On healing and thoughts of concern

But on a more spiritual note, which is where I prefer to spend my time, I have been posted two new quotes on the inside of my bathroom mirror. My bathroom mirror now has so many notes on it, it’s like that scene from A Beautiful Mind where you follow the scientist into this little building, thinking he might be okay now, and there are notes covering all the walls, and you realize that he is fully crazy again. (Or this is my memory of it.) My father-in-law was visiting last week, and I wondered what he would think if he opened my mirror door.

Anyhow. Here are the two wonderful quotes on healing and worry that I am trying to imprint on my mind:

“Clear your mind of all that seems to concern you, for nothing that is concerning exists.

There is no cause for concern, because cause is of the mind. Concern is the belief that cause is of something other than the mind. It is a belief of smoke and mirrors, a deception and a distraction. Concern keeps your attention away from your Self, focused on the game of denial and specialness.

To remember who you are, notice when you are concerned, and then remember cause is of the mind. Be willing to let the concern go immediately as not real. It is not real, because mind can be changed. Choose again, and you will see differently. For this reason, there is no cause for concern. There is only mind, which is Spirit.”

This is from Regina Dawn Aker’s website. I can’t remember where. I think it’s from 2007.

And here is the second one, on healing:

“I am your leader in this process of healing. It is best for you to realize that you do not know the answers and you could not heal yourself. The way to healing is to listen to Me with the full attention of your ears. Focus them on nothing else and no one else. Quiet your mind, that you may hear only Me.

Do not believe the symptoms in your mind. Do not be distracted by them. Those small things are not the source of your sickness. But when you notice the symptoms, let them remind you that the source is within you still.  Give your willingness to the Source of Healing, that the source of sickness be taken away.

Turn your attention to your health. Live within your health. Be your health. Get up and walk with it, giving your attention to it, that it may grow within you.

Give all your attention to your willingness to be healed. Trust in your willingness.”

This is from The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament.

Peace.

Surgery?

I am trying to make this blog very honest. It’s the main reason that I am trying to stay anonymous– so that I can write anything. I think, however, that I have been refraining from writing because I don’t feel like I have anything positive or supportive to write. Like I am not being altogether successful with my own mission.

I stopped doing the MMS after about 4 days. It upsets my stomach and it just doesn’t feel right taking it. Jim Humble says that you should feel better after taking it, and I actually felt worse. I had a small cold, and I think it made me feel run down so that the cold lasted longer than it should have.

I continue to take Iodoral, but I have greatly lowered the dose. Now I am taking 3 mg (or 1/4 of a 12 mg pill) two times a week. When I take it at higher doses, I wake up early in the morning– sometimes as early at 3:30– and feel very warm and kind of agitated. So I kept lowering it and lowering it until these symptoms went away.

I was also taking large amounts of Vitamin C with the Iodoral, as Dr. Brownstein recommends in his book. But this was giving me a stomach ache so I stopped. The stomach bloating/pains didn’t start for a few days after I began taking it, and it took me a while to figure out that it was due to the Vitamin C.  Now I am taking 500 mg of Vitamin C when I think of it in the morning. Otherwise I take 3 Fermented Cod Liver Oil capsules, 5000 IUs of Vitamin D, and 3 Standard Process Catalyn every day.

Okay, so that’s a bunch of material stuff. In the same vein, I am going to call the Broda Barnes Foundation again tomorrow and see if I can get a recommendation for an endocrinologist or thyroidologist who has a natural bent. I don’t think my thyroid is working 100% properly, and if I decide to get surgery, I would like to have someone like that to support my thyroid afterwards.

I am going to wait to see what my next ultrasound in May says, but I am starting to lean towards getting the tumor surgically removed with the hope that only half of the thyroid will be removed, and I won’t be dependent on thyroid medication forever.

For so long I have been feeling very strongly against getting surgery. I have wanted to get to the bottom of what caused it to form and heal that. I have also been very resistant to give up such an important organ when it seemed to be working fine. I may be changing my mind now because of two reasons: I think my thyroid is actually not working as well as I thought, and it may not be possible for me to shrink this tumor.

I think this last one has been the hardest one to look at. I still do believe that everything is in the mind, and that anything is possible. There are so many examples of people who have been healed from much worse. But I am moving towards accepting that I may not be one of those people, and to insist that I am might not be helpful for me.

