chapter 5:: part 2

continued from chapter 5; part 1

Some treatments work better than others and many forms of cancer can be arrested for the rest of a natural lifespan. The reason I am stressing that you must get a lot of information on your own is that you will feel less helpless, more in control of your life. A happy outcome is that in your search you will meet people who are keeping their disease at bay while getting in a lot of living.

We were in limbo for a while when Hal was discharged from the hospital, the surgeon and oncologist were away and we were on our own. This was the ideal time for us to do our research. Friends, friends once removed, and family members acted as messengers, bringing word of various treatments. It was usually about a person no one knew personally who had conquered the tumors by non-traditional means such as faith healing, macrobiotic diet combined with mega vitamins, gurus, Laetrile, other drugs you’ve never heard of, coffee enemas, green algae and the list goes on. You will be urged to find out more.

This is good. Tiring and confusing but good. Adding to the confusion is that if you worked your way through even the nuttiest treatments, chances are you would locate someone who took treatment and appears healthy. My skeptical soul tells me that you could probably feel good for a while if you believed whole-heartedly that sunflower seeds dipped in molasses would do the trick. Some people opt for a combination of things while taking accepted treatment. We didn’t write anything off at first. We wanted to keep open minds while we sifted through the information.

The danger with unproven cancer therapies is that you might veto accepted medical treatment for your disease.

You’ll hear reports of wondrous results in far off country clinics out of the reach of Medicare, and if you manage to liquidate everything you own, you might be able to get there for your treatment. From what I’ve observed these treatments prove worthless, but desperate people still seek them out.

At the same time you are hearing these hopeful stories, pick up a newspaper any given week and you’ll read about a new treatment getting good results but still in the testing stage. This will motivate you to keep a positive outlook while you prepare for your treatment.

continued in chapter 5: part 3