The video segment “What If It Were Cancer?” follows the McLamb family’s journey after Nick McLamb receives an unexpected colon cancer diagnosis that first manifested as a liver mass. The narrative begins with Christina recounting the sudden illness, the emergency room visit, imaging, biopsy, and the shock of learning the cancer’s origin. The segment then shifts to explore why the family embraced homesteading: their first child’s severe allergies prompted a desire to grow their own, nutritionally optimal food, leading to a decade‑long commitment to a self‑sufficient farm in North Carolina. When the diagnosis threatens their ability to maintain the homestead, a network of homesteading friends—including members of the Abundance Plus community and the organization Sow the Land—organizes a surprise volunteer day. They arrive en masse with tools, weed eaters, and labor, tackling garden upkeep, fence repairs, and other tasks, providing both practical help and emotional support. The piece interweaves personal testimony, community solidarity, and a promotional call‑to‑action for the full “Rooted” episode titled “Symphony,” encouraging viewers to watch the full story on AbundancePlus.com.
Chapters
You guys have seen me struggling with reactive arthritis for 5 weeks, but imagine if that were cancer. For the McLambs, it was.
Coming here, we had this amazing year and we were— we had our farm and we had our animals and life was picturesque. It was exactly what we had wanted and what we had been working for. For almost 10 years. It was very busy first week of October and he started to not feel good. And he was working one day and he had to step away because he was ill. And I had to reach out to his work and be like, hey, he's sick and I'm not sure what's going on. We took him to the emergency room that had the shortest wait time and they came out to the car and immediately upon seeing Nick, They basically told me, I don't want any of your insurance information. I don't want any of that. I'm going to take him. And they just took him in really quickly. And at that point I was like, I don't know how worried I should be about this.
It was just sort of this, you know, your liver looks funny. We're going to admit you to the hospital.
He, he called me and he was like, hey, so they're admitting me.
So I'd go in for a scan and then they They'd image it and they were like, well, we're still not sure. And they biopsied my liver.
And they called me and they were like, he has a mass.
And then they say, you have cancer. Like, this is cancer, but this isn't the type of cancer that's supposed to be in the liver. This is colon cancer.
But before we get into the cancer story, an insightful look into why the McLambs started homesteading in the first place.
Our first child had a lot of allergies, and, and that's when we started to try to grow our own food.
And so we were trying to source the best food that we could source at the time, and that's when we realized that us growing it would be the most financially flexible way to get that food for him.
It's kind of a slippery slope. You start making your own food and you're like, well, what happens if we were able to grow our own food? And then you realize that, you know, it's not just hot dogs and macaroni and pizza. And, you know, there's, there's better things you can make. And just this, I'd say, a world of culinary experiences.
My children and their health and, and trying to give them the best food we can give them. Has been a big, um, one of the biggest reasons why we continue to do this.
We first heard about the McLam story in the Abundance Plus member area, and we're just compelled, and we thought maybe we could do more. So we actually reached out for a video knowing that they were in North Carolina and not too far from us. This is the video tour that she sent us.
Okay, I'm trying to do a quick video for you guys so that you know what our situation is. It's not as bad as they think it is, I hope. I had mulched it. This is all supposed to be walkway, and I dug out the crabgrass when I put it down. But the crabgrass doesn't care, it just grew right back up. This is our garden. I have some stuff planted already, like I have onions and garlic, and I have some things planted over there. I don't know if they're gonna make it or what, but I've got 16 of these. But we've got all of our chickens in here. These are our elderberry plants that we have here. We have a chicken tractor, but Because of everything going on, I had to keep them closer to the house, and we were going to use that for our meat birds, and we don't have meat birds anymore. And then I have over where Nick is, I have 15 blueberry plants. I've got a blackberry bush, um, apple trees, uh, peach trees. Like I said, it's really stressful to think about doing it by myself and not, not knowing where to start.
After seeing the video tour, we realized we can help them, especially if we surprise them with some of our homesteading friends.
We were expecting Justin and Rebecca and Jonah and baby Henry to come to the farm to help us out with some things. That comes, that comes there, and that's our property line, and it comes back.
When we were in our despair you know, when we were in that hard, hard time. It was huge for us that we had Ethan. And so we want— I think we just wanted to help other people, bless other people with what we could, what we can give.
Nick and Christina know that we're coming, but we wanted to give them some surprises.
They showed up and we were talking about stuff and Justin makes a comment like, "Hmm, let me see if I can get some help." Yeah.
Okay. "I have some friends close by, and I think that we could really knock this out in a couple hours." That would be great. I was really like, he's gonna come and be like, "Oh my goodness." "Oh no, uh, well, maybe if I didn't have some friends." Okay, so, all right, what else? Um, What about your chicken fence? You happy with that?
I, I need to tighten it. And then we saw all these cars pulling into our driveway.
Friends are here.
Oh my gosh, did you have them like on scam? Who? Your friends.
I got friends in all kinds of places.
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh, let's go! They recognize some of them. Y'all may not know this, but given that Jason and Lorraine from Sow the Land have a similar story they connected in a special way with the McLambs.
Even though, like, when I had cancer, we didn't homestead. We were living in the city, and it was hard then, so I can only imagine, you know, being sick now with, you know, animals to feed. So when somebody's sick, it's hard to get all that work done, let alone when you're healthy. And so I think we all could kind of relate to that.
Just hearing about another family dealing with cancer and having a homestead, I feel like that's really close to our hearts because, you know, Jason's had cancer before, and there were so many families who came over and helped us when, when Jason had cancer, and it was just a wonderful opportunity to be on the other side and help another family. So we were like, yes, right away. My heart goes out to Christina because I have been on that side of the caregiver side, and there's just so many things that go on in your head of like, how am I going to make this work? How is life going to go on? How am I going to run this homestead? How am I going to feed the children and care for this person that I love so deeply? And what's going to happen? So To get to be on the other side this time was such a huge precious gift that we could give to this family.
I'm proud of my friends. They swarmed this homestead like a bunch of working bees.
I think she realized how much work was going to get done that day.
So we roll up, start unloading tools. And everybody grabs every single tool we brought and we go to town. We've got people with weed eaters clearing brush. We've got people pulling weeds.
Before I knew it, weed eaters were going, mowers, shovels, wheelbarrows.
It was just like mayhem.
They just swarmed.
And to have all these people come in and just be like, boom, boom, boom, we're getting all these things done. It was— there were times where I just, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to stand. I didn't know where to be because everybody was doing so many things.
What a great day. Those were some clips from our newest episode of Rooted. We called that one Symphony. If you want to see more of the McLambs' inspirational story of us and the homestead dream team transforming this homestead in just a day, and if you want to see how the McLambs are doing, I highly encourage you to check out that episode. It's streaming now on Abundance Plus. You still here? Let's just, let's, hey Dan, roll the trailer.
He was working one day and he had to step away because he was ill. We took him to the emergency room that had the shortest wait time.
So I'd go in for a scan and then they say, you have cancer. Like, this is cancer.
Nick and Christina know that we're coming, but we wanted to give them some surprises.
The community mindset is if someone needs help, then we're there for you, and vice versa. When we need help, we know people will be there for us.
The community comes together, and not only can you get this massive amount of work done, you find fellowship, you find fulfillment.
That old thinking, the barn breeding mentality is still alive and well with a lot of people.
I know you guys will enjoy this. Such a great story. Do go check it out on abundanceplus.com.
