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You've just got cancer: some advice  |
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About the book Fighting Cancer: A Survival Guide
conversations and correspondence
Resources: the start of an adventure
If you have cancer; if you're caring for someone who has it
Cancer Treatment: Personal Stories
Readings from the cancer literature
Other cancer books you might find useful
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Cancer: You've just been diagnosed: Jonathan's advice Chemotherapy The doctor has said the cancer's terminal. What now? Yes, Yes, Yes, But what do I do NOW? Side Effects of Radiation and Chemotherapy Immediate steps to combat any cancers: Jonathan's advice
Cancer: You've just been diagnosed: Jonathan's advice Before I give you any advice you must understand that I am not a doctor - nor have I had cancer. I have however, lived and suffered with someone who had cancer. I have also read more books on cancer than most people. That is the basis of my experience - and my qualification to offer advice. Secondly, since everyone is different, I will not - indeed cannot - tell you what you should do to treat your cancer. Rather I will help you see the way towards finding out how you can come to a decision about how you should treat your cancer. You are the decision maker. Take responsibility for your actions now. And remember, whatever treatment you decide on, affirm it with your whole heart, believe that it will work with every cell in your body and visualise it as working everyday, even every hour of everyday. Advice: - You should be aware that there are many ways of treating cancer. Also different cancers are different in their response to various treatments. - Read some books. Read 'Fighting Cancer - A Survival Guide' for a quick overview of both orthodox and alternative treatments - and a consideration of issues you will not find discussed elsewhere. Also consult `Everyone's Guide to Cancer Therapy' about orthodox treatments recommended - or the PDQ information on the internet ( a net search for `pdq' will get you there). Read also Ian Gawler's book `You Can conquer Cancer'. In early 1978, Ian Gawler was two weeks from death according to the best medical opinion available. He had a highly aggressive bone cancer that had spread throughout his body. Gawler is alive - and cancer free - today and this book tells the story of how he did it. See Other cancer books you might find useful. - With the information at your disposal do a risk-benefit analysis. If you take action A, what are the best-case/worst-case risks involved? What are the likely benefits? How do you feel about the balance of risks and benefits? Consider this very carefully. Consider the worst case scenario very carefully. Write all your ideas down, create a chart, draw a mind-map. - You should never take the advice of the first doctor you consult. You should see at least two orthodox doctors and two unorthodox doctors. You should then be in a position to know what your major options are. Now spend a weekend or a week or as long as you need to talk the options through with your loved one or a good friend. Spend time meditating. Try to silence the fears (I know! Easier said than done!). Try to come to some understanding of how you feel about the cancer. Some people just want it out of their bodies as quickly as they can. Others will see it as a marker, a sign of the state of their physical, mental and/or spiritual health and so will want to live with it. How do you feel about it? - When you make a decision, make sure it is your decision - not your husband's, wife's, lover's, doctor's etc. You - and only you - should be responsible for your decision. - You may decide to do any of the following:
- Whatever course of action you take, believe in it 100%. Visualise that it will be successful. The placebo effect can work up to 50-60% of the time. It tends to work more of the time for the more intelligent and the better educated. No-one knows why. - Pray for luck, and life, and health and happiness. Pray fervently. Give yourself up to God - say: `Thy will be done.' - Consider adopting some or all of the following dietary options:
For a list of the alternative treatments I would immediately start
doing click here. PS If, over the months and years to come you wish to
keep track of cancer treatments that are announced in the press then set up your own news
magazine on the internet. The best I've found is News Tracker, which you can find at
nt.excite.com. Other services that I've come upon are less flexible and not so easy to set
up - though they may have their strengths. For the sake of comparison you might want to
look at www.my.yahoo.com or www.newspage.com. If you are wondering whether or not to follow the orthodox route of treatment: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy you may find the following statement of interest. It was written by Dr James Le Fanu, medical correspondent of Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Feb 10th 2002: Leaving aside the small number of definitively 'curable' cancers (such as Hodgkin's Lymphoma) and not wishing to cause unnecessary gloom, its [chemotherapy's] status is not brilliant. Virtually everyone nowadays receives chemotherapy, but regrettably the disease [cancer] has a tendency to recur, making the treatment at times seem rather pointless, At £3,000 for a course of treatment, chemotherapy currently increases the chances of long term survival for most of the common cancers by a modest 10 per cent. The new drugs…are likely to be up to six times more costly, at about £18,000 per patient. This would not matter if they were going to be really effective…[but] on current evidence this is not going to be the case….Still, even if they are not markedly superior, cancer patients and their relatives will expect to be treated with them 'just in case' they might make a difference. Anything else would be 'second class care'. Thus the present situation, where virtually all cancer patients receive chemotherapy at a cost of billions of pounds a year, even though it is of limited efficacy, will continue - the only difference being that in future the cancer drugs will cost yet more billions…The large pharmaceutical companies that dominate the world market must, if they are to grow and prosper, generate new drugs to replace the older ones as they come off patent. They have no alternative: they can't turn to their shareholders and say, 'Sorry, we don't seem to have come up with any useful drugs recently.' So it is irrelevant whether these new anti-cancer drugs are any better than those they are set to replace; it is sufficient merely that there be a market for them. Here are some other quotations for you to think about. Cancer patients
often find that they are on an information treadmill. They feel they
have to run harder and harder to just stay with the pace of the on-rushing
present. Always the information they have at hand is inadequate for
the decisions they feel have to be made NOW! This is a common experience.
