Ancient Diet Restores Man’s Health
“The results came back from my doctor and he said, 'Your kidneys are functioning at seven percent.' He told me if I didn't get a transplant I would probably die,” remembers Jerry Graver.
He had been active and healthy for most of his life, but in late 2013 Jerry started having some concerning health issues, including a swollen abdomen. His wife Cheryl remembers their onset. “He kept getting worse. He was getting tired. Then he was getting nauseated quite a bit. And then he started vomiting and was very weak. And it just really wouldn't stop. He couldn't eat. So I'm like, we need to call a doctor and get you in.”
While awaiting the results of a blood test, Jerry endured intense pain and near constant vomiting. A call from their doctor alerted them to how serious his condition was.
“They said, 'You need to get Jerry to the hospital as soon as possible. He's in big danger'", says Cheryl. “When we'd got to the hospital, they took him in the emergency room right away, and they said his kidneys were failing. It was just a whirlwind. Things just started happening so fast. He has to have dialysis, and our brains were just spinning, like, 'What? How could this happen?'”
Jerry's prostate had swollen shut, blocking urine back up into his kidneys, and causing them to fail. He was immediately put on dialysis and soon realized how difficult his life would be.
“When I had my chest port, I got lightheaded. You get dizzy,” says Jerry. “Someone has to drive you home and it takes a day to get over it. And then when I started doing home dialysis with a port in my abdomen, you're supposed to be able to sleep through it and can change your fluid out in the morning. It is so painful you just don't sleep. It hurt.”
Cheryl remembers, “He had this machine in his room, and it was noisy at night, and he would just get up in the middle of the night and he'd be bent over in excruciating pain. And I would just be crying. I had to go to another room and pray for him.”
Jerry reflects, “You know, you didn't want to live like this, and I was getting really discouraged. I broke down several times. I didn't know what to do. I just couldn't believe it was happening.”
He began researching transplant options and became even more discouraged. “The success rate on transplants are somewhere around 60%,” says Jerry. “And there's a lot of guys that get them and they fail and they have to do it again. You have to take antirejection drugs so you can't be out in the sunlight. There's just so many – it's like you wouldn't have a normal life. It's really hard. I was at a loss as to what to do. All the sudden, my normal life is gone. It's hard.”
As Jerry prayed for an answer, he remembered a story from the book of Daniel where God’s servants refused the king’s food and only ate raw vegetables and drank water. “All of a sudden, it kept going over and over and over in my mind. I think God gave it to me, vegetables to eat and water to drink. And I said, 'Surely, it couldn't be that simple.' So I told my doctors, 'I'm going to go on a vegetables and water diet'. And they said, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. You won't get your protein. It has no bearing on you whatsoever.' I said, 'Okay, but I'm going to do it.'"
Cheryl wasn’t so sure. “I was nervous because I'm like, 'Well, you need to follow what the doctors say.' They gave us tons of brochures and literature on the things you should eat and shouldn't eat for kidneys. I was nervous, like, 'Are you sure this is the right thing to do?' Because you always think you should listen to doctors and what they know. But he was adamant about listening to God and His Word.”
For 100 days Jerry drastically changed his diet. “I started on a vegetables and water diet. All raw, all organic, and water. Nothing else. No bread, no meat, no cheese, nothing. And slowly, my numbers started getting better. The doctor said, 'Well, a little bit of improvement this week.' So I stayed on it, and it kept getting better and better. It wasn't fast, but it was better and better every time I went. I had to stay on it for 100 days. It was a mundane routine and I tried not to think about it because I kept getting better and better and better. I was trying to reach a goal.”
Cheryl was amazed at his determination, “How he could do something and be so disciplined for 100 days - to do something like that. But he felt like his life was at stake and that's what he had to do to get better.”
“It took 100 days for me to get there,” says Jerry. “But at the end of 100 days, I had normal function. They wouldn't accept it. The nurse even told me, 'I think we must have misdiagnosed you.'"
Jerry and Cheryl know that it was God who gave him the path to healing and the strength to walk it out.
Jerry says with reverence, “It’s easy to say Jesus is all you need but it’s different when Jesus is all you got… He gave me a second chance. And looking back - it's such a simple thing. It just takes discipline. I kept telling myself I'm on a deserted island and all I got is vegetables and water to eat. So you survive until someone rescues you.”
After the 100 day diet inspired by the book of Daniel, Jerry was successfully removed from dialysis. His kidney function has been normal for more than seven years.
Cheryl laughs and says, “So the first thing he said he wanted to do was go out to Burger King and get a Whopper. I'm like, 'I'm not sure that's a good idea. You might get sick.' But he did, and that's okay. But he got right back onto his fruits and vegetables after that.”
Jerry smiles, “You don't know how wonderful status quo is till you don't have it. Now I got status quo.”
“We're so thankful to the Lord for what He did and how He blessed us, and gave him a new life and his life back.” says Cheryl.
With gratitude Jerry states, “Looking back it was such a journey, amazing journey. Just grab on to those six words, vegetables to eat and water to drink, and I went from facing disaster to a normal life again.”
