Formal Letter

I thought it might be helpful to some to mention that my doctor recently sent me a letter by certified mail. As I have mentioned, her practice which had a more holistic bent, was bought out by a larger and more conservative health care organization. She wasn’t sure at the time that she would be able to continue to serve as my doctor if I continued to follow an unconventional treatment.

Just recently I received a formal letter from her in which she reviews the fact that I was diagnosed with papillary carcinoma in 2010, how a biopsy confirmed this, how a specialist recommended surgery as a cure, how I opted not to have surgery with the understanding that the tumor could grow and spread to other parts of the body. It goes on to say that since then I have been receiving periodic ultrasounds, that the tumor has stabilized but has not gone away, that if the tumor grows my chances for a cure may be significantly compromised, and how she encourages me to pursue surgery.

This was done to have a legal record that I have been offered surgery and have declined it.

I am actually quite grateful that my doctor and this organization are still willing to work with me. I’m not upset by the letter. I just think it’s interesting to note that the establishment is not at all comfortable with people pursuing alternative healthcare options and to some extent this is a legal issue.

Wayne Dyer and John of God

A friend just recently sent me this link. It’s Wayne Dyer talking to Abraham. I don’t know too much about Wayne Dyer, except that my mom read his books and he’s often on PBS during their fundraisers. He was diagnosed with leukemia some time ago, and in this talk he explains how John of God healed him. Or how he has perceived that John of God healed him, because as Abraham points out, Wayne Dyer allowed himself to be healed.

I just found out about John of God this fall when a friend of mine who was going to see him asked if I wanted her to take my photo. You can bring photos of people to receive blessings from him and his entourage. Apparently he has healed millions of people. He lives in Brazil, and you can go to visit him there.

I mainly wanted to post the link to this discussion which is very good. It is reaffirming that fear holds illness in place and that we must release our fear and belief in our sickness to allow health to be restored.

One thing I would add is that Abraham seems to emphasize (or maybe it’s more my emphasis) that you have to be willing to be healed. The person who is sick has the biggest role to play. John of God can help people see more clearly or perhaps help them release their fears, but it is their expectation and belief in John of God that is allowing them to release these fears.

My friend who went to see John of God told me that they said it often takes 3 visits to John of God before people are healed. That you can’t expect to go there and be instantly healed. But I think that it’s only the fact that people aren’t ready to be instantly healed that prevents them from instantaneous healing.

I continue to think about my realization this fall that I believed my cancer was some kind of penance– a kind of payback– for all the stress and negativity I put myself through many years ago. From the moment when I received the cancer diagnosis I did not feel like I was a victim or that this was bad luck. I understood that I had brought it to myself. But I got stuck there– feeling like I had made my bed and now I had to sleep on it. Until it finally occurred to me that there is never any reason for suffering or punishment. All that is required is to let go of the negative thoughts that appear.

But what I did for a time was rearrange the negative thoughts: after the diagnosis I began being kinder to myself, allowing myself to rest more, allowing myself to spend as much time as I wanted on my spiritual practice, allowing myself to go to counseling, get acupuncture, etc.  I gave myself all kinds of attention and care in the form of alternative treatments. But I was holding on to the belief that I deserved the cancer because of my previous behavior. And this is certainly a negative thought.

I do think now that I have mostly let this go. I honestly don’t believe that I even have cancer anymore. There is still a lump, but it is dissolving and one day it will be gone. I feel healthy and energetic. I have no reason to believe in sickness at all.

The other day I was thinking that I don’t think I’ll ever tell anyone again that I have thyroid cancer. It doesn’t seem true anymore. It seems like to tell someone that would be to hold on to a past story that is no longer relevant. And I know that the more I believe this, the more I am convinced of this, the quicker the lump and any remaining effects of the cancer will be gone.

Patience

When I was first diagnosed with thyroid cancer in September 2010 and decided to try to heal naturally, I had this idea in my head that it would take one year. It was so arbitrary now that I think of it, but that seemed to me to be a reasonable period of time to heal. I had been reading Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life, and she talks about healing her ovarian (?) cancer in something like six months. (I may have this all wrong.) So I thought a year was the right amount of time.

Then a year went by, and I wasn’t healed. And another year. And now it’s been two and a half years.

I know personally of at least three people who have been healed naturally from thyroid cancer. One did it by switching to a raw food diet, which as far as I know, he is still maintaining. Another also did it through diet, but her diet includes raw meat and cheeses. She has worked a lot with a man named Aajonus Vonderplanitz (for real) who has a diet called the Primal Diet.

