Cancer:

A personal challenge

Edited by

Bob Rich, PhD, MAPS, AASH

Contributors:

Paul Bedson

Siegfried Gutbrod

Steve Hawley

David Hooper

Phyllis Phucas

Oleg Reznik

Bob Rich

Yvonne Rowan

Victor Smith

Carl Stonier

Cheryl Wright

http://anxietyanddepression-help.com/

With a Foreword by Andrea Oz

Director, The National Conference of Cancer Self Help Groups (UK)

ANINA'S BOOK COMPANY

Copyright © Dr R. Rich, June 2005

First published by Anina's Book Company

http://aninabooks.com/

109 Moora Rd,

Healesville,

Victoria 3777

Australia

+61 3 5962 3875

Cover art by Julia Shub

Printed by Booksurge.

ISBN 1-877053-12-0

BIC classification VFD

The authors of each chapter assert their copyright. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, except with the explicit written permission of the author of that chapter and the editor.

Each contributing author is responsible for his or her opinions. Note that our book is not intended to replace competent medical advice.

Acknowledgements

Carl Stonier has been immensely helpful from the time I decided on writing this book and called for contributors. He found Victor Smith and Steve Hawley, gave very helpful feedback on everyone else's chapters, wrote extra material to fill spaces that needed to be filled, found Andrea Oz to write an inspiring Foreword, and despite multiple pressures like finishing his Ph.D. research and looking after family members with serious health problems, has been a consistent support.

Siegfried Gutbrod wrote his chapter at a time when he was seriously considering leaving the field of cancer counseling for the even more challenging field of working with AIDS orphans in southern Africa. He is there now. He found Paul Bedson to take over from him in supplying an excellent chapter on meditation.

Susan Stevens wrote a preliminary chapter on psychoneuroimmunology, and allowed me to use her research to write the final version.

Phyllis Phucas wrote her touching contribution while working twelve-hour shifts as a nurse. These shifts were holidays from the painful joy of caring for her dying husband. And yet, she found time for me.

Yvonne Rowan and Cheryl Wright both suffer multiple health problems, and yet were glad to write chapters for this book.

I first ‘met’ David Hooper when I contributed a story to his magazine Monthly Short Stories. I didn't know then that he was a cancer survivor. When I found out, I asked him to write his story. He promised, but found it very painful to expose his private feelings to the public. I am glad he did, and so will you be when you read his chapter.

Oleg Reznik is not your average physician. I edited his revolutionary book The Secrets of Medical Decision Making: How to avoid becoming a victim of the Health Care Machine. I was so impressed by his writing and knowledge that I asked him for a chapter. The result has made this book into a far more useful decision-making tool for those struggling with cancer.

Victor Smith and Steve Hawley have been inspirations to many people in Britain. They have become inspirations to me. Through this book, I hope they will reach thousands more.

I wish to thank all these wonderful people, who helped me to make the book into what it is.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids

On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask 'How are you?'

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores

Running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

Ever told your child,

We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time

To call and say, hi?

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift…

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is o'er.

This poem is from Carl Stonier's collection. It was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. Unfortunately, we don't know the author's identity.

Table of Contents

SLOW DANCE

    A poem from a dying girl

Foreword

    Andrea Oz

Preface

Part I: There Is Hope

1.    The Meaning of Life and Death

Bob Rich

2.    A Pilgrim's Progress

Victor Smith

3.    My Cancer 101

David Hooper

4.    With Purpose

Yvonne Rowan

Part II: The Facts

5.    For The Ones Facing the Dragon

Oleg Reznik

6.    Psychoneuroimmunology

Bob Rich

7.    A Holistic Understanding of Cancer from an Anthroposophical Perspective

Siegfried Gutbrod

8.    Other Factors In The Development Of Cancer

Carl Stonier

Part III: Living With It

9.    I can't go on, I'll go on

Steve Hawley

10.    Surviving Cancer

Victor Smith

11.    The Overwhelming Truth

Phyllis Phucas

12.    How Do I Live Without You?

Cheryl Wright

13.    Chinese Birthday

Bob Rich

To a Grieving Husband

Bob Rich

Part IV: Tools For Fighting Back

14.    A Little Girl With Wrinkles

Carl Stonier

15.    The Psychological Management of Pain

Bob Rich

16.    Meditation for Health and Healing

Paul Bedson

17.    Why?

Bob Rich

References

About the Contributors

Foreword

Andrea Oz

Director, The National Conference of Cancer Self Help Groups (UK)

It is a great privilege to be asked to write the Foreword to this very special book. I am moved and inspired by the content, especially as I know personally some of the contributors and have learned more about them through their stories and articles contained.

