My Cancer Story

2008-09-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2008

I was asked how I managed to beat cancer.

For starters, I caught the symptom early enough. I was spitting blood from a lump in my throat that had
broken blood vessels by its sudden growth spurts. I had the lump in my throat removed while it was still
no bigger than a small olive. Had it gone unchecked, it could have choked me to death.

For about two weeks prior to going in for surgery, I started drinking an herb tea called Pau d'Arco
(Spanish for tree bark). It is literally bark shavings from a tree by that name that is only grown in South
America. Health food stores carry this in bulk, tea bags, and in liquid vials as a concentrate. I drank one
cup of brewed tea (from bulk) every two hours. The doctor told me that when he cut out the lump, it was
falling apart in his hands. In his words, it was in an advanced stage of necrosis - meaning it was dying. I
could attribute that to the tea. I could also attribute it to the fact that this very same lump would show up
in my throat every year around February, quite painful, and then after a couple of weeks it would go
away. Only this time it wasn't painful at all. It just kept getting bigger and didn't go away for months. In
previous years, all the doctors said it was tonsillitis. But where that lump was, there is no tonsil. The
actual tonsil is farther back in the throat. I had that tonsil removed with the lump during the surgery.
And I also had a similar lump show up on the other side of my throat at the same time every year. But
that lump never got bigger than a pimple and it hasn't come back since the surgery. By the way, I was
lucky with the surgery - none of my tongue had to be removed.

After the surgery, I continued the Pau d'Arco tea (4 cups a day), along with 2 ounces of Aloe Vera juice
twice a day, along with 2 ounces of Eissiac Tea three times a day (look it up on the web; Eissiac is
Caissie spelled backwards, the name of the Canadian nurse who developed the tea for her cancer
patients), along with four exercise periods of Qigong every day, along with removing from my diet all
sugars (anything with sugar as an added item, including any derivative of sugar, and corn syrup), all
dairy products, no red meat, no caffeine, no carbonated drinks of any kind, no foods with preservatives,
no alcohol in any form (including mouthwash), and no sex (I wasn't married at the time - maybe that's
why ). I should also mention that I am a non-smoker (for 18 years prior to cancer) as well as a
non-drinker (also for 18 years prior to cancer). I also hired a personal coach to help me change the way
I think and talk. All words and phrases that had any negative connotation were removed from my
vocabulary. Why? Because I believe that phrases such as "I can't live with that in my life" set up a trigger
in the mind to find ways to eliminate "that thing," and if it can't be avoided or eliminated, the mind then
decides that the only alternative is death - and finds a way to kill the body.

That's not a new idea. In 1976 a doctor gave a lecture at the De Anza College in Cupertino, CA (I
attended the lecture). His specialty was cancer patients. He studied his patients for years, experimenting
with different modalities of treatment. Some were cured, some weren't. He got curious about the
difference and began an intensive whole body and mind investigation on all his patients. His conclusion
was that those patients that had no reason for living would get cancer and die from it despite treatments
that would cure another patient. They would also die in a shorter period of time than most others. Those
patients that seemed to find a new lease on life during treatment would recover no matter what treatment
they got - including no treatment at all (going through the motions of getting treatment but were not
actually treated). In his investigations he discovered that all patients that got cancer started out with what
he termed a "death wish." When a patient was given psychological treatment for their death wish, in
some cases the cancer simply vanished! What makes this story so incredible is that the doctor could
even deduce a "death wish" in babies that had cancer. In his investigations he discovered that the baby so
infected had no real reason to live - the parents either did not want the baby or gave it no or little
parental love or nurturing. The home had no love in it.

So how does that relate to me? After my fifth marriage broke up, I wanted to die and I didn't care how -
but I wasn't going to commit suicide. When I was told I had Squamous Cell cancer, I realized that cancer
is just another form of suicide.

I have extended this concept to include all forms of disease and accidents. Yes, accidents! And then I
learned about Louise Hay and her book You Can Heal Your life. She carried that concept to the point of
correlating illnesses and disorders with thoughts we carry around in our head, and she gives a correcting
phrase to that thought. There are reported cases where this book has made a difference in people's lives,
in some cases curing them of problems that no doctor had been able to successfully treat.

My story goes one step farther. I was told I had to have radiation after the surgery or I would die from
the cancer that was left in my body (they claimed they didn't get it all). I refused the radiation treatment
on several counts: I didn't want pay $35,000 for the treatment (no insurance), I didn't want to lose the
hair on the left side of my face, I didn't want to lose my salivary glands, and I was convinced that we all
carry microscopic amounts of cancer in our bodies all the time and our system naturally disposes of it -
if we activate the thought that life is worth living and behave accordingly.

I am a living testimony that this works - at least for me. Not simply because I put in the effort to change
my life, but because I changed my beliefs. You can't change your life without changing your beliefs.
As a clincher, here's my stepfather's story. He died of Melanoma cancer. Two weeks before he died I
asked him that if a miracle happened and he was able to get up out of the bed and live the rest of life
with no physical disabilities of any kind, would he accept such a miracle. He said no. His reason? He
didn't want to live any longer with my mother (she "nagged him to death") and he didn't think it was
right for him to just walk out of her life.

Where a person has a terminally ill condition, I can always find something in a person's mind that will
trigger a death wish no matter how happy and successful they think they are. Here's one such story. I
was asked to interview a friend's uncle who was dying of cancer (no treatment was working). He was a
most happy man and very successful. It turned out that he strongly believed that he should not live
longer than his wife or his children. That in itself is a death wish. He was actually afraid of living even
another ten years, that his wife might die before him. Where did he get this thought? He was born and
lived in Israel where supposedly "all" men die before their wife and children. It is an unspoken custom.
He could not dishonor his wife or himself by living longer than her.

In line with this concept, Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Wayne Dyer have both written books on the
subject of the Mind-Body connection and how to change your life by changing your mind. You can also
find many references on the web by searching for "change your mind," "heal your mind," "change your
body" and "heal your body."

So, despite what people claim about their life and their thoughts, for every illness there is a
corresponding thought or belief that invites the condition and nurtures that illness. Maybe this is why the
Christian Scientist believes that doctors aren't really necessary when all that may be needed is a change
in one's beliefs. But instead of exposing the contributing thought, they try to pray it away. Prayer can
work, but only if the recipient of prayer is willing to change his or her mind. And community prayer can
be effective even though the patient is in a comma. We are all connected in ways we cannot
scientifically explain. Given that the community in which a person lives is willing to give that patient the
freedom to live, that act of forgiveness may be enough to awaken the patient.

How do you consciously change your beliefs? By forgiving yourself and others. By accepting that all is
right in your world and in theirs. This simple act of forgiveness sheds untold beliefs that empower
illness and behavior to destroy life.

Be well.