The third healed her cancer but didn’t find out until her tumor and thyroid were removed and they biopsied it. I don’t know everything that she did to heal, but I do know that she was doing Tong Ren. The acupuncturist I was going to regularly for a while was also her acupuncturist, and she told me about her. Her story interests me. She did Tong Ren regularly for 9 months then got frustrated that she wasn’t getting better results and got surgery– and then it turned out her tumor wasn’t cancerous anymore.

Sometimes I wonder if my tumor is no longer cancerous. But I do know that it’s growing so that is a problem if it doesn’t reverse itself– whether it is cancerous or not.

How will I know when it’s time to get surgery? And how will I know if I am just being impatient?

My doctor decided that two years was long enough to make an effort– and that if I hadn’t healed by now I should get surgery. But what is my decision?

My husband who has been very quiet on the subject of the cancer for the last five months, who didn’t even ask about the results of my last ultrasound (and I didn’t bring it up), brought it up today. He said that the lump on my neck is more noticeable, and he wondered when my next ultrasound would be.

Here is something on Patience from Regina Dawn Akers’ website, called “Patience is Key.”

Question: Holy Spirit, I have several friends who seem to believe they are victim of their own minds or victim to the thoughts in their mind. They are caught in a loop of believing and experiencing that they cannot seem to emerge from, and they are clearly feeling trapped in hell. What is most helpful to share with these friends who are seeking help? I surrender all thought to you and wait gratefully for your answer.

Answer: The answer lies in remembering who you are all of the time. Although you may not have the experience of being creator, you have the knowing of it, at least intellectually. That little bit of knowing is enough to take you very far. But when you remember yourself as victim, you forget who you are. In that moment you are being you, pretending to be something else, and the entire experience you are having is coming from you.

When you remember what you are, and you decide to trust that knowledge with faith, you begin to create an opposite driving force. It is the opposite driving force that will begin to create an opposite driving experience. Then experience and faith can be combined to create a stronger opposite driving force.

The beginning of reversal is most challenging. It is helpful to praise even the smallest of gains with intense gratitude during this time. Remember that where ever you focus you carry yourself, and be willing to focus your mind in the direction you want to go.

The first step in reversal is the choice for patience. If you expect some kind of perfection from yourself when you believe you are not experiencing perfection now, you will only have the experience of failure through judgment. This isn’t helpful to your goal. Decide on patience, not perceived perfection. Remember that patience is a symbol of love in what seems to be a world of time, and remember to love yourself through patience.

Patience is more than being nice to yourself, and it definitely is not treating yourself with the gloves of weakness. Patience is a powerful, powerful trust in yourself, which teaches that you will reverse the energy of the universe through will. And patience also knows that the energy of the universe is never reversed through force, but always through cooperation. So as you see, the energy of patience is love.

Once you have decided for patience, you have taken a giant step toward the reversal of energies that seem to harm you. Take time to be grateful for patience. Take time to celebrate your decision. Through these simple actions, the energy of patience is increased, and the energy that seems to surround you is softened through love.”

There is quite a bit more to this message. If you are interested you should click the link above.

I had part of this message on my bathroom mirror for the last year or so. I only recently took it down because it didn’t seem that helpful anymore, but now it is suddenly seeming massively helpful. I don’t think that I was ready before now to actually choose patience over a tumorless neck. Actually I don’t think I even saw it as a real choice. I think my thoughts probably went something like, “Choose patience? What does that even mean? I can see being patient, but how can I choose it as an option?”

The message used to serve as a reminder to me to be patient, but my choice was clearly for the cancer to clear. But now I think my trust has grown enough that I can actually, honestly choose patience over “perceived perfection,” over no tumor.  I can see now that patience is actually trusting myself and my ability to create a reality that is different from the one I am experiencing now. I don’t think I had this trust before. Or it was too weak to hold on to. All I could see was the tumor.

You know I worry about my doctor who still hasn’t contacted me since the last ultrasound in mid January. And I think what I worry about is exactly what this message is saying not to believe in: “If you expect some kind of perfection from yourself when you believe you are not experiencing perfection now, you will only have the experience of failure through judgment.” This is what I imagine my doctor is doing– she expects some kind of perfection (the tumor to  disappear or shrink dramatically) and she is seeing the failure of my approach because the tumor has not disappeared or shrunk dramatically. I think when I worry about my doctor, I am just projecting my own fears onto her. Again.

I am very excited about this. I am making progress. I am going to stay with this message for a while now– reread it often to make sure it sinks all the way in.

