out there. It was something that we could, Christian could really believe in and buy into. And then over time, we realized that we've gotten more and more into lifestyle and other practices like grounding. We offer grounding sheets now as part of our nonprofit. But yeah, there's a real evolution from let's figure out how we can heal from this life -threatening situation by reducing the cancer as much as possible and then shifting more to How do we look at this holistically? How do we optimize for just the longevity of life in general? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (26:43.174) Okay, so it started with this high dose vitamin C. Were you able to connect with people who could administer this, who had, you know, alternative approaches to someone who was struggling with cancer? Like who did you hook up with to kind of help you through this process? Jon Hegarty (26:59.164) Yeah, I just went about researching and finding these practitioners. We're on Cape Cod, so it was about an hour and a half ride to East Providence to Dr. Sousa, who's a naturopathic physician who offered high dose vitamin C. So yeah, the whole time, we took this perspective of... you know, if we don't trust the medical establishment, we're going to have to do this ourselves. And we're just going to, you know, bring various people in where they fit into the pie, where they fit into the puzzle. And, you know, finding vitamin C was part of that. So we connected with Dr. Souza and Providence just, you know, by doing a bunch of research and Googling around and finding it. You know, a lot of these practitioners exist. A lot of people just haven't really heard of them. And then going from there. So ultimately, it had to start from within. I'd say we had to say, we'll find the various approaches as they come fit. You have to understand that we started out knowing nothing. But we knew that we didn't know what we didn't know. We knew that there was a lot more out there that was... totally underappreciated and totally disregarded by mainstream narratives. And so that was a little bit exciting to know that there was opportunity beyond what we were being told. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (28:40.614) When you brought this up to the oncology team and they said there was no evidence for it, did you specifically talk about the high dose vitamin C? Jon Hegarty (28:50.748) You know, we didn't because at the time Christian was a little bit worried that they would drop him from treatment, frankly, which is insane to say that, you know, a patient could make decisions for themselves and then, you know, be dropped from treatment because of it. But yeah, we asked questions on like, can this work, you know, can nutrition work and can lifestyle practices kind of danced around the topic a little bit. and it was just total dismissal from the get -go. So we knew that there was no point in asking about more stronger alternative therapies because they were totally unwelcome to the thought or idea of it. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (29:44.102) Christian, also curious about your diet. You said you eliminated sugar. What did you eat? Christian Hegarty (29:51.182) Yeah, so I eliminated added sugar. I, at the time we, so we changed my diet about after about maybe nine months or a year into it. But at the, just to start, I was, I jumped into juicing a lot, everything organic and, but. The, the change, the big change we made was moving away from, I started more on a plant based, trying to stay away from red meat and kind of learned that the, the juicing and, high, you know, a lot of fruits and veggies that ended up bringing my glucose level up. Even though I wasn't having any added sugar, I was just having so much natural sugar that it was more than a normal person should have. So I did have some cancer growth early on in my pleura, but after I had that removed, I switched my diet to keto, basically, a pretty strict keto with under 10 grams of carbs per day. And we noticed that was the best that I found. I had... John had done plenty of research on, you know, there's just not much out there for osteosarcoma, especially when it comes to alternatives. There's only a thousand cases a year in the U .S. and unfortunately, the vast majority of those pass away and then those who survive just don't learn about alternative treatments. So I, you know, we were just in a spot where we had to guess. So we started on that. juicing plant -based diet and which I guess works for some cancers, but osteosarcoma, it was definitely more red meat, chicken, fruits and veggies, but not overdoing the high sugar fruits and yeah, sticking to more of a high protein, low carb. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (32:10.79) Yeah, my audience is quite familiar with the value of the ketogenic diet, especially within mental health. And so it makes sense to me. And I think I've seen some evidence really, because you're targeting metabolic illness, you're targeting disease states. And I can understand why choosing that type of diet might have some beneficial effects, especially I'm a big supporter of like animal based proteins, especially because of just the bioavailable nature of the nutrients and how important it is for our overall. you know, health and well -being. So, you know, at this point, you go and you get another scan with your, with your team and they inform you that without chemo, it, the, your cancer is in remission. Christian Hegarty (32:56.942) Well, they had said, I asked them, they didn't believe in alternative treatments at all. So I asked them, have you ever seen cancer shrink with no treatment? They said, no. And then they were telling me it must be scar tissue. And I said, does scar tissue shrink? And they said, no. And it was just so clear that they had no idea what was going on. And... we knew exactly what was going on. And, you know, we kind of, from that point on, it was just, I'm gonna go with what John's research brings me to. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (33:38.022) Okay, where are you mentally at this point? I mean, that must have inspired some hope that you're on the right track. Christian Hegarty (33:45.486) totally. I mean, those five weeks, you know, I'm not, I'm barely leaving my room. you know, besides getting, getting, high dose vitamin C, I'm not, you know, I'm not in a good place at all. I'm thinking I'm at the end and I'm going to be, and I'm gearing up for chemotherapy, which I know how brutal it is. I just had a five year break from it. so I'm just about in the worst spot you could be. And after I get that call after the five weeks, you know, that's when I realized I have a shot and that's all, that's all I needed to know. really. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (34:23.526) Just curious, how important do you believe that is, that hope, that mindset, that belief in ultimate recovery? Christian Hegarty (34:30.414) I've got a wristband on right now. Belief is half the battle. I, a hundred percent. That's, that's, that's the slogan of, of going well. And that's the slogan of my life. you know, if, if you think you can't do it, you're not going to, you're not going to do it, whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. You know, that, that quote is really, kind of instilled in, in, in, in me. And, especially since this process, I, I, you know, without. The mental aspect, you have to be mentally clear. It's more than just a physical battle. And that's a hundred percent fact in my mind. Jon Hegarty (35:13.084) Yeah, I'll just add to that. At that point in 2020, all we had was hope. We had no reason to, you know, he was being told that he was going to die and to get his affairs in order and to be glad that he graduated college. And it started with a thought. It started with just... the curiosity of let me learn more, let me learn more about truth, let me learn more about life, let's learn and understanding that we don't know what we don't know. And so that hope without that spark of hope, it's unfortunately, we work with a lot of patients and a lot of times they just, You know, so they're in a very difficult position. They're overwhelmed and they lose that hope. And that spark is really all that we had. And we just tried to water that and, you know, what was a spark became a small fire. What was a small fire became a forest. And, and, Yeah, exactly that. Hope was really, you know, we didn't have anything beyond hope. Just the willingness to keep going and to not give up and not be told something and accepted it as true. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (36:52.806) So the tumor was shrinking, what did they recommend? Christian Hegarty (36:57.518) When my, after they saw my tumor had actually shrunk, she said, my oncologist said, I can no longer recommend you do chemotherapy. They just wanted to wait and see until the next scan, which, which, which ended up showing even less, even more reduction in tumor size. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (37:16.582) Yeah. So take me from there. What, what was next for you? Did you just continue the same lifestyle approach? Was anything else added? Christian Hegarty (37:25.322) yeah, we, we added, I mean, I could rattle off about 30 different strategies that we've done, and supplements that I've taken and, and still, still do and still take. And, yeah, like I said, the diet change was a big change from, from the juicing side toward more toward keto. that was definitely a huge, huge change. other than that, we've just been adding, you know, John brought. Very early on, I didn't have access to mistletoe at the time, but there's an injection called mistletoe totally natural, and it's supposed to spark your immune system essentially. And John showed me a study way back when to kind of boost my confidence in his research where five out of nine patients who took mistletoe, injections with no other treatments that were in my same spot survived for at least five years, I think. So that alone, if we could just take all sorts of pieces like that. Now I'm doing mistletoe and high dose vitamin C. Now what? No sugar. Now what's next? Now I'm in a sauna five times a day, five times a week. I'm cold plunged, working out, being, you know, All sorts of different, I got a PEMF mat, you know, just all sorts of treatments and ozone, just on and on we kept adding throughout the, over the four year journey. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (39:05.35) So there's a will to live and there is a desire to do whatever it takes. And if anything has demonstrated any evidence, you're willing to try it. So you're now engaging in a lot of these nutritional and lifestyle interventions that are really, I think, flourishing around the world right now is as stating, Hey, this is how we optimize our health. And so you're looking to optimize your health. You're doing sauna, you're doing cold plunges, you're working out. I'm sure you're getting adequate sun exposure. You're doing the vitamin C. You've changed your diet. And then you find this research with, with mistletoe. This is fascinating. So, you know, John, if you can identify this research and you can find it, why doesn't an oncology team, of Harvard graduates and you know, in a, in a major metropolitan area, why wouldn't they have this information and why wouldn't they, if they use this as a part of the treatment plan? Jon Hegarty (40:01.276) Yeah, you know, I actually brought that study into Dana -Farber in Boston, but it fell on deaf ears. I don't think I actually ever brought it, didn't really bring it up, but I could sense that it wasn't going to be taken to. You know, I think the obvious reason is there's no money in it. And, you know, in order to be FDA approved, you have to average clinical trial cost $80 million. So, you know, we brought the study. It was a very well designed study, two sided placebo controlled, double blinded. You know, they gave the patient half the patients, the exact drugs that Christian was being offered. I phosphorized the toposide. He gave the other half mistletoe therapy alone. And unfortunately, sort of as the study predicted, as our oncology team frankly was predicting that the people in the chemotherapy arm had their cancer come back and eventually passed away. And five out of the nine people who took mistletoe therapy, which was standard of care in Germany, and this simple, can do at home, natural, non -toxic therapy. save five out of nine people in an otherwise hopeless situation. It was just absolutely mind blowing to us that something like that could be that disregarded, but that's exactly the case. And it's still the case today and people still haven't really heard about mistletoe therapy. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (41:49.222) unfortunate, this some of my come to Jesus moments in all my research has been facing that fact how alternative treatments that have demonstrated evidence in well -designed studies are suppressed in Western medicine. And I can only come to the same conclusion that you do is that it's to protect their treatments, it's to protect their financial bottom line. If there are alternative treatments that are very effective. Well, that harms their industry. Like the sicker we are, the richer they are. And it's impossible for me to get past that, that the pharmaceutical industry as a whole and the treatment industry in itself does so much better the more people that are sick. And so there is a financial incentive to suppress alternative treatments. And that makes it nearly impossible to get widespread exposure in Western societies from, you know, Google searches where they're really controlling the algorithm and website optimization to make sure that when you are doing your own research for any type of treatments, whether it's cancer, whether it's mental health, they really kind of own that. And so they're going to be filtering that information to you. They also own the media. They're major, they're obviously they are funding. our media, our corporate media with their advertising dollars. So the messages to our doctors, because of course, they're also funding the education of our medical professionals, it's very difficult to get accurate information. It's filtered information based only on that model. Christian Hegarty (43:35.502) Totally. I mean, we saw that throughout our process and we saw it even more with COVID. I mean, I hope that we can all take, you know, get some benefit from what we saw during COVID, the amount of fear that they were trying to instill in everybody to get vaccinated. And, you know, it was an absolute, you know, money grab, in my opinion, if you look at the facts and what they were saying, incentivizing people to get vaccinated and totally lying upfront about it. You know, I mean, if even like your point, they own the media, Joe Rogan was taking ivermectin and CNN put him on the screen with a green filter on his face and said, this is what Joe Rogan looks like on ivermectin on horse no, they on horse dewormer. And that and then, you know, everyone you can you can literally look at his Instagram. And it's the different colors they edited. Like, I mean, that's the, we started seeing, see things like that. Once you see it, you start seeing it all the time. And, you know, you open your eyes to it and it's really, it's incredible how, how that's how it works. And you know, it's all about, they just have so much money. I mean, it's tough to compete. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (44:55.622) I think the average person has a hard time accepting that there can be that degree of evil in the world that exists. Prior to our discussion today, I did another podcast this morning. So when ultimately when this podcast is released, this other podcast would have been released. It's with Dr. Michael Nels, who's a German physician, geneticist, researcher. immunologist, and he wrote the book in Doctrinated Brain. And it's very clear from the scientists that the mRNA technology was not going to act as a vaccine, which is why in Germany, they order 12 vaccines for every person, because they know they would repeatedly need more shots. But I think what is nefarious is we knew it was going to The spike protein was going to impact the brain in a way that creates inflammation, shrinks the hippocampus, impacts critical thinking, and really increases the vulnerability to a lot of different diseases. So it's, it's clearly, absolutely clearly an intervention that is designed to increase all -cause mortality, negatively impact the population. and its intention is harmful. And so I think you step back and what used to seem like a conspiracy theory, like there's no way there could be that degree of evil, comes in accordance with much greater plans from the World Economic Forum that wants to usher in a new global authoritarian rule that includes the, you know, the elimination of, you know, property and individual sovereignty and, and you know, move towards like vaccine passports and, and, and, like a digital currency. We have to be aware of this, that there is actual harmful and evil intentions by, by a select few that are in power. And we know that from the suppression of evidence that's contrary to their model, to their approach. And Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (47:15.622) That's difficult for me to get on this podcast and have to clearly say it. I'm going to tell you about two or three years ago, I would have been afraid to say it because I'm afraid that I'm a crazy person. But now the truth is absolutely overwhelming. And what I believe in is informed consent. And that's part of that's an that's a legal, that's an ethical right. It's part of being in a free society is that we have the same access to information that a select few of elites would have. And we have a right to all the information to make informed healthcare decisions. So it's possible that there are some conventional medical treatments that are the best available evidence, but we don't know, you know, and you weren't even given a, you weren't even given really a shot. I mean, you're basically given a death sentence and then withheld from all these other alternative information that could help heal you. And it really takes your brother's commitment to this type of research and. It seems like COVID is almost a blessing, John, because it pulls you kind of out of your industry and back home. And then you're able to like focus all your skills and talents and your efforts to try to develop a plan of action for Christian. Jon Hegarty (48:31.388) Yeah, 100%. It was, you know, all of it, just a blessing in disguise. The COVID, you know, so many things had to happen right. And it's really hard for me not to think that it was something supernatural or something beyond ourselves, that it just kind of played out the way that it did. My life got turned upside down. Christian's life got turned upside down. But it you know, life really became a roller coaster and we just were on it for the ride. And, yeah, to your other point about informed consent, I don't believe we really have medical informed consent. Certainly, you know, you're referencing COVID where there was mandates, but even in cancer, the world that we lived in, we weren't, you know, we would ask questions and we wouldn't get adequate information about the various treatments. at points they have just sort of booked treatments. I put this on the calendar for next week, assuming that you wanna do what they recommend without really much thought. Walking through the risks of surgery as you go two to three minutes before you go under... Christian Hegarty (49:56.11) Endostesia. Jon Hegarty (49:57.34) anesthesia, you know, they whip out the legal contract and say, by the way, you know, sign here, sign here, sign here. These are the risks. You know, there's a risk of dying from the surgery, which, you know, of course is part of the process. But at the same time, we weren't really given those risks when we're talking about making a decision, you know, two weeks, three weeks prior. So I really don't believe that we have. informed consent whatsoever and even in the cancer world where you think a you know, patient choice should be number one on you know, of course everybody should be able to make the decisions that resonate most with them and Hey, listen, there's a lot of people think there's value I think there's value in conventional medicine if people want to go that route, but absolutely people should be given the information and should be able to make a decision for themselves. That's probably my biggest point of all is in the patients I work with is to really just get comfortable with whatever path that you're on and make sure that it's your own and that it's not influenced by people who you wouldn't take advice from. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (51:16.358) Yeah. So Christian, why don't you take us further now? you've added all these interventions in and they recommend just, you know, let's wait and see, let's kind of, let's assess this. Let's measure this over time. I'm really interested to know what then happens. What is the response from your oncology team and take us up to where you are now. Christian Hegarty (51:40.11) Yeah, so only in the first year of using alternative treatments did I have any cancer growth at all while I was still trying to dial in on my diet and everything. I had a tumor grow in my pleura, ended up having a surgery for that, had it removed. And they knew they had left tumor behind from up in my top. toward the collarbone area. So they know that there's active cancer. And then after they removed that from my pleura, they saw there were also smaller tumors, four millimeters, five millimeters in my lungs that we had to monitor and worry about and deal with. So from that point on, I've got my surgery under the belt and I've got... active tumors still and we're in the worst of spots. So we just keep continuing. We change the diet to not as much, or very little even natural sugar and mostly very low carb, if not zero. And then from that point on, you know, the last almost three years have just been steady either reduction or no, no growth at all. The big tumor up by my collarbone continued to shrink while the others just have stayed the exact same. Now my doctors are wondering, are those tumors dead? Why, you know, they're just wondering every time I go in for a scan, they expect these things to have tripled in size. So I, you know, they don't have any faith in anything that we're doing on our end. And, you know, I think they're just kind of thinking like, this is the one case out of my whole career where, you know, this guy's just getting lucky. Christian Hegarty (53:56.59) and it's been that way for, for more than two and a half years, just steady. every, every scan is the same now, early on the top one would shrink more and more, but ever since everything's just stayed stable. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (54:13.062) So they really don't have any answers and you know, maybe they're just viewing it as this is a miracle or this is lucky or this is just something that's outside outside the norm. It's not how they can make decisions. They can't make medical recommendations based on somebody who skews outside the normal range, but they recognize that this is something that has that has happened without an understanding without any medical explanation. Jon Hegarty (54:38.972) Yeah, and frankly, Doc, I question whether they really think much about it at all. I question how much they really care. Christian Hegarty (55:07.118) Continue, John. Jon Hegarty (55:09.5) I was saying, I kind of question how much, to be frank with you, I question how much they really care about Christian success. It's almost like, first six months that we were having success, I remember we'd walk in there and they said, wow, you're still here. Almost like, kind of perplexed, but just surprised and... really not thinking too much about it and really didn't seem to want to dig into his case at all or understand it better. So I kind of just question, to your point, they can't make recommendations based on one person's success, but I think they see so many patients, I think they're so strapped for time, I honestly question how much they can really care. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (56:04.038) Do you feel like there's a bit of a desensitization on their part where they just become numb to it and detached from our collective humanity? Is there like a lack of like empathy and real genuine caring? Did you experience that in the system? Jon Hegarty (56:23.58) I'd say, I'll let Christian speak for himself, but absolutely. I think they see so many patients. We'd see his oncologist for, at one point we were timing it five minutes total, and two to three minutes of those were spent with her back turned toward us. So it was, I totally think that they're desensitized. I think that... You know, there's this assumption out there that your doctor's doing everything in their power to give you the best possible care and hopefully lead you to the best possible outcome. But that in no way seemed to be the case. Even from the break rooms, the snack rooms, you look at some of the things that they offer in our own hospitals and you can... read the list of ingredients and know that half of them are known carcinogens or are known to promote cancer. So it really just led us to losing complete faith in our system, but also feeling this need to share the story and get this message out there because yeah, to your point, it's hard to believe that there could be this much evil in the world, but that is exactly exactly what we've seen time and time again. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (57:53.766) Yeah, to your point, I mean, look at what they're serving in the hospitals. They're actually serving food that isn't even real food. You know, it is known carcinogens. I mean, and it's just right there in your face that it's a sick care system and it feeds off of itself. Even today, because I started so early with an earlier podcast this morning, I usually have my special type of organic based coffee at home. And I swung by a local Wawa to get my coffee. And then you look at the creamers that they're using there. It's not even real creamer. It's not cream. It's actually just a series of chemicals. It's fake. And with known carcinogens, like there's no way I'm going to touch that. But everyone's just like using that, you know, industrial based seed oils, all the the chemical additives, soda, for God sakes, you know, these things that are in our hospital centers, I mean, when are we going to wake up? to what the true intention is. I mean, it is only through us, we have to almost mass resist what has become the standard of food and of healthcare in this country in order for transformation. And I think we're observing the same thing in our healthcare system, is it's so financially driven that you don't even get quality patient care anymore. You can't even, I mean, it's hard to find somebody to look you in the eyes. Right. And, and really connect with you and talk to you about what they do know and what they don't know and what alternatives exist. It's like a moving on to the next, to the next patient following the guidelines that were provided to them. The guidelines, which are told are best available evidence are heavily funded again by the industrial influences that benefit the most from the use of their treatments. And I don't see any other way other than us finding a way to mass resist this type of system that is just. Absolutely getting worse. Christian Hegarty (59:48.654) Totally. And I know you had the episode, how lies become truth. You basically are just told one thing over and over and over until you buy it. I think, and I don't even know who to blame. I'm not sure if I should be blaming my oncologists or like the person who printed the textbooks that they learned from or big farm. I'm not exactly sure. I mean, I know you could probably follow the money to find out. the ringleader, but I'm not sure. I just, you know, people like, like, like we were saying, you know, they, they don't know what they don't know. I think, I, I at least hope that they don't know, you know, I hope that they actually don't believe in this stuff and that they're promoting, you know, against it. But I don't, I think that the issue is that these conventional doctors have a playbook. You know, it's all got to be FDA approved through a clinical trial and nobody is going to do a clinical trial on vitamin C. You can't patent it. What are you, who is going to put up the 80 million? Nobody. So, you know, there's not going to be any evidence. There's not going to be any proof. Okay. That's just like the, that's the alternative world from, from my, my perspective in general is no, there's not going to be any money in it because it's natural. I'm doing natural things that. people can't patent. So there's not gonna be a clinical trial. There won't be proof, you know, you just have to think for yourself and, and yeah, research it. It's not gonna be in your face like this will work for you, but there's stuff out there for everything. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:01:32.55) So I'm really interested in the development of goingwell .org. Like a number of situations that I've come across in my life, sometimes the most beautiful outcomes come from some of the most darkest places. And, you know, John, you referred to like the potential of like divine intervention here and what you had to go through with Christian, Christian, what you had to go through physically, what you've gone through as a family seems to have inspired. the next step to try to solve some of the problems that you experienced, maybe to help others. Tell me about the development of this nonprofit organization, what inspired it? What kind of work are you guys doing? Where do things stand right now? Jon Hegarty (01:02:17.212) Absolutely. Yeah, so as I mentioned, along the way I knew that I had to find and show Christian someone who had been in his shoes and found a way to the other side. What was seemingly impossible, I knew someone had done it and if I could show him that person, that would give him the hope and inspiration to really try, buy into this and ultimately figure a way through. And we found that gentleman, a guy named Alex Berto, who had, it was Christian's age, he lived in Connecticut, we were in Massachusetts, he had played baseball growing up. The similarities were just striking. And he was someone who had gotten to Christian's point with osteosarcoma, except worse. And here he was eight years later to tell his story. So we're reading his story. from a position of, wow, this might actually be possible. And so we reached out to him. We ended up becoming family friends with them, with the Berto's and yeah, really informed our journey. So many, we took notes from, from what he did. And so I knew the power of that one -to -one connection that somebody's been in my shoes and found a way through. And it really helped Christian and all of us really come to this perspective that we share here. So that's the basis for going well. What we allow is we have cancer survivors, people who are the least likely, the most incredible cancer survivors, people who have run out of, most of them have run out of options, entirely conventional options, and then turn to natural and alternative. solutions and we're able to heal from them. And these survivors are creating videos on a personalized basis for other people with cancer early on in their journey. So a lot of our videos are ordered as a gift. You know, you want to give someone the gift of natural and integrative mindset. They can hear it directly from Jon Hegarty (01:04:42.556) a survivor who's in a very similar position to them. So right now we have about 15 survivors and they are putting together these amazing inspirational videos personalized for people early on in their journey. And that is, it's completely free. It's a nonprofit. We're a donor funded organization. And yeah, I think what you mentioned is exactly right that. It's through the hard times, the evil that we've had to face that we've sort of come to find a way to do an amazing thing for the world and provide a lot of benefit to a lot of people. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:05:30.278) I'm curious to know what else you're kind of learning out there from those who have survived other types of approaches, interventions, you know, you guys are probably becoming experts in this area with this development of the non nonprofit. What are you learning? Jon Hegarty (01:05:46.812) Yeah, there's, what I've learned is that there's no one right way to get there. You know, I think intuition and relying, the solution is internal. You just have to figure it out as much as you think that you don't know you have the answers, you have all the answers. But yeah, there's so many different ways to get there. We've done, you know, injections, we've seen injections, we've seen, you know, I think what you hear about most is the nutritional and sort of basic lifestyle changes. But for us, we got really into all the different hacks and all the different injections, therapies. So a lot of it is just do what you need to do. Take the next right action. A lot of what we were doing was, we didn't know how much. something was going to necessarily benefit us, but we wouldn't really know until we tried it. And so once we started trying things, we just got into action, got moving and let the rest figure itself out. Christian Hegarty (01:06:55.534) Totally. I, from my perspective, I'm making, I make videos for osteosarcoma patients who are have, are basically terminal for the most part. And, you know, I've, I'm just the most that I've learned over this whole course of, you know, it's, it's, it's really not a miracle. Like it's not, you know, some sort of, you know, divine intervention that, that. cancer can be cured outside of conventional treatment. And you know, it's becoming more and more. I see it so much now. It's like, but before I was just totally out of that world and did have no idea. So that was my one biggest learning, you know, just because I'm sticking to the osteosarcoma, John's more going well in general, but, Just, I think the benefit of going well from seeing John put in those thousands of hours of research, he was setting his alarm at 3 a to call people across the world, that type of stuff. 99 .9 % of patients don't have that guy and, you know, aren't going to be able to do that research, certainly themselves, and don't have someone that's willing to put in 90 hours and set their alarm to talk to researchers in Paris and, you know, read. six books in a week about radical hope and remission and all that, that type of stuff. So if you could just, you get the worst news of your life, I think the best possible thing would be to have someone that was in your situation with your type of cancer, telling them what they did to heal it. you know, I think that I don't think there's any better gift that I could have gotten in those five weeks. And now, you know, it never existed and now it does thanks to, thanks to John. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:08:47.302) Yeah. You speak to the power of community, the power of hope, connection, you know, the will. John, you said something really important. I've heard it before that it's inside of us, that it does exist inside of us. And I, and I sit here on this podcast and I'm looking at the book by our good friend, Dr. Ben Raul, and the book is designed to heal. And he's got an amazing podcast designed to heal where it really is around the concept of that. We are naturally and divinely created in order to heal. And it's often the, it's the, it's the culture, it's the toxins, it's the systems in which we've, in which we live in that kind of create this dis -ease, you know, the body not at ease, unable to be able to heal itself. And I just wonder how important it is just for us to, you know, the first step in any medicine is to remove the deadly toxins, you know, whether that's a the toxin of the mind, you know, the stress that exists in our life or within our food system that exists in our life. Like we have to remove that first in order to kind of restore some health. And I do have just another question around like faith, for example. You know, John, you mentioned, you know, the potential for divine intervention. I'm just curious. to know if the two of you have been religious in the past or maybe just like a spiritual awakening or just a belief system and something that is just much bigger and greater than us. Has this been a part of your healing journey at all? Jon Hegarty (01:10:37.724) Yeah, I'll say, so we grew up Irish Catholic. All four boys of us went to Catholic school from fifth to eighth grade. But I wouldn't say it was, it wasn't something that wasn't a huge part of our lives. We did it. But I think for me, My brother's cancer diagnosis and journey and everything that we've gone through has been, has kind of brought me back to those thoughts, at least made me consider them in a slightly different perspective. I've been more curious and sort of really trying to find the faith -based approach that works best for me. I meditate a lot. gone to church and I think, you know, I've realized that probably my entire life will be just this continuous evolution of learning, experimenting, and in many different ways in career, in relationships, in life, but also in faith and trying to, you know, ultimately get a sense of what is actually true. And so, I go to church, I meditate, I do a lot of experimentation to find what works for me. And that has certainly been something that's something very, very positive that's come out of this whole journey that we've been on. Christian Hegarty (01:12:20.174) Yeah. And for me, I mean, somewhat similar. I think I've, I've kind of, I went to, I also went to a Catholic high school. So I've been, I've, I've always had, you know, unwavering belief in, in God and, and, and an afterlife. And, you know, that's kind of, that was, I guess, I guess I leaned on the afterlife part when I was deemed terminal, but, I've always, you know, I'd, I'd look around at the world all the time and I always have. my whole life and just thought that there's no way that this was random. There's no way a carbon atom became a human speaking with other humans with an intricate eyeball. I understand that there's billions or trillions of hundreds of trillions of planets and everything. I think that there's more than... you know, just, just randomness, at the very least. So I found myself throughout treatment, you know, praying all the time, like, I, you know, obviously you're praying most when you need a favor, but, I've tried to even, you know, have more of a connection with God when I don't need him as much, you know, instead of asking him, but, yeah, I think, you know, faith in God, faith in myself between those two, faith in John really and his research have been key for me. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:13:57.35) Well, it really was a blessing to be able to have this conversation with the two of you today. I mean, I do believe we're in a sick culture and we require transformative change and we do that from learning from each other. And I've recently started a nonprofit myself, the Conscious Clinician Collective. And there's got to be a way that for us to connect because the underlying goal of the entire collective is to unite people who believe in informed consent and medical freedom. And... We have to have a way, a means of being able to access information outside of the, you know, the restricted means of the, of the authority. And we can only do that collectively. And this is what goingwell .org is about. I mean, not only does it inspire hope, but it, it, it also exposes people to alternative information. It's a way to, to be able to communicate and share with each other. So tell us what. you know, where people can find you, where can they get more information about going well? Jon Hegarty (01:15:01.468) Absolutely, so goingwell .org. You can go on and order a video like I mentioned, completely free. We'll send you a form that has for some contextual details around who the patient is and what they're going through, their mindset, sort of the status that they're at. And we'll share that with our survivor so that they can put some good thought and energy into creating a... a really meaningful video and then we'll share it back with you to share it with the patient. And you can find us on Instagram, goingwellhealth as well. And yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:15:49.862) Any final words? Jon Hegarty (01:15:49.884) So yeah, I just want to say thank you again. I really commend you for your work and your courage to really pursue the truth in such a deep and meaningful way. It's not really, we spoke of how people have this aversion to it, but again, it's super commendable. Christian Hegarty (01:16:15.822) Totally. Yeah, I totally, really, I same, same here. I totally appreciate your, you having the, you know, just really, I mean, you see nowadays, I feel like from, from what our research is, you have to sometimes say, you know, I am not suicidal, you know, when you talk about stuff like this, just when you hear about the stories of people that John's researched and, you know, it's kind of a scary, scary thought that, that, you know, that type of stuff. has to happen, but really appreciate you, going against the grain, thinking outside the box. We need more people like you in the world. So thank you very much. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:16:57.254) Appreciate it guys, appreciate the kind words. So I'd like to thank both Christian and John Haggerty for a radically genuine conversation. Christian Hegarty (01:17:08.686) Thanks. Take care. Jon Hegarty (01:17:09.66) Thank you so much. Have a good one, Doc.