For a painful account of a man's decision to follow orthodox treatment
read "C: because Cowards get Cancer too." by John Diamond. Have you been diagnosed as terminal? Has your doctor told you that your cancer is terminal? If so you you face a big decision. Either you accept that there is no escape from the end that the doctor has decreed, or you decide to keep fighting and looking - or perhaps you feel locked in and frozen by a despairing depression. Perhaps you are more worried about the pain you may feel. You are now in unknown territory and you are beyond all `shoulds'. Only you know how you wish to proceed. Choosing to come to terms with leaving the world For those of you who wish to focus on your dying know that this is not an escape from life. It takes great bravery to face this end and to focus on how you wish the final days, weeks, months to be used. There are hurts that need to be healed. There are relationships that need to be strengthened and deepened. There are losses that need to be come to terms with. And of course there are the practical details of life: money, banks, wills and so on. Many people recommend the books of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Stephen Levine as guides in this area. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying Stephen Levine, Who dies? Choosing the path of Life You should know that many people have been diagnosed as terminally ill and have gone on to live for many years, years in which they have been effectively cancer-free (ie there has been no sign of any tumour). One such survivor was Anne Frahm who had suffered everything her doctors had advised: radiation, chemotherapy and even a bone marrow transplantation. All to no avail. Frahm then went on a juice fast and five weeks later she was declaring herself to be cancer free. She lived another ten healthy, active years. Another survivor is Ian Gawlor who credits a combination of meditation, visualisation, yoga, the Gerson diet and a visit to Philippine psychic surgeons for curing his cancer in the mid-seventies. He is still alive today. He and his wife run programmes in Australia and can be contacted at his Melbourne Foundation tel: 059-671730 Other survivors recommend the Moermann or Gerson diets. Details of these can be found in my book `Fighting Cancer - A Survival Guide'. Or you may simply decide to go on a complete fast. This will certainly be beneficial in the short term. Some suggest that you start taking vitamin C (sodium ascorbate) and build up intake as high as you can. You are advised to also take high doses of the other vitamins and a multi-mineral supplement. This treatment cured a small number of patients taking part in Linus Pauling's vitamin C study. Others lived much longer than a control group. Good results have also been obtained with up to 400 mgs Co-enzyme Q10 a day. Hydrazine sulphate is another substance that could bring about remission and will certainly improve mood, attitude etc as well as reducing pain. A magnetic bed may also prove to be a valuable aid. With all these suggestions, your own desire to live and your determination to fight to the end will be useful weapons. Some or all of the following books may be useful Anne Frahm, A Cancer Battle Plan Ian Gawlor, You Can Conquer Cancer Caryle Hirshberg & Marc Ian Barasch, Remarkable Recovery To order these books click here. You feel locked into despair and depression? It may be that everything seems hopeless and you feel helpless. If this is how you feel then it would be a good idea to find a counsellor or close friend(s) that you can talk to and talk it through. You may also wish to consider taking a natural mood-lifter - hydrazine sulphate - vitamin B complex - especially B3 and B6 - vitamin C - Coenzyme Q10 Meditation or visualisation of places and memories that have been important to you, about which you have positive and warm feelings. Exercise Are you worried about pain? Two other chemicals for which substantial pain relieving qualities
are claimed are: One of the less publicised aspects of Linus Paulings investigation into vitamin C is that those who subsequently died neverthe;ess had been feeling well, active and pain-free up to a few days before their passing. Vitamin C works at a number of levels. Pain relief and indeed euphoria are side-effects of hydrazine sulphate (US: sulfate) Hypnotism has long been known to be an effective pain reducer. People have had operations under no anaesthetic other than hypnosis. I have been told that raw cabbage leaves pressed against the skin provide great relief from pain. I was also told by a man on a radio chat show that he had been unable to get medical relief from extreme pain until he had gone to a spiritual healer - and this had been entirely successful. Conclusion No-one knows what the future may hold in store - and tomorrow is the future. Fare thee well. Yes, Yes, Yes But what do I do now? In the first week of promoting my site I was suddenly receiving e-mails from people in acute situations - a mother of six children one of whom has a late diagnosed brain tumour; a non-smoking 30-year-old woman with stage 4 adenocarcinoma of the lung and so on - all desperate for ideas about what to do now. I have said it before and I must say it again: I am not a doctor. I have had no medical training