Background story 02: Bad allergies and a thyroid nodule

In May of 2010, I was suffering from terrible seasonal allergies. I was totally wiped out for at least 10 days straight. I remember I wanted to work in the garden in the afternoons for weeks, and I just couldn’t muster up the energy to do it. I began searching for ways to heal from allergies, and I began reading Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life. She has this exercise in the book where you are supposed to hold your neck and speak into the mirror, and when I was doing this I felt a lump on my neck.

We had recently moved, and I was looking for a new doctor who would have a holistic bent. I was reading recommendations in mother’s forums and made an appointment with a doctor who was supposed to be more alternative. She was a D.O., a doctor of osteopathic medicine, rather than an M.D. I made an appointment with her hoping that she could help me with my allergies.

Her waiting room was really depressing. I forget why, but it was very gray and poorly decorated, and I think the other people waiting were not uplifting sorts. Her examining room had a Viagra clock and an advertisement for Flonase on the wall. I thought this was kind of funny since I was looking for a natural doctor. I told her about my allergy symptoms, and she prescribed Flonase. I remember she told me to take it from Father’s Day until Halloween.

I showed her the lump on my neck, and she told me it was a thyroid nodule, that they were common, and occasionally cancerous so that I would need to get a biopsy. But not to worry. She gave me the name of a surgeon who specialized in this.

So I went home a bit worried. As I explained in installment 01 of this story, I had quite a bit of the cancer story going on in my life. I got some Flonase, and made an appointment with the surgeon. The surgeon couldn’t see me for something like 3 weeks, and the appointment wasn’t for a biopsy but for an initial consultation. I remember that this felt kind of torturous to have to wait this long and not even for an answer. I called back the doctor to see if she might recommend someone else and she assured me that none of her patients had ever been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and that I should wait out the three weeks.

When I went to see this surgeon. I brought my two daughters who were then 4 and 5 years old. I had brought an ipod with videos to keep them entertained throughout what I was told would be a 15 minute appointment. We had to wait for over 45 minutes, and 5 minutes into the appointment the batteries on the ipod went dead.

The first thing the surgeon said when I entered the room was, “Don’t worry girls, your mother is going to live for a long, long time.” I thought this was very strange because death hadn’t actually entered into my mind as a possible outcome, even though cancer had. He acted very strange, almost like he was scared, and after looking at my neck he told me that he didn’t think a biopsy would be safe to do since it was too close to an artery, and said that I would should get a radioactive iodine scan to determine if the nodule was warm or cold. Or something like this. Depending on which it was, they would determine the likelihood of it being cancer. It was a bit hard to follow since the ipod touch had died and my daughters were clamoring for my attention. He also recommended that I go to another surgeon who specialized in ears, necks and throats.

I left totally freaked out. I did not want to take any radioactive iodine, and I didn’t like this guy.

The background story 01: Surrounded by cancer

In February of 2010 at age 68 my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. She did 2 or maybe 3 sessions of chemotherapy when she decided to stop. A friend had given her a book called Cancer Free: Your Guide to Gentle, Non-toxic Healing, by Bill Henderson, and she decided to give that a try. The prognosis for stage 4 lung cancer is really bad. I just looked it up, and one website said it was 8 months. I believe her oncologist told her that the chemotherapy might give her an extra 2 months. So there was nothing to lose.

She adopted Bill Henderson’s diet, which is all vegetarian and dairy-free, except for this concoction that you eat daily made from low-fat cottage-cheese and flaxseed oil, based on research by Dr. Johanna Budwig. She began taking a bunch of supplements, which he describes in his book, and started reading everything she could about alternative methods of healing cancer. And she gave up all sugar and alcohol.

She wasn’t sick when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. The reason it was discovered was that she had had non hodgkin’s lymphoma (another type of cancer) in 2002. This had been treated with chemotherapy, but in the scans they had found a dark spot on one of her lungs. They weren’t sure what it was and said it could be scar tissue, but they would monitor it.

The chemotherapy got rid of the non hodgkin’s lymphoma. After 6 months (?) or so of treatment, including losing her hair, she was back to normal. But in February of 2010 in one of her regular scans the dark spot had grown and tests showed that she had lung cancer which had spread to other organs.

Bill Henderson’s diet was wonderful for her. She had had asthma her whole life, and within months it had cleared up. Her skin and eyes looked clearer, and she said had more energy than she had in a long long time. She had been having sleeping issues for years and years, and these, too, cleared up.

The previous summer, her sister, had died within months of sarcoma, a deadly skin cancer. She was 74. And that May of 2010, this aunt’s daughter, my cousin who was 43, died of pancreatic cancer.

So within the space of a year, two people in my family had died of cancer, and one was diagnosed with cancer.