201: Beating Brain Cancer with Faith and Functional Medicine

That cancer is a metabolic disease. It's based on mitochondrial dysfunction. It's not a genetic disease. Can genes load the gun, so to speak? Absolutely. But our lifestyle pulls the trigger. You are listening to Chiro Candy, the podcast of sweet chiropractic success. Here's your host, Billy Sticker.

All right, welcome to another episode of the Chiro Candy podcast. Today we have Dr. Pete Sulak with us, and he and I have been Facebook friends for several years and kind of, you know, I've admired him from afar, and we're connected to so many people, but just never really have connected with each other. And then we connected right about the time you got your diagnosis, and then we've kind of followed you along that journey the past several months. But thank you so much for being on and looking forward to hearing from you, honestly.

It's an honor, Billy, and I'm excited to be just to join you today and see what God does.

Yeah. So why don't you just tell us about what led up to your diagnosis? What were some of your symptoms?

You know, so looking back now, you know, hindsight is 20 20. And looking back probably for 18 months before I was diagnosed on November 25th with a grade four diffuse astrocytoma brain cancer, which they said was a very, very aggressive form. At the time, they told me it had 12 to 18 months to live. And since then, in the last month or so, I've heard that a neurosurgeon from MD Anderson looked at my MRI and said I had a 1% chance to be alive in eight months. But God, I think prior to that, probably for about 18 months, I started noticing in the virtual crusades, evangelistic crusades I was doing around the world, that I would feel it coming on and my mind was about to freeze. It would only freeze for probably five seconds. It felt like an eternity. But doing these virtual crusades, I literally let my crusade directors around the world just assume that the Internet was basically spotty and it had frozen. But really, I was having. I didn't know if it was brain fog. I didn't know if it was post Covid. I didn't know truly what it was, but something was happening. So I actually remember going to a colleague of ours in the chiropractic profession and just saying, hey, these are some of the things that are going on. And we did some blood work, we did some testing, and, um, didn't really, you know, I, I, I did pretty well. But then probably, you know, looking back now, even when it came to pickleball, I Used to be a decent pickleball player. I. I shattered my kneecap. And then when I came back after that, after about six months, I couldn't get. I couldn't serve the. The ball in the court for the life of me. Like, no matter what, I tried. I even tried practicing in my drive when I couldn't do it. So my kids would make fun of me, my wife would laugh and thought I was getting old and had the yips and just lost my ability to play pickleball. And then I have two baseball sons and just playing toss with them 10ft away, it would go sideways. And so, once again, they would just laugh and say, you know, dad's getting old. And, you know, but, you know, now we joke and just said, you know, guys, it wasn't because I was bad. It was because I had a brain tumor. But I started noticing that in probably two weeks before I actually went into the emergency room, I started dropping things very frequently. I started running into things. I was really losing my ability to articulate. So my wife was finishing a lot of sentences for me. Even in our staff meeting, she would finish sentences because she could see that my mind was going blank. And then on November 24, a Sunday, we actually decided to bring my four boys and their spouses in and basically let them know, you know, we had dinner and let him know that, hey, I don't know if I've had a mini stroke, but this is what's going on. And you're going to. I'm going to take a step back. You're going to have to take a step forward. And then that Monday of Thanksgiving, November 25th, we went and told our staff, and our staff had no clue. I did a very good job of covering it up. And then that day, I went into. My brother convinced me to go to the emergency room. I went, and after eight hours of CT scans and MRIs, the neurosurgeon came in and said what they thought was a glioblastoma. They said, you have a glioblastoma. It's a very aggressive form of brain cancer. You have about 12 to 18 months to live. And like, we were just, you know, sat there dumbfounded, my wife and I. But it's interesting that God is so much in the details. And I remember the neurosurgeon said to me, he goes, Now, Dr. B, how do I know you? And I go, you know, I said, sir, I don't know. And he said, because I looked at the records of the hospital, and you've never been A patient here before. And he said, I know, he goes, I'm reading your book. And he was actually reading my book that morning, a book that I'd written on health. And he goes, you know, someone, I'm interested in functional medicine, alternative care. And someone says, well, you need to read this book. And so he was reading my book that morning and it gave me the open, basically the opportunity to say, if the situation was reversed, where would you go have surgery? And he was the neurosurgeon and he said I would go to MD Anderson. And and so within a week we were at MD Anderson. Within another week, December 11, we were in a seven hour brain surgery. I was awake for five hours because they didn't know what to expect. They didn't know if I'd wake up and be able to talk or walk or had motor control or speech control. And so they removed a tennis ball sized tumor from my brain of a 10 inch scar here. And you know, so I've been this kind of. The rest is history. Within four months, the neurosurgeon and oncologist said I had a normal brain, that I was cancer free, I was in complete remission. And we approached it. Probably unique from a lot of people, but every approach is different and we're just very grateful to be alive right now.

