Carl O’Helvie wants you to be healthy, happy & medication free
“I was saved from lung cancer 45 years ago for a reason; I am a resource for people.” ~Carl O’Helvie
By Matt Kramer
The difference between a bureaucratic administrator and a people-oriented leader can be seen in the results. The bureaucracy provides marginalized service erring towards sustaining dysfunctional systems at the expense of the people that are supposed to be served. The top administrators will be well paid in spite of the fact that (1) the work environment is stressful and inefficient, and (2) the clients receive compromised or useless goods and services.
The people-oriented leader will constantly challenge bureaucracy, cutting fat, eliminating redundancy, and fostering a culture of community and compassion by putting the needs of people above rigid guidelines, self-serving agendas, and grandfathered parasitic systems.
As a solution-oriented thinker, Carl O. Helvie is a bureaucrat’s nightmare; when necessary, he does not hesitate to bypass red tape and get things done. If his ideas about how to live free of prescription drugs throughout your life become popular, the pharmaceutical industry may also lose sleep (and profits) as a result. The good news is that overall; more people will be living healthy lives that are less stressful and more productive in satisfying ways. Helvie lives what he preaches; at the age of 78, he is one of the 11% of Americans above age 65 who live medication free.
Helvie grew up in the small country hamlet of Natural Dam in upstate New York, not far from the St. Lawrence River. He graduated high school in 1950 and got a job in the stock room of the hospital in the nearby town of Gouverneur (named after one of the less well-known signers of the Declaration of Independence). Curious and gregarious, he became friendly with the nurses and the hospital dietician and was informally trained to help prep patients for surgery.
The experience was so positive, he enrolled in nursing school and began a life of service eventually earning a doctorate in public health and wellness and becoming an educator, author, and activist for the public health sector. Helvie holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Nursing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and received the Distinguished Career in Public Health Award from the American Public Health Association in 1999.
A dream sparked a significant turning point in Helvie’s life in 1974. In the dream, he received the message that he needed to get an X-ray. He had no symptoms but the X-rays revealed a spot on his lungs that was diagnosed as lung cancer. Reviewing his experience as a nurse, he surprised the doctor by refusing the prescription for surgery. The doctor responded by pronouncing, “You’ll be dead in six months.”
A friend of a friend at the National Cancer Institute had success with a program that included laetrile, a raw fruit and vegetable diet, and an exercise program. Helvie began the regimen and incorporated his own program of prayer, meditation, and positive visualization. When asked about the controversy surrounding the use of laetrile, Helvie described how the body uses certain enzymes involved in protein digestion to work with the laetrile.
In his experience, part of his program’s success was due to following nutrition guidelines. Eating meat or fish prevented those enzymes from being available for the laetrile. In due course, Helvie was pronounced cancer-free and has been cancer-free ever since.
The importance of living a holistic life; “lifestyle is very important in staying healthy; incorporate spirituality and enjoy what you’re doing in life. If you’re not staying positive, you’re not attracting positive back to you.”
In the 1990s, Helvie was asked to sit on the board of an agency serving homeless women. After two years of reviewing and making policy, he decided he wanted to be more active and began visiting the homeless shelter checking blood pressure and discussing health issues with the residents. He brought his students to help with the volume of people needing attention and eventually obtained a grant to open a clinic and provide more consistent service.
Until that time, most homeless people were not able to afford early treatment for their health issues and would wind up in the emergency wards when their condition became life-threatening and required more time and more resources to treat.
Developing an effective clinic became a community project. To extend the life of the grant, Helvie was able to get doctors to donate their services; the local hospital provided free lab services and pharmacies filled prescriptions for cost plus $4. Chronic diseases such as diabetes were caught earlier and supplies were available to keep the homeless healthier.
Ironically future funding was denied because of a national need for more nurses; the funds went towards education and scholarships and the clinic had to close. Helvie later assessed that the cost of running the clinic was much less than the financial burdens endured by emergency rooms and other services that had to be employed when people waited until they were very sick to seek help. You can read more in Helvie’s book, Homelessness in the United States, Europe 1999.
In his book, Healthy Holistic Aging, Helvie outlines the importance of living a holistic life; “lifestyle is very important in staying healthy; incorporate spirituality and enjoy what you’re doing in life. If you’re not staying positive, you’re not attracting positive back to you.” Helvie wants you to live a healthy and medication-free life. When he was interviewed for this article, he stated, “I was saved from lung cancer years ago for a reason; I am a resource for people.” He is looking forward to being a healthy, happy, and active centenarian – you are invited to join him there.
You can listen to Carl O. Helvie and his guests discuss the cutting edge in health issues every other Saturday on the Holistic Health Show: www.bbsradio.com/theholistichealthshow