I had a session with a spiritual therapist on Friday. She is a woman who channels. I went to her in 1997 when I was 29, and she gave me some very insightful advice that I have referred to ever since. For some reason it occurred to me to read the manuscript of the reading on Thursday, and then I visited her website and gave her a call. Her guide suggested that there is too much of a dichotomy right now between conventional and alternative healing methods and that this rigid separation needs to be broken down, and is breaking down.  It is in great part due to this session that I am seriously considering surgery.

My first step, though, is to find a thyroid doctor with a natural bent.

Trying MMS again

Today I started taking MMS again. MMS stands for Master Mineral Solution. I don’t know the science behind it, but you can read all about it in a book called The Master Mineral Solution of the Third Millenium by Jim Humble.

I cannot really recommend taking this supplement. I was just reading reviews on Amazon about it and reminded that many people have spoken out about it being dangerous and toxic. Jim Humble, who I think discovered it, doesn’t agree, and has a whole chapter in his book explaining why it isn’t.  But the book itself is a bit wacky so it doesn’t exactly instill trust in you. One thing I found somewhat reassuring was that Andreas Moritz, who wrote Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation recommended it in his book. And I love that book.

My sister-in-law, who has helped me a lot since I was diagnosed, sent the MMS book to me last spring. She was convinced that it would cure me and urged me to give it a try. Since nothing else had worked, I decided to. I tried the Protocol 2000 which Humble describes in the book, and did it for 2 1/2 weeks, though not exactly as he described. I was unable to take the MMS2 pills, and I was supposed to do it for 3 weeks, but I kind of petered out. The supplement made me shudder every time I took it, and it was also giving me headaches and nausea. These are actually effects that are described in the book. Humble says that you should lower your dose if you have them, and I did lower it quite a bit which helped.

My notes on it from last June say that I think the tumor might have shrunk 1/8 of an inch, and then the ultrasound which I later had in September showed that the tumor had shrunk significantly for the first time. So I don’t know if this was due to the MMS, but it was the only alternative health thing I did new or different then. And this makes me want to try it again and possibly stick to it longer this time.

So I started it today. So far no side effects. We’ll see if I am able to keep it up. You have to take it 10 times a day, which is a bit inconvenient.

Phone call with the doctor

I finally talked to my doctor today on the phone. I told her up front that I wasn’t ready to have surgery, and she said this: that I should get surgery, that it’s a slow growing tumor but it continues to grow. That it could spread to the lymph nodes or to another organ. That the surgery is a cure for the cancer. That the surgery isn’t aesthetically destructive– that people won’t even know I’ve had surgery.

I told her that the only reasons I could think to get surgery were fear-based reasons. That I had a functioning thyroid and was otherwise healthy. (Actually I have a small cold.) She said yes, but it was evidence-based fear.

I told her that I didn’t believe that the cancer would metastasize, that I wasn’t a Christian Scientist, but that my spiritual beliefs were behind my not getting surgery. I thought that perhaps she would then see me in a different light.

Fairly early on in the conversation she said in a defeated kind of way, “So would you like me to schedule another ultrasound?” I jumped on this and said yes. It’s going to be scheduled for May.

I also told her that I would understand if she didn’t want to work with me anymore. She said that I wasn’t the kind of patient who didn’t show up for appointments (and a couple other things I don’t remember) so she wasn’t going to fire me. She said she wasn’t worried about lawsuits but that she would feel partially responsible if the cancer metastasized. She did agree that I might want to look for another doctor– someone who would support me in my efforts. She said I might find someone who could help me more with alternative methods. She didn’t think she had much to offer me besides trying to convince me to have surgery.

I thought this was very kind of her. Very objective. But then we talked about how difficult it was to find any kind of conventional doctor who supported alternative methods for healing cancer. I need to continue to look. I have searched several times for a MD who is also a homeopath without any real luck. I need an MD so that my insurance will cover something, even if it’s not much.

I am glad that we finally talked. It was hanging over my head a bit. What really needs to happen is for the tumor to decrease again. First of all, it’s not sustainable for it to continue growing forever. And secondly, if it does decrease I think I can convince her to stick it out with me.

Fear of my doctor

The receptionist at my doctor’s office called and left a message yesterday. My doctor (this is my primary care physician) finally received the results from my ultrasound in January and would like to meet with my to discuss my plan. This is bringing up quite a bit of anxiety for me. My mind jumps to thoughts of my doctor pressuring me to get surgery, using fear tactics. I even imagined an intervention where she would gather a bunch of doctors at our meeting, all of whom would tell me that I am crazy and taking my life in my hands:)

But I am trying to remember that I really don’t know what my doctor is thinking. Yesterday I did part of The Work on this:

Dr. ____ wants me to get surgery.

1.Is it true? Yes

2. Can you absolutely know for sure that it’s true? No, maybe she has changed her mind! Maybe something happened to her recently that has made her change her mind.

3. How do I feel when I believe this thought? I feel a bit anxious. I am worried that she is going to shake my belief in myself. But really, all she can do is point out a place in me where my fear exists already. And then I can let that go.

4. Who would I be without this thought? I would be relaxed and at ease. I would be a person calling back another person and then making a decision based on what I want to do. I am free to do what I want after all.

If I didn’t believe that Dr. _____ wanted me to get surgery. Or if I didn’t think that surgery was something I maybe should do but am afraid to do, then all of this thought construct—the fear and anxiety over my relationship with Dr. ____—would fall apart. Just like everything fell apart (of fell together) when Anita Moorjani in Dying to Be Me learned that there was nothing to fear. The cancer couldn’t stay because there was no thought construct behind it to support it.

So yesterday I realized that my fear about calling back was merely believing my ego thoughts. Thoughts that are based on the doctor’s past behavior, and thoughts that will continue to show me more of the same until I let them go.

Today I called back. I had decided that I would talk to the doctor on the phone but I wasn’t willing to drive all the way to her office which is 40 minutes away in order to have her try to convince me to have surgery. I was thinking that this was a waste of my time. The receptionist, however, said that the doctor didn’t want to talk to me on the phone, only in person. She suggested that I email the doctor and tell her my thoughts.

Not too long after this conversation, however, I realized that I had been listening to my ego thoughts again. I was distrusting the doctor. I was assuming she would only tell me to get surgery. I was assuming even that she might not want to work with me any more if I didn’t get surgery.

When I looked at it not out of fear and the small self, however, I realized that my doctor has been really quite helpful to me. She has ordered all my ultrasound appointments– 3 or 4 a year, and while not agreeing with me, she has been willing to work with me. She has been very kind and interested in my annual check-ups. It is just as possible to see her with gratitude as it is to see her with anxiety.

She ended up calling me back herself. I didn’t pick up the phone because I was in the middle of a meditation, but also because caller id listed the caller as my former doctor. I thought, “Oh my God, she’s called my last doctor to get her to join forces and pressure me!” But when I listened to the message, it wasn’t from my former doctor at all. It was from my present doctor, and it was a very friendly, kind message asking me to call her back tomorrow. So that’s how it stands. I will call her tomorrow.

More on Patience

First here is the quote of the day from Abraham:

Whatever you’re thinking about is literally like planning a future event. When you’re worrying, you are planning. When you are appreciating, you are planning…What are you planning?— Abraham

I feel like I can’t hear this often enough. Somewhere in another book from Source it says that all our thoughts are prayers. We are constantly praying. Which is why it is so important to watch our thoughts and let go of all the ones that are worries or fears.

Here is another quote from the Manual for Teachers, which is at the end of A Course in Miracles. This is on patience. It’s not the entire entry, but the part that I am going to put on my bathroom mirror to keep reminding myself:

“Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety. All [the teacher of God] sees is certain outcome, at a time perhaps unknown as yet, but not in doubt. The time will be as right as is the answer.

Patience is natural to those who trust. Sure of the ultimate interpretation of all things in time, no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause him fear.”

What good news!

And finally a book recommendation. I just finished reading Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander. He had a near death experience of heaven which he recounts in the book, and it’s amazing– though I wish he spent more of his book describing it. Much of the book is taken up in “proving” that this experience occurred, not as a hallucination generated by his brain, but as a pure experience of true consciousness. It’s well-written and is actually kind of a page turner. I gave it to my husband to read. He is not at all interested in spiritual or mystical things, but I think because it’s a page turner and written by a neurosurgeon, he’s actually going to read the whole thing.

A friend of mind sent me a link to an interview with Eben Alexander about his experience. There are also some interviews with him on his website.

Thank you for reading! It is very encouraging for me to see that people are reading this.