Amen. So I live in North Houston and I remember we were communicating a little bit back and forth. I was like, you're, you know, you're right down the street, which. Houston is an hour away from Houston.

Yeah.

My sister's recently been going to MD Anderson for cancer. She has breast cancer. And so we do make trips down there. But yeah, I definitely think you're one of the, the best places. But so they had the surgery and then what, what else have you discovered on this? Well, you know what, before we even go there, how do you and your family handle just that diagnosis? Because obviously you're strong in your faith and that is easy to be strong in your faith when you're not given before that diagnosis.

Yeah, but, you know, it's, you know, facing. Yeah. True faith is tested by the fire. Do you have to be tested by the fire to walk in faith? No, but faith is a vantage point of heaven where I'm fully convinced of truth and the reality of heaven and God in my life. You know, it's like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They said, we're not going to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar. We're going to, you know, God's going to take care of us. But even if he doesn't, they said, we're still not going to bow to you. We'd rather die than bow to you, because we serve the living God. And so they acknowledged that God was in the midst of the circumstance. And that's what trust. Trust is when I acknowledge him. The Bible says we trust in the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. I should say it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. So acknowledging God in the midst of the circumstances of life, that's trust. And trust is the spark that ignites faith. And so all of a sudden, they put Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. Jesus shows up, the fourth man in the fiery furnace. And guess what? Now all of a sudden, the things that I once trusted, the things I once acknowledged, have become the conviction of my heart. I witnessed him face to face. And so that's one of the most beautiful things. You know, when we were given the diagnosis, it was a shock. My wife and I were there and, you know, but it's interesting because the Lord supernaturally gave not only me this supernatural peace that passed all understanding, but my wife. And we went home to tell my kids, my kids. Were there tears? Absolutely there were. Because it's the shock of than getting up in your business and trying to drown out the reality of who we are as children of God. But there was a supernatural peace that came over my family instantly. And everyone that seems to know me or think they know me has said, Dr. P, we knew just that you were going to beat this thing. And just faith, there's a. Faith is an impartation from the living God. It's not something I muster up. It's simply a grace that God bestows to allow us to keep the perspective of heaven in the midst of the storms of life. And so there was just a supernatural peace. I'm so, so grateful for that because it's not something that, you know, I deserved or earned. It was simply something that was. That was given to us as an impartation from heaven. I really believe that. I really believe that heaven has kissed my life and my family. And I'm just so, so grateful. And I believe that, you know, taking the approach that we did and to come out here and come away from it feeling healthier than ever before, honestly, I have zero symptoms. I mean, you said sinus issues and headaches and all those things before and now, because my diet's so clean and because I believe heaven's kiss, my life, I feel better than I've ever felt my whole life.

That's great. You know, death has lost its sting.

Yeah.

And I think as believers, too, it's is different. I have no diagnosis, you know, that I'm aware of. Nothing at all is going on. But there is this sense that I've had. I just turned 50, and my kids are now all adults. They all serve God. They like, we are just so blessed. We actually all serve at the same church. And my daughter and her husband just went on a mission trip to the Philippines. And we've just been so, so blessed in life and business and relationships. And there's a part of me that I would be totally okay if God said, hey, this is it. Time's up. Yeah, 100%. My family, they know my heart. They've. My grandkids are. You know, there's enough videos of me sharing my heart that, you know, they'll be able to see, see, but there is just such a peace. So I served on a church in Kansas City years back, and I remember it was back in the mid-90s. I remember we lost a lady, late-80s. But getting the message that she had passed away is the first time I'd ever felt like this. As soon as I heard she passed away, for a split moment, I was jealous. Does that make sense? It's like right now, more alive than ever before, 100%. And then I was like, I can't believe I'm actually feeling that way. But I also know, just like I know, you know, that I want to impact as many lives as I can right here, right now, while I'm here, we are called to love God and love people. And we serve God by serving his people. I am here, and my heart is to serve as many people as I can, as well as I can, for as long as he wants me to. So I love your heart in that. And I can't imagine I would hope that we would handle it as well as you guys did so well, you.

Know, it is just the grace of God. To live is Christ, to die is gain. You know, I told my family, I said, if my life is taken around the world in our evangelistic work, because we go into some of the most vicious places in all the world consistently. And I said, if my life is ever taken, just know I'm more alive than ever before. Just know that to be face to face with my savior is the most amazing thing. But I said, to live as Christ and to be able to. I've asked the lord for another 50 years to go and represent him and just to magnify him. And, you know, people say, well, Dr. B, why do you think you. You were diagnosed with brain cancer in the first place? Was it ionizing radiation? Was it parasites? Because I've been around the world 25 times. Is it stress? Is it a combination of all those? Maybe. But I really believe it's just an assignment from the enemy to try to hinder me from just sharing my Jesus with the world and exposing this world's worth and value and significance in the eyes of God. That for God so loved the world and God's no respecter of persons that he was willing to send his son for you and for me. And that's the greatest message that's ever been told. It's the greatest message that needs to be told. And I want to spend and exhaust the rest of my life sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

Oh, I love that. So we had the diagnosis.

Yep.

You have surgery. What's. What changed after that?

Yeah, you know, my perspective changed. You know, I thought I had a good perspective before. I thought that, you know, my life was dedicated to the Lord and surrendered to him and. But I don't take days for granted anymore. You know, I don't. It's. It's easy to get complacent with life and go get stuck in a rhythm or routine, but I. I pray that my life now is a reflection of someone that doesn't take it for granted, that knows that every day that I wake up, it's a gift from God. And I'm going to use it to the. The best of my ability to, you know, just to make sure that he can be magnified through my life. And, you know, it's. It's been interesting. I'm so grateful for the people that I know in my life that allowed me to, within a week, be with at MD Anderson, allowed me to, you know, connect with immunosine and good friends like Dr. Josh Axe and Jordan Rubin, who were really just instrumental in counsel for me, and to be able to have the tumor that was extracted sent to Cancun. You know, they did something at MD Anderson called the dendritic cell vaccine. But it's required that you do chemo and radiation first, and it's over half a million dollars out of pocket. So where I went in Cancun, they didn't require the chemo and the radiation. It was $110,000 and they took the tumor, they took plasma from me when I was there, they mixed it together, and they basically put that. Shot that back into me. Nothing synthetic, just my own tissue so that my body can create a dendritic cell vaccine, which will actually go and scavenge the body for any remaining tumor cells in any future tumor growth and really attack it in advance. And so to be able to do that and then just what I've learned in the process and the conviction I now have when it comes to diet, when it comes to supplementation, when it comes to chiropractic, which we all love, that's foundational for getting my body out of a stress response, setting my body on a firm foundation so it can fight effectively and adapt. You know, it's one of those things that on Thanksgiving. So a few days, three days after my diagnosis, my whole family came into town and they drove through the night to extended family to be here. And I decided that day, with my wife's, you know, blessing, to invite people into our. Into this journey with us. And it was a little bit vulnerable for my wife at first and a little bit apprehensive, letting people into our world. And. But I'm so grateful that we did, just because now every day we're with people from all over the world diagnosed with cancer, not knowing where to turn, not knowing, you know, hearing noise from every side, and just to help them navigate this journey, be an advocate for them, is one of the greatest privileges I've ever had. And I really believe that the Lord said early on in the journey that I'm about to open up a brand new harvest field for you. And that's cancer patients. I want you to serve them with the love of Christ and earn your right to share me with them. And so I really believe he's done that in spades.

Oh, I love that. I mean, you know what? The enemy had one intention for. God just turns around and uses it. I think that's so good. And I can see this, really God using this platform for so long to come. I know I was sharing with you earlier. You know, I had a Chiari 1 malformation, which is not anything close to you. I mean, it's just brain surgery, but nothing still on the same scale that you had. I did a couple of videos about it on YouTube, and this was. I was diagnosed in 2012, had surgery in 2013. But even last week, somebody messaged me because they saw those videos and scared, worried. Oh, my goodness. And, you know, just being able to speak peace into their situation. And, you know, share God with them in that situation.

Yeah.

How much more are you going to be able to do, like your platform? So much larger and so much more content that you've put out around this. I love how God is just going to use your story and you're allowing him to use your story.

