I AM HealingStrong

Mark Mateya, a Carlisle, Pennsylvania attorney and former studio musician, was diagnosed with large B-cell lymphoma after a routine biopsy on a small arm growth came back malignant. After a rocky first appointment with an oncologist who initially confused his chart with another patient's and warned that forgoing chemo would be "suicide," Mark declined chemotherapy and found Chris Wark's Square One program and Healing Strong. He shifted to a whole-food, plant-based diet with juicing, reduced stress by selling his law practice (while staying on part-time), and pursued a mix of therapies including RGCC/SOT (a blood-based treatment through a lab in Greece) and multiple visits to the Immunity Therapy Center in Tijuana. He's candid that he does not have a formal NED diagnosis, but reports his circulating tumor cell count has dropped from 2.8 to 1.4 over roughly three and a half years. Mark credits his faith and connection with fellow Healing Strong leader Karen McKeon/Maxson for keeping him grounded early on, and now leads a Healing Strong group in Carlisle, where he originated the "Heal-a-Thon" fundraiser (modeled loosely on Penn State's THON) to raise money and awareness for the organization. The episode closes with his message to newly diagnosed listeners: they are not alone, cancer is not a death sentence, and they have time to think, pray, and take responsibility for their health.
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.

Please take advantage of our FREE resources below to help you along your health and healing journey:
Support Group Directory
Holistic Curriculum - Participant Guide
Support Our Mission - Donate
Additional Health Resources
Listen to Previous Episodes
Website: healingstrong.org

We have made it to the final podcast of the Top 10 Tour, celebrating 100,000 downloads. We're revisiting our most-downloaded conversations ever: Jim's talk with John A. Richardson Jr. John shares the story of his father, Dr. John Richardson Sr., who left a conventional medical career in the 1970s to treat cancer patients with laetrile, a compound found in apricot seeds. He walks through his father's clinic, the patients he treated, the raids and lawsuits that followed, and how that legacy became John's own life's work through Richardson Nutritional Center and Operation World Without Cancer. Jim also shares a piece of his own story, a stage four melanoma diagnosis in 2016 and a recent scan that came back clear. Together they talk about faith, trials, and staying hopeful in the middle of a hard diagnosis.
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.

Please take advantage of our FREE resources below to help you along your health and healing journey:
Support Group Directory
Holistic Curriculum - Participant Guide
Support Our Mission - Donate
Additional Health Resources
Listen to Previous Episodes
Website: healingstrong.org

The Top 10 Tour continues with one of our most-downloaded conversations of all time.
John Richardson — president of the Richardson Nutritional Center and Operation World Without Cancer — joins Jim Mann to tell a story that's been in his family for over fifty years. His father, Dr. John A. Richardson, became a Bay Area folk hero in the 1970s for offering laetrile to his patients, and a national headline in June 1972 when his clinic was raided. The arrest didn't end the movement — John says it started one, leading to G. Edward Griffin's book World Without Cancer and a grassroots network that grew to a million members strong.
John walks Jim through the science as he understands it: what amygdalin is, why he believes the cyanide warnings have been overstated, and what his father documented in Laetrile Case Histories. He also opens up about the family business, where the seeds are grown, and why he believes this story is finally getting a hearing.
Jim also shares his own first encounter with apricot seeds after his 2016 stage four melanoma diagnosis.
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.

Please take advantage of our FREE resources below to help you along your health and healing journey:
Support Group Directory
Holistic Curriculum - Participant Guide
Support Our Mission - Donate
Additional Health Resources
Listen to Previous Episodes
Website: healingstrong.org

After being diagnosed with cancer as a young man, Chris turned to research, whole food nutrition, and radical lifestyle change, and has spent the years since helping others do the same. In this conversation, Chris and Jim talk about what he calls the "beat cancer mindset": taking full personal responsibility for your health, forgiving yourself and others, and choosing daily to trust God with your fear instead of letting it drive the journey.
Chris opens up about the early days after his diagnosis, reading George Malkmus's God's Way to Ultimate Health, converting to a raw food diet almost overnight, and searching for confirmation that he wasn't just following "some quack." He and Jim talk candidly about faith under pressure, the discipline of forgiveness, why gratitude functions like a "superpower," and how a cancer diagnosis can turn life "from black and white to color." Chris also shares how becoming a father mid-treatment gave him a new reason to fight, and why community, not a single expert, is what actually gets people through.
Whether you're newly diagnosed, walking alongside someone who is, or simply working on your own health, this episode is a reminder that the most powerful tools for healing (diet, movement, faith, and forgiveness) cost nothing but your willingness to change.
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.

Please take advantage of our FREE resources below to help you along your health and healing journey:
Support Group Directory
Holistic Curriculum - Participant Guide
Support Our Mission - Donate
Additional Health Resources
Listen to Previous Episodes
Website: healingstrong.org

Julie DeKam was diagnosed with stage 3 invasive ductal carcinoma in December 2015 after insurance requirements delayed proper imaging and a thermography doctor misread her lump as hormonal. She underwent a double mastectomy and six rounds of chemo, then discovered Chris Wark's Square One program and fired her oncologist when he pushed further treatment. She went all-in on a plant-based, holistic protocol (juicing, coffee enemas, supplements, detox work) alongside naturopathic care, and her hormone markers normalized within a year. She later joined Chris Wark's support team, where she's worked since 2017. She also shares how her cancer journey and a difficult divorce deepened her trust in God's sovereignty, and how she eventually remarried.
HealingStrong's mission is to educate, equip and empower our group leaders and group participants through their journey with cancer or other chronic illnesses, and know there is HOPE. We bring this hope through educational materials, webinars, guest speakers, conferences, community small group support and more.

Please take advantage of our FREE resources below to help you along your health and healing journey:
Support Group Directory
Holistic Curriculum - Participant Guide
Support Our Mission - Donate
Additional Health Resources
Listen to Previous Episodes
Website: healingstrong.org