HEALING & DREAMING

OCEAN DREAM’S UPCOMING RETREAT HELPS OTHERS ESCAPE STRESS OF DISEASE

“Forget about the stresses of life along with finding your escape from disease so you can have a healthy mind, body and spirit.” These are the intentions of Ocean Dreams Healing Center founder Terry Sutton.

Sutton has an entrepreneurial background in building businesses, so being inspired to create Ocean Dreams as a result of his unique and challenging cancer experience was an aligned evolution.

“One of the most important things about surgery is being prepared for surgery. I learned through the previous surgeries that I needed to be in really good physical shape. Eating healthy, meditating, staying away from sugar, drinking plenty of water and building my stamina,” he said.

In early 2015, Sutton was told he had six months to live as he was diagnosed with stage IV metastasized colorectal cancer. His cancer timeline included receiving a volunteer left lobe liver donation from a stranger (a living angel named Danielle) and a piece of vena cava from an afterdeath donor. It took over four years.

“The medical system gives us a timeline, ‘six months to live.’ So if you focus on that, that will likely happen versus having the will to live to 114 and focusing your mindset on that,” he said. “When I was working out one night, I had the vision of Ocean Dreams come to me. And the more I kept thinking about Ocean Dreams, the more I worked out. I became so in tune. The vision kept coming and building and building. After my surgery, the day I was cognitive, I started working on the business plan and building Ocean Dreams.”

“CANCER — Can be beat, Alternative therapies, Nutrition, Collaboration with medical professionals, Exercise and Recovery — I wrote that on a napkin, gave it to my surgeon and told him I was going to develop Ocean Dreams,” he continued.

That focused attitude helped him survive. “The recovery was long, and my body needed rest and a lot of fluids. I lost a lot of weight. I knew I wanted it to be in the Florida Keys. In my opinion, it was the most healing location in the U.S. that I could think of. The Keys do not have the stresses of the mainland and have salt air and salt water. Salt is so important to our bodies and our healing. The next step was to figure out how to get here and how to finance it.”

Sutton and his wife of over 30 years, Brenda Lee, moved to the Keys in January 2020. They live on a boat named “Flipper.”

Ocean Dreams Healing Center is a nonprofit funded primarily through donations, including boat donations and their upcoming Healing and Well- ness Retreat May 15-19. They focus on hope, healing, education and relief for the patient and the caregiver.

Sutton works on the boats himself but is always looking for volunteers and donations — boats and supplies.

“We bring them in, fix them and then sell them. As a guy, we like to build things, and it can be a way of therapy. It lets our mind drift; we can be productive, have a sense of pride and then give back to the community,” he said. “To date, we have received and sold three boats and have one for sale.”

Sutton is excited about the upcoming retreat and grateful for all the volunteers and his family. Volunteers, such as practitioners Mary Webb and Ann Fraser, are on the board and have been organizing and coordinating this year’s retreat. Fraser attended the retreat in April 2022 with some friends and connected so deeply that when they asked her to become involved, she said “yes.”

The retreat is being held at the Ragged Edge Resort and Marina in Islamorada and includes a wide array of talented practitioners across various healing modalities, such as energy healing, breath work, qigong, nutrition education, reflexology and oracle card readings.

Healthy eating was a massive part of Sutton’s recovery. Brenda Lee prepares and cooks all the delicious meals for the retreats with the help of the volunteers.

“When searching for a donor, four of four family members were rejected for diet reasons – fatty liver. In addition, people over 50 aren’t qualified for liver donations. The standard American diet consists of sugar, corn syrup, sweeteners, processed/pre- packaged foods and fast foods. It’s not cool to say, ‘I’m going to grab a carrot.’” Hence, healthy eating is also an essential part of the retreat.

Those interested in attending the Healing and Wellness Retreat, want to get involved as a volunteer or donate can visit oceansdreamhealing.org.

Other retreat activities include yoga, meditation, journaling, speakers/workshops and live music. There is also time to schedule individual sessions with the 11 health and wellness practitioners.

At the April 2022 retreat, Ocean Dreams sponsored a 25-year-old with brain cancer and her caretaker boyfriend. Sutton said she was losing her will to live, and they came to the retreat and learned a lot. Sutton said she is doing well, and they are still together.

“It truly is a dream; we never thought I would live, we never thought we would live in the Florida Keys and we never thought we could help other people live their dream; we are helping them,” he said. “To see Ocean Dreams blossom is a dream come true.”

“It can continue to grow, which is the cool part,” he continued. “(It’s) an opportunity for individuals to think about dreaming and living their dream and it can be done, we just have to see it. If you think about people who say bad luck or good luck, if we see who we want to be and see our body being healthy, (we are) probably going to be healthy, happy, or have good luck. We have to focus on that, and then we can make it happen.”