Month: July 2023

Cancer – What to do now?

  1. Empower yourself.Knowledge is power goes a saying and I truly believe this is true. So, I advise you to read and ask questions. Seek knowledge so that you understand your illness. Research has shown that those who feel hopeless, helpless and accept their fate lying down survive poorly. I tell cancer patients to stand up and live! Do not just be contented to remain at the bottom of the pile with the following mentality: My doctor says this and my doctor says that. You will end up following everything that he says. I am not asking you to defy your doctor’s instructions but I also know that you may be led by the nose without having a clue about what is going on. It may not always be good for you.
  • Re-evaluate your strategy.In my books, I have written about gut feelings and common sense. Body-mind healers advocate the use of intuition or the 6th sense when making important decisions in life. I have come to realise that not all decisions made based on scientific data are wise or correct in many of life’s situations. Statistics and data can be deceptive, cold, dead and insensitive to human feelings. I advocate the use of simple common sense. For example, ask yourself if the treatment that you are undergoing is bringing you anywhere. Is it benefiting you or killing you?

Of course, when you go for any invasive treatment, your hope is to achieve a cure. Ask your doctor if there is such a thing as a cure for your condition. Some patients are given chemotherapy just for palliative reasons, not cure. The treatment is supposed to make your life better or more bearable. Re-evaluate that strategy and determine if that is what you want.

Dr. Jeffry Tobias (in Cancer) wrote:

  • …one important decision …. when to say no more.

Indeed, it is wise to know when to withdraw and to say enough is enough, if and when the treatment is spinning you in a circle.

There was one lung cancer patient who came and told me that his oncologist spent only half a minute with him every time he went for his chemotherapy. My advice to him was: Find another oncologist who can be more caring and who could give you more of his time and expertise. How much can a half-a-minute doctor help you? Can you expect such a busy-and-no-time doctor to save your life? Evaluate my comments and make your own decisions about all these issues. Sometimes what it takes is only common sense to save your life.

  • Make wise decisions.Gurdjieff said:

· The wise man is not educated and the educated man is not wise.

Yes, you don’t need to be educated to be wise. To enable you to make wise decisions, you need to be aware of the following:

· Do not make decisions based on or out of fear.

· If possible, before you make any important decision, seek more information, from different sources and viewpoints.

· Weigh out the options, both pros and cons. Do not simply see the good side of things only. Take into account the worst possible scenario as well.

· Connect with your Inner Self. Seek out your intuition, common sense or gut feelings. Take time to be alone, to be silent. Relax and let the Inner Voice within you speak to you. If you are too busy or preoccupied with other things, you cannot hear your own Inner Voice.

· Arrive at a decision that you can live with. It is your body – it is your liver or your breast that is to be cut off. Ask yourself if you can live with that decision. It is your life that is at stake. Doctors and other people can only help but you are the one who suffers the brunt of whatever is done to you.

· Once a decision is made, stay on course. Then, re-evaluate your strategy if it harms you.

  • Trust and flow – easy does it!  Dr. Joseph Murphy (in The Power of Your Subconscious Mind) said:
  • According to your belief, it is done unto you.

The causes of failures in healing are mental coercion, lack of confidence, doubt and hesitation. All these reflect negative attitudes. If you come with the main goal of going all out for cure, chances are that you will fail to get one. In your intense desire to cure yourself, you can become very tense and may not have peace of mind. Have you ever experienced a time when you are trying very hard to crack and solve a problem? Your mind comes to a dead end.

Try to take it easy. Relax and go to sleep. When you wake up the next morning, things will look easier and you will get to solve your problem in no time. This is because the subconscious mind does not respond to mental coercion.

You do not have to teach your body how to heal itself. It is intelligent enough and wise enough to know how to heal itself. Relax and let the body do its job without your unnecessary interference. Ask and pray for good health and you get just that. Again, I say, take it easy.