I was very frightened of ‘Cancer’. I lost my mother to Leukemia when in my teens and my father to bladder cancer in my mid-twenties. Conversely, my mother-in-law is a survivor of twenty-five plus years and another friend, who was given months to live, is still with us ten years on. It wasn't until my best friend was diagnosed with cancer that I faced up to all my past experiences properly and finally grieved the suffering and loss of my parents.

I cared for my friend Margaret, who died a year after surgery for bowel cancer. Twenty years previously she had recovered from womb cancer and it was a great shock for her to be diagnosed again. The responsibility for me was a real test. I could not let my friend down. She knew she was dying and I had to walk to the gates with her. We were ‘spiritual sisters’ and had been friends for over twenty years. There was nothing we didn't know about each other. Many times on the way to the hospital, I wanted to run, to get away. I felt angry at her for having cancer and putting me and her family through this horror.

While waiting for her to have a scan, I picked up a newspaper and flicking through, saw a job advertised for a director of a cancer conference. Ironically, I was looking for a new direction, as my job as the International Accountant and Congress Director of a worldwide voluntary organization was relocating its offices and I didn't want to commute. I applied for the job and immediately felt among friends when I went for the interview. To my delight I was offered the job. I was immediately hooked. I felt a connection to the work, the people and the cause of The National Conference of Cancer Self Help Groups. For the first time in my working life, I didn't look at the clock to see how much money I was earning, but how much time there was left for me to work.

I saw and see the amount of work that has been done and that needs to be done to improve the diagnoses, treatment, care and service to cancer patients and their families and carers. My first conference saw me creeping to the toilet for a quick weep; tears of loss and tears of gratitude that I was among people who weren't dying of cancer but were living with cancer. The camaraderie, the support, the love, the magical atmosphere of, at that time, 400 people affected by cancer, was mind blowing. It is also life-saving as it has changed the attitudes of many thousands of people over the years, giving them a different outlook on nutrition, health, exercise, positive thinking, and helping to make changes in cancer services. Reasons to live and to share with others.

This book touches on all aspects of where real recovery lies. It offers the reader, whether a cancer patient, carer or health care professional, tools to live a better quality of life and reduce their chances of developing cancer.

My mother-in-law was told by her consultant, after a year in hospital with cancer that had spread to different parts of her body, that if she wanted to permanently ‘heal her cancer, she had to heal her soul and live a happy, healthy life.’ This book shows how to do that.

Andrea Oz

Director, The National Conference of Cancer Self Help Groups

Preface

This book is a tool for achieving better health by everyone. It will help you to protect yourself and those you love, so that your chances of developing cancer will be reduced. It will help you to look after someone who is battling cancer, and above all, it will help you if you are the one whose body is the battleground.

In the USA, 44% of men and 39% of women now develop cancer in their lifetimes (Epstein, 2003). The lifetime risks of dying from cancer are now 24% for men, and 20% for women. (Epstein, 2003). Always, a fight with cancer involves fear, the disruption of your life, painful and unpleasant medical procedures. It may also have a high financial cost, loss of income earning capacity, physical disfigurement, lasting handicaps.

And yet, many people have undergone the experience, and found it to change their lives for the better. Even while dying of terminal cancer, there are those who feel thankful for the spiritual growth it has generated.

There are lessons there for all of us. Read this book. Perhaps, you may be able to learn the lessons without first needing to experience the disease.

Battino (2000) makes a distinction between ‘healing’ and ‘curing’. A cure is if the disease disappears, and you become physically healthy again. However, he explains, this is not necessary for healing. Peter, described by his wife Phyllis in Chapter 11, is dying of prostrate cancer at the time of writing. Metastases have invaded many parts of his body including his brain, so that he has unfortunate cognitive losses. And yet, he accepts his condition, severe pain and all. He is dying but healed.

But perhaps, if he could have become healed early enough, he might never have developed the cancer in the first place…

There is no one cause for cancer. Various chapters within this book explain the complex interactions between heredity, past environmental insults and current mental state that may lead to cancer, and can either have you succumb to it, or defeat it.

But it is important to ask: why has cancer been on the rise ever since the start of the Industrial Revolution? Why is the rate of increase itself increasing? I have gained immensely from reading classics on the subject like Epstein (1978) and Proctor (1995). Basically, industrial society is killing us, in particular through its focus on profit over any other consideration.

If you have had an encounter with cancer, either directly or indirectly, perhaps you will become motivated to do something to change the world that has become a deadly place for all life.

The book is organized into four parts: stories of hope, an examination of cancer as a phenomenon, personal stories, and how to fight back. As I said above, it is a tool. Use it for your benefit, the benefit of those you love, and perhaps for all humanity.

Bob Rich,

Wombat Hollow, 2005.

Part I: There is Hope

1. The Meaning of Life and Death

A fictional story by Bob Rich

The battles you have to fight on the Cancer Journey will be fought, not in the hospital ward, but inside your head.

Victor Smith

It's a bastard, facing a death sentence at nineteen.

My eyelids are a blessedly black barrier between me and the world. A light breeze is using the long grass to tickle my bare arms and legs. But most of me is in my ears, on the song of the creek. It's better to listen to the liquid symphony than to think about dying in three months. And hopefully, no-one will find me here.

I wish I could be a football hero or a karate black belt or something. I wish I was six feet tall. I wish I was anyone but myself. In particular, I wish I wasn't dying.

So, I listen to the burble of the water, and for minutes at a time my mind goes blank. I don't think I've slept, but the soft sound of a footstep jerks me out of the refuge of not-thinking, and when I open my eyes the sun is considerably further to the west.

Hi, Dale, Sheila says, Your Mom said you might be here.

She is nervous—her fair skin shows up a blush, and her hands are clenching into fists, then smoothing out. I've got to get rid of her. I just have to.

Sheila. What the hell are you doing here? I make my voice sound hostile.

Good, she looks hurt. Visiting you.

Well, I don't want you. I don't need pity. Piss off. I determinedly squeeze my eyes shut.

It's not pity, Dale. It's…

Let me be. Go away. I keep my eyes shut, my body is a board of wood, and with the tension even the morphine can't mask the pain.

She gives a little sob and walks off. Good. I manage to relax my body a little, but cry inside. If only…

I can't get back to peace. The creek's chatter is now a mocking laughter. After awhile I struggle to my feet and go inside.

Mom's at her computer but spins her chair to face me. Her black eyes have a dangerous glitter and her mouth is a tense line. That girl went away crying, she tells me.

I didn't ask her to come.

There's no need to be rude to people!

Sometimes there is. I keep walking.

Dale. Hold up. Who is she?

I face her. Bitterly I say, The perfect woman. You've seen her. Gorgeous. She topped first year Maths, that's where I met her. She plays the violin like an angel. And if she calls, tell her I'm out.

This time I make it through the door before the next question.

In the small hours of the night I wake from a dream of Sheila. As usual, she had her long corn-colored hair in a severe ponytail, but if anything that emphasized the beauty of her features, sculpted from a Viking's dream. She'd been crying just before I awoke, mouthing words I couldn't understand. Maybe she spoke Norse, who knows?

Eons ago, like before I had cancer, she and I were part of a group at University, not paired up or anything, but fun friends. I couldn't stand to have her pity me. More important, if she took me up as a ‘cause’, she'd certainly be even more devastated after my death. She's always been a caring person, and it'll hit her hard. Better to hurt her now, reduce the greater hurt later.

* * *

Wednesday, it's my weekly visit to the Hospital, and Dr Ezekiel Hunter, head oncologist. I used to be his major exhibit, but blotted my book with the relapse. Too bad, Doctor, too bad for me too.

Dr Hunter, now there's a real Nigger, not like me, a token black only. He's the Ace of Spades with curly cotton-wool hair and Satchmo lips. So, he's had to be the best all his life, to prove to the world that an African-American (let's be politically correct) can do it. Then I stuff up on him. I can feel it. ‘After all I've done for you, boy…’ Fuck you, Dr Hunter, I did it just to spite you, hey?

Vicky takes my obs while I'm waiting. We used to joke and carry on before the relapse, but I've stopped that. Can't be bothered. So now she does her jobs, scribbles it down and leaves. I've heard her tell another nurse that I've got a chip on the shoulder, developed an attitude problem. OK for her, she is not the one dying.

Dr Hunter still tries to chat with me as he refills the morphine pump. Him I can't shut up, but it's over in quarter of an hour, I can endure that.

I turn to leave. Dale… he rumbles.

Doctor Hunter?

Look son, you're not doing yourself any favors.

See you next week, Doctor.

Why should I listen to another lecture? That's all everyone wants to do. They all know how I should die. Fuck'em.

I'm so glad people can't read minds. I hate the whining shit I've become.

Mom drives us back to the farm—the Law won't let me drive because of the morphine—and on the way, for the millionth time, I brood about how to end it all. I mean, why should I force the family into bankruptcy, just so I can endure another three months of misery? Why not go now, so Mom won't have to spend eight, nine hours a day on her computer for Mr. Barton, and Dad won't have to be sixteen hours a day out in the orchard.

Trouble is, I'd prefer if my body wasn't found by the family. I want them to be able to sell my car afterward, so I can't just drive over a cliff or something. And the morphine pump is worth as much as the car, I don't want to wreck that.

As Mom whizzes along the highway, I close my eyes and imagine what it must be like, being dead. I think it's like when the creek's song lulls me. No thinking. No pain. No shame. No anger.

I want it.

But as we bump to the end of the drive, my heart plummets: Carol's red Range Rover is in front of the house, and the two kids are on the porch, waving madly, big grins on their brown little faces. I used to love being with them. But now…

Carol appears from the dark maw of the front door and strides over as I swing my legs out. Listen, baby brother, she whispers, smile or I'll kick your butt.

I don't feel like smiling. I start to stand.

A strong, brown, long-fingered hand grabs my wrist and she hauls me onto the driveway, takes me away from the house. She's still whispering, and this makes the anger even more impressive. Rachel and Cameron think you're wonderful. Today's a Curriculum day at their school, and when I asked what they wanted to do, it was ‘Visit Dale! Visit Dale!’ and I could do nothing to change their minds.

Carol, I'm not up to it.

Listen. OK, this monstrous thing may be killing you…

There's no maybe about it.

Shut your face. Say you die in a few months. How do you want Rachel and Cameron to remember you? As the wonderful uncle they used to have, or as a grumpy bag of misery? Think of someone other than yourself for a change!

That's not fair!

Life's not fair. C'mon, brother, make them happy for an hour, then I'll go.

So I paint a grin on my face, though it feels unnatural, and give them a hug and run my hands through their curls. We play a three-way game of Chinese checkers and I manage to allow Rachel to win. Then they pester me to make up a poem for them. I used to do that every time we were together, but my creativity has died already. I get out an old scrapbook, and read them a few:

R is for a thorny plant called the rose.

Though it prickles, it's one of those

people will pamper, and water, and prune.

The reason? Sweet flower, nice perfume.

Rachel tells me, very seriously, how lovely that is, so I read one specially for Cameron:

H just has to be for Horse,

a very useful friend of course,

who'll pull a cart, or let you ride,

and gives us manure on the side!

Naturally he shouts, Hey Dale, it comes out the end, not the side! and I laugh with them. Must be the first time I've laughed this month. So I give them a few more.

The story of bees has a sting in the tail.

Did you know, all useful bees are female?

The gentleman bees, well, just hang around

until a queen flies above the ground.

Then one of them mates, and all the boys die—

I'd rather be human, and that's not a lie!

(Rachel cheers at that)

Garlic has a pungent smell

(keeps people away very well!)

It is used by many races

in cities and outlying places

to keep the dreaded ‘flu away

by eating just one clove a day.

And for hours after they've gone, I find myself smiling, and the world is a good place, and there's no pain.

But at dinner time, Dad looks so exhausted that I feel a stab of guilt. I used to help him after school, and he used to hire more casuals than now. Why? The money is needed to pay my medical debts, and for the palliative care.

Misery crashes about me again, and I need a pill to get to sleep.

* * *

It's pouring outside. The window is a flat waterfall, and the rain on the roof has the sound of a stampede. Good: Dad can save a few bucks on the pumping. This's a good time of the year for rain. But it keeps me inside.

So, I am at my second best place, getting lost in the internet. I'm at a science fiction site, reading this great fantasy story when the ICQ starts to carry on. It's Nigel.

Hey Dale, where you been pal? Haven't seen you in WEEKS!

I don't feel like company.

Dale, I'm not company, I'm your best friend.

Well, you better get used to finding a new one, I won't be around for much longer.

I'm here for you, I wish you'd let me come over.

No.

Dale, I was going to ring you anyway. I want you to come to my birthday.

You REALLY don't want me at your party. Not if you want people to have fun. And I certainly don't want to come.

It's not a party, buddy, just a few friends.

No.

Dale, it may be my last chance to have some fun with you. Saturday night 9 o'clock at my place.

You know I'm not allowed to drive.

I'll send someone to pick you up.

I can always refuse to get into the car. But I remember what good medicine my niece and nephew had been. Maybe I should go.

On Saturday night he comes himself, and I go after all. Just tell me if you get tired, he says. You can have a lie-down in my room, or someone can drop you home."

"OK. Oh, who's coming?

Jane of course,—that's his girlfriend—Mike and Giselle, and Sheila. That's all. Not a party. All old friends.

Just one thing, Nigel.

Yeah?

If anyone preaches at me, or makes a fuss, I walk out.

He doesn't answer.

The others are there already, and they're good at pretending. I no longer have the slightest interest in the travails of a student, like deadlines for assignments and boring professors, nor in baseball or football, but listening to their conversation, shouted over the music, does take me out of myself. Mike is great at telling jokes and actually manages to make me laugh, though I'd seen them all in the emails that whiz around the world. They didn't make me laugh when I'd read