You know, it's. It's interesting. So just the. The people I'm able to meet and just lovely people and just wonderful people from all over, from Australia and Switzerland and Lebanon and where else? Kuwait and Israel and all across America and just literally in almost. It's just crazy. My wife only lets me do five consults a day. Six some days, and I'm booked out through June. And so what we try to do is, you know, we try to move things around so we can accommodate, but it's just everyone is a, you know, unfortunately, a serious situation, diagnosed with, you know, some type of cancer or chronic illness. And so our job is to simply give them hope and inspire them and help them navigate the journey and be an advocate for them. But I remember there's a lady who's been watching my story from the beginning and I forgot even where she's from. She's a Muslim, you know, Muslim faith. And she said, Dr. Beat, she goes, I've been watching you from the beginning. I just knew that one day you were going to tell us that you were cancer free. And she said, when that day came, she said, I started jumping up and down in my living room, I started crying, I started cheering. And she goes, and my whole family said, you know, what are you doing? What's going on? And she. And she said, Dr. Pete is cancer free. And she said they all started jumping up and down and cheering. And I think to just reach a generation of people and know that God is no respecter of persons. He loves each and every one of us and he loves us so much that he's willing to die for us. And simply to just be the hands and feet of Jesus and to, you know, hopefully be an encouragement to everyone that I come in contact with is just one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given.

I love that. So I know you said you have this protocol and that people can go to really just anywhere on social media and.

Yeah, so, yeah, if they follow me on Instagram on Dr. Pete Sulex. So D R P E T E S U L A C K you can. I just. I post videos and I just really share my story and some of the things that I'm using and the modalities I'm using the philosophy by how I'm going after it. I pray that, you know, the posts inspire as well. And if you put protocol in any one of the comments of any one of the videos and then check your messages, we will give you a download of an 83 page document. I think it might be more pages now of everything that I've done from the philosophy by how I've approached cancer, that cancer is a metabolic disease, it's based on mitochondrial dysfunction, it's not a genetic disease. Can genes load the gun, so to speak? Absolutely. But our lifestyle pulls the trigger. And so in just, you know, in, in from those that have inspired me in my journey to the supplements I'm using, to the modalities I'm using, to, you know, just how we approach cancer and how we fight cancer and just all those different things. And how if you're going to do an MRI or CT scan or a PET scan, like how do you prepare your body in advance, how do you open up detoxification pathways, how do you do things like coffee enemas? And so we just try to really, just begin to support people on their journey. And it's really been special to see what's.

What do you see the next three to five years looking like for you because you still have your practice. Yeah, right.

Yeah. And so I do have my practice. I have someone running it right now. So I haven't gone in to start adjusting there yet. But I really feel like God has called me to put together a holistic cancer center that will be a support center. So whether you do the conventional route of chemo and radiation or whether you do the alternative holistic route of no, it's there to basically to support the body's ability to fight effectively in the midst of whatever approach that you take. So we'll have things like hyperbaric chamber there. We have what's called a Hockett machine. It's an ozone sauna with PMF and infrared. We'll have red light therapy, we'll have vitamin IVs and ozone IVs and light IVs and probably have an integrative oncologist and a nurse practitioner and an RN and chiropractors there. The chiropractic will be a foundational piece in cancer recovery because it is. And so I think, you know, setting up clinics like that, we're going to, I think is really dear to my heart being an advocate for people and you know, encouraging people with what we have right now. We have a program called Be Resilient. And it's something that I created for my wife three years ago, because she came to me and she just said, you know, Pete, she goes, I need something more personalized. She said, you know, right now, just the supplements off the shelf, they're just not doing it. And she was having some digestive issues and hormonal imbalances. And so we looked at some of the functional medicine programs out there and found that most of them didn't do blood work. And the ones that did give everyone the same supplements and great supplements, but everyone got the same, and there's no real meal plan. And so we just kind of just piecemeal together a program with labs that we really researched, and then we. No one in America would actually customize a formula based on blood work for us. So we actually went to Canada with it and then created a meal plan based on blood work, and it changed my wife's life. And so I started offering it to patients that came to me from all over the world with cancer and Ms. And Parkinson's and heart disease. And we just seen ridiculous results and having oncologists call us and say, we don't know what you just did with our patient, but she had breast cancer. I have this scan, and now all the tumors are hollow, and she doesn't have cancer anymore. And people getting off their thyroid medication. And then I became the patient, and I would say it allowed me to personalize, even though I'm in a very, very strict keto diet, allowed me to personalize it. And then, even though we list different supplements in this resilience protocol that's available online for free, the foundational piece is this program that I actually had created for my wife years ago, and now it's been one of the greatest blessings in my own life.