  • Forgive and let go.Negative thoughts such as hurtful memories, bitterness, hatred, anger, etc., beget negative reactions and they block the free flow of life. Let your life be expressed in terms of love, forgiveness, sharing, caring, harmony, peace, beauty and abundance.

By loving and forgiving yourself and others you let go of your negative emotions and this is the first step and necessary ingredient of healing.

Medical Errors & Death by Medical Drugs

Just google this: Death by medical error in US. This is what you get.

  • Medical errors may account for as many as 251,000 deaths annually in the United States, making medical error the third leading cause of death.

This is the message to the world: Modern medicine kills a lot of patients due to human error! Visit this website, https://etactics.com/blog/medical-error-statistics. It says:

  • Medical errors – these are preventable adverse effects resulting from medical care rather than the patient’s condition. We’d like to think they don’t happen.
  • These issues aren’t new; the first major report on medical errors in the US is from over 2 decades ago. In 1999, To Err is Human from the Institution of Medicine estimated 98,000 deaths due to error. At the time, this would be the 6th leading cause of death in the country.
  • A study in 2010 found that this number had almost doubled to 180,000 deaths. And by 2013, the estimate ranged from 210,000 to 440,000 deaths per year. This landed medical errors as the 3rd leading cause of death trailing heart disease and cancer.

To understand the core of the problem, here is another article, Death by Prescription (https://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2016-09-27/the-danger-in-taking-prescribed-medications).

Light, professor of comparative health policy at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, New Jersey said:

  • About 2,460 people per week are estimated to die from drugs that were properly prescribed, and that’s based on detailed chart reviews of hospitalized patients.
  • The estimate, which didn’t include those who died as a result of prescribing errors, overdose and self-medication, would make taking properly prescribed drugs the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S.

Here are more examples for you to reflect on:

The Rise and Fall of Vioxx (https://www.npr.org/2007/11/10/5470430/timelinethe-rise-and-fall-of-vioxx)

  • FDA approved Vioxx in 1999 as a painkiller. It was being extensively used and prescribed to patients who needed it. Vioxx was later shown to be deadly, causing heart attacks and strokes.
  • November 2007: Merck announces it will pay $4.85 billion to end thousands of lawsuits over its painkiller Vioxx. The amount … is believed to be the largest drug settlement ever.

The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug poisoning deaths (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6450a3.htm).

  • From 2000 to 2014 nearly half a million persons in the United States have died from drug overdose.
  • Opioids, primarily prescription pain relievers and heroin, are the main drugs associated with overdose deaths.

You want a description of hell? Oxycontin’s 12-hour problem. (https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/).

  • Purdue developed OxyContin as a cure for pain.
  • To obtain FDA approval, Purdue had to demonstrate that OxyContin was safe and was as effective as other pain drugs on the market.
  • The FDA approved the application in 1995.
  • Many doctors began prescribing OxyContin. Doctors wrote 5.4 million prescriptions for the painkiller in 2014. OxyContin became America’s bestselling painkiller, and Purdue reaped $31 billion in revenue.
  • Rates of addiction and overdose soared alongside the rise in prescriptions.
  • The U.S. Justice Dept. launched a criminal investigation, and in 2007 the company and 3 top executives pleaded guilty to fraud for downplaying OxyContin’s risk of addiction. Purdue and the executives were ordered to pay $635 million.
  • The drug is widely blamed for setting off the nation’s prescription opioid epidemic, which has claimed more than 190,000 lives from overdoses involving OxyContin and other painkillers since 1999.

Many years ago, Vioxx was commonly prescribed to cancer patients. Now, this drug has disappeared from the market. What about OxyContin? That too is slowly going off the list although at times, I do know that some patients are still being prescribed with this drug.

But what came as a shock to me is Zantac, a commonly prescribed drug used to prevent and treat heartburn and other symptoms caused by too much acid in the stomach (acid indigestion). Many cancer patients suffer from this problem and they are given Zantac for the problem (even today as I am writing this article).

The chemical name of Zantac is ranitidine hydrochloride.

What is so shocking about Zantac?

Anna Edney, Susan Berfield and Jef Feeley wrote this article in Bloomberg.com on 15 February 2023

Zantac’s Maker Kept Quiet About Cancer Risks for 40 Years

(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-15/zantac-cancer-risk-data-was-kept-quiet-by-manufacturer-glaxo-for-40-years).

According to the authors, the British drug company Glaxo said that Zantac does not cause tumours. But the company’s own scientist and independent researchers said this commonly prescribed drug can cause cancer. This fact had been suppressed or kept away from the public for 40 years!

After reading the article I asked myself – It is for real? Or is it just another fake news?

The article went on to say:

  • This small British company was sometimes called Glaxo University. It conducted important pharmaceutical research that rarely resulted in profitable drugs. Then the scientists at Glaxo Laboratories created a molecule they called ranitidine
  • This drug is used to heal ulcers and also used to treat heartburn. They developed ranitidine quickly, and the US Food and Drug Administration reviewed it quickly. Glaxo gave it the brand name Zantac.
  • In 1978 the company was granted a US patent.
  • For years, Glaxo counted on Zantac for nearly half of its sales and almost as much of its profit. Zantac created reputations and fortunes.
  • In 2019 the drug was found to be tainted with high levels of a probable carcinogen called NDMA (N-Nitrosodimethylamine).
  • NDMA, is a yellow liquid that dissolves in water. It doesn’t have an odor or much of a taste. It was first linked to cancer in 1956 and is most toxic to the liver. The poison is created by ranitidine itself. In 2020 the FDA forced it off the market altogether.
  • From ranitidine’s beginning to its end, Glaxo had been warned by its own scientists and independent researchers about the potential danger.
  • Over the years, the company backed flawed research — designed to minimize concerns … Glaxo sold a drug that might harm people, tried to discount evidence of that and never gave anyone the slightest warning.
  • More than 70,000 people who took Zantac or generic versions of it are suing the company in US state courts for selling a potentially contaminated and dangerous drug.
  • Every public-health agency, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the FDA to the World Health Organization, says NDMA likely causes cancer in humans. But proving that a particular person’s cancerous cells were mutated by a company’s drug is complicated. Glaxo’s decisions suggest it never wanted to consider that possibility. The clues were there. The documents show that Glaxo preferred not to find them.

Learn to Live with Your Cancer

I cannot forget a man who came to our centre on behalf of his father who was in the ICU dying due to his lung cancer that had spread to his brain. The father was in a semi-conscious state – not being able to even open his eyes and mouth. He had received radiation to his head.

In a “heroic” voice his son told me he wanted to fight to the end!

To all patients and their family members, if that is what you want to do, that is okay! Be a hero if you like. From my experience no one wins when fighting a war against cancer! What do you expect to achieve by giving 5 shots of radiation to his head? It is better to learn how to face reality. If there is still a chance, learn how to live with your cancer.

Curing vs Healing

I have come to regard our work at CA Care as trying to healand teaching patients how to live with cancer. Some patients or their family members may disagree with our approach. That is okay with me.

A cure is a successful medical treatment that removes all evidences of the disease. A cure is what the doctors and patients want to achieve. For example: the liver is resected. The tumour is gone. But is that a cure? For a while it seems the cancer is cured. If you live more than 5 years, the doctors will say you are cured. But know the reality that the cancer can come back even after you have lived a normal life for some years. No one can tell or guarantee that the cancer will not recur. Often honest doctors use the word “remission”. It means the cancer symptoms have gone away.

Curing addresses the disease. Healing goes beyond curing. It is not about the absence of disease. Even when curing is not possible, there is an opportunity for healing.

Healing means different things to different people.

· Healing comes from deep inside an individual.

· Healing takes place at physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels.

· Healing is an inner process through which a person becomes whole.

· Healing can bring a transformation, resