GK was a 70-year-old lady. In May 2000 she had vaginal bleeding. The doctor’s examination showed a large cauliflower growth involving the anterior lip of the cervix and also the vault at the vagina. A biopsy of the cervical growth was done and confirmed a moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix, Stage 2A.

GK was asked to undergo radiotherapy. She declined. She started to change her diet. She came to seek our help on 10 August 2001, and presented with the following:

• Pains in the back when walking.
• Unable to sleep.
• Constipation and sometimes with blood.
• Watery discharge.

She was started on herbs – Capsule A, Utero-ovary, Cervical and C-teas. After a week on the herbs she reported some improvements. There was less blood in her stools. She slept better. She was more energetic. She was not constipated anymore. She felt hungry most of the time. She sweat  a lot.

After another week on the herbs, there were more improvements. She could sleep well. She had good appetite, more energy and there was no more sweating. The discharge was much less.

She was on the road to recovery. And over the years she had no more pains No more blood in her stools and no more discharge. After this we did not get to see much of GK anymore.

In early 2005, her son came and told us GK had problems – the cancer had recurred.

Watch the video clips above – they were recorded on 9 November 2001, 6 September 2002 – when GK was doing so well. Then on 9 January 2005 and 3 February 2005 her son told us about his mother’s misadventure.

• Sometime in November 2004, GK had the responsibility of taking care of her grandchild. This caused a lot of stress and gave her a lot of problems. She started to have headaches due to lack of sleep. She lost her appetite. She started to let go of her herbs. Then she went back to her previous “bad” diet and started to eat meat, etc.
• In January 2005 – i.e., about two months after her “misbehavior,” she started to have bleeding again. She had difficulty or could not urinate and move her bowels.
• Things got worse. She had vaginal discharge every hour and her pampers had to be changed often.
• She started to take the herbs again – but that was a half-hearted effort. She used only 4 tablespoon instead of the usual six.
• We lost contact with the patient and her son after this. We suspected she must have died some months later.

Comments

GK had survived about five years after her diagnosis. She did not die like the other patients who had the same type and stage of cancer who died sooner after undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Every cancer story invariably end sadly. We come to learn that with cancer we can only loose, never win (depending on how you look at it). But in this case, I felt it was rather a sad and tragic ending. There was a choice – an early demise could have been avoided. Take away the stress of being the “nanny” to the grandchildren and sticking onto the path that she had been travelling over the past four years – GK could have lived longer.

In our Oriental culture, parents like to have many children. This is because they hope that one day when they grow old their children will be able to take care of them. This is true with the “old” Chinese custom. Today, the trend is reversed. The children are busy earning money, so they “make use” of their parents to run errand for them – take the kids to school, baby sit the children, clean the house, etc. This is understandable since each of us has to earn to make a living. But it is a little “incomprehensible” if one has to exchange a mother’s life for “convenience”. There could be a better arrangement than that.

The good side of this story is that GK did not have to suffer even if she had cancer. And she managed to live for about five years in spite of not following what the doctor wanted her to do. Just imagine what could have happened if she were to undergo radiotherapy as suggested.  Read what happened to patients who had chemotherapy and /or radiotherapy for this kind of cancer. They suffered and some of them died sooner.