Yeah, I love that. That's great. So when do you see these. These starting? Like, would you start one there in Knoxville?

Yeah, just because. Just because I'm in Knoxville. And so we have a lot of people that want to know kind of where I'm at, but I see them popping up all over the. All over the country and then all over the world, actually, because there's really. There's a. There's a gap in the space. There's a lot of great holistic centers and functional medicine places and alternative holistic centers. But I think to have a focus on cancer recovery and cancer support, we're really looking at right now, like, how do we go empower community after community after community with a combination of chiropractic and the holistic alternative type modalities that I believe we're going to offer just to give people hope and let them know that there's a. There's a place that will actually support you on your journey, that understands diet and understands supplementation, understands oxygenation, understands that cancer is a metabolic disease. And because if most people go to the doctor or oncologist and the oncologist says diet means nothing, but the same doctor that will say, diet means nothing, come to me when it's their family members and they say, okay, we're throwing all that out. What do we need to do? And so I think it's to understanding a lot of doctors and oncologists, their hands are tied. And so there's really, you know, nothing. If they don't follow standard of care, they could lose their license. And so it's easier to play ignorant when it comes to diet and so forth. But just the simple, you know, a PET scan fills you up with radiographic glucose and lights up that cancer like a Christmas tree, yet we somehow don't correlate that diet and sugar in all this to feed cancer. So we basically say, eat whatever you want. In many cancer treatment centers right now, in the oncology unit, the meal that people that are getting chemo are actually consuming are Diet Cokes and smoothies and pizza and cookies and things that literally feed cancer. But there's no correlation. And there's just whether it's deliberate ignorance or not, there just has to be another way. And I think RFK Jr. Is going to help us a lot. I think Casey means being the new Surgeon General is going to help us tremendously. I think there's a lot of amazing changes taking place right now in health care that are going to benefit just really the entire human race.

Yeah, I think it's great. I love the vision. And, you know, I think there's a reason, you know, he's given you that vision.

Yeah.

And it's easy for us. And this is going to speak to somebody listening. Sometimes we feel God calling us to something. And if we don't do it, we really think it's just affecting us, but it's not. We're being selfish. Because I love what the Queen of Sheba goes to Solomon and pays him just to learn how he rules. And she makes a comment, she said, God loved Israel so much that he made you their king. And so many of us, God has given a purpose and goals and desires. And whenever we don't step into that, it's selfish because there are people out there that he's planning on us serving. And until we step into that, we're not going to be able to serve those people and they're going without because we're being selfish.

Yeah, that's such a good worth risk.

Or we don't want to. So. So I love that he's given you the vision. And where there's vision, there's pro vision. And so that's going to be my prayer, is that that as you step out in this, that there's just going to be favor and gosh, I'm getting emotional. Just the. The impact that you're going to make. It's just incredible to see what you've gone through the past seven, eight months. And what God's going to do is just. It's amazing. It's exciting.

Yeah. I'm so great. I honestly feel like the Lord has punked the devil with my life. And it's a divine setup and I would not trade it for the world. Honestly, I would not go back. I feel like I'm exactly in the will of God. I believe his hand is completely on my life and my family. And I believe he set the stage for such a time as this, to harvest this world and to infiltrate a community that I didn't have authority in. And so even though I did this be resilient program before and it was hugely beneficial for people, but walking through it and coming out like, wow, God met me in the fire and he solidified me and set me on a firm foundation and he hardened me to the difficulties that surround me. He held me up with his victorious right hand. He was the lily in the midst of the valley, he of this life. He's my El Shaddai, my God of more than enough. And I know that firsthand now. Yeah.

And I love the impact just individually that you're being able to make doing these consults and so good. So thank you so much for coming on today. Is there anything that you'd want to. That you want to leave us with that we haven't covered?

No, honestly, it's just been a privilege to be with you today. And just, you know, I think for those that are watching, your life matters, you have of great worth, value, significance in the eyes of God in that that you would know just how important your life really is.

Y so good. Dr. Pete Suak, thank you so much.

It was my honor.