whatsoever. However, I have read a great deal and I have ideas. So we will now proceed on a tour of ideas and you will be responsible for making your own decisions. You will also recognise that whatever strategy you adopt now must be considered to be a holding strategy which you will pursue while you are informing yourself further about cancer and various cancer treatment options. Look at the readings and book review pages for suggestions. You can also start by reading my book ‘Fighting Cancer - A Survival Guide’ OK? Now what follows here applies to you no matter what cancer you’ve got. First answer this multiple-option question. Which of these statements do you believe to be true? A: Cancer cells are deviant. They must be destroyed before the body can be healthy again. B: Cancer cells can only exist in a body that is unhealthy. If you answered A you still have a choice between orthodox and alternative methods. On the one hand, you can choose between the orthodox weapons of radiation, chemotherapy, surgery. Or you may wish to choose either or both of the two following approaches: i. laetrile, Wobe Mugos enzymes and vitamin A. Some experiments have shown this combination to be highly effective in killing cancer cells. Note that individually the substances had diminished or zero effect but they work synergistically. The enzymes are the vital ingredient that makes the combination click. To purchase laetrile, contact Donna Schuster, Great Lakes Metabolics, 1724 Hiawatha Court, NE, Rochester, MN 55904, tel: 1-507-288-2348 fax: 1-507-285-4475 ii Papaya leaf extract, click here for further details If you answered B then you should know that your doctor will most probably not agree with you. However, it is almost certainly - and I speak as a believer not a knower - the only route to a cure. But the route will require discipline and single mindedness on your part. In order to heal the whole body you must follow one or other of the following steps: 1. Take citric acid (found in oranges and lemons) and iodine and vitamin C and red wine and potassium rich foods like kelp or other seaweeds (the Japanese call them sea vegetables) . Pharmacists may be able to provide an iodine and potassium mixture known as Lugol’s solution. 2. Eat nothing but grapes - well washed - including skin, crunched up pips and all - for up to 4 weeks. Do as much exercise as possible at the same time and persevere even when not feeling so good (the body is expelling toxins). Most of the time you’ll actually be feeling very good. 3. Take as much vitamin C as possible (sodium ascorbate 10-40 grams a day building up the dose slowly day by day - in many equal doses over the course of the day) along with other vitamins ie A, B complex and E as well as colloidal minerals or multi-minerals. Plus exercise, deep breathing and meditation. 4. Go on a five week juice diet: every hour have a freshly made glass of carrot juice, vitamin C, barley-green/wheatgrass drink, juiced green vegetables of the cabbage and broccolli family, orange juice, apple-cider vinegar and water. Plus exercise etc. 5. Consider, in addition, taking one or more of the following
6. Consider buying a magnetic bed (see resources) That’s it. These are the things I would do. You must decide whether such a course of action seems as credible to you as it does to me. Some of you may be advised to do other things. The best way of assessing each option is to ask these questions:
How can I find out about alternative practitioners?
Good luck. As a parting present I give you some quotes which I found in Ross Horne’s book ‘Cancerproof Your Body’ (see book reviews) "If I contracted cancer I would never go to a standard treatment centre. Cancer victims who live far from such centres have a chance" Professor George Mathe, French cancer specialist, 1989. "My studies have proven conclusively that untreated cancer victims actually live up to four times longer than treated individuals. For a typical type of cancer, people who refused treatment lived for an average of twelve and a half years. Those who accepted surgery and other kinds of treatment lived an average of only three years." Dr Hardin Jones, Dept. of Medical Physics. University of California, 1969. "There is no evidence that mastectomy affects survival. If women knew that they would probably refuse surgery." Dr L. Cunningham, the Lancet, 1980. "Success of most chemotherapies is appalling…There is no scientific evidence for its ability to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancer… Chemotherapy for malignancies too advanced for surgery, which accounts for 80% of all cancers, is a scientific wasteland" Dr Uhlrich Abel, Stuttgart, 1990. Nutritional therapy has been credited with a great many successes, many of them with people who had supposedly terminal stage cancer. For those wishing to explore specific dietary regimes further you should seek out information on:
As I say, that’s what I would do if I were in your position. Good luck Other suggestions welcome. If you have any advice for newly diagnosed cancer patients let me know. Please email me at jchamberlain@fightingcancer.com Immediate steps to combat any cancers: Jonathan's advice As immediate steps to combat any cancer, I would like to suggest the following:
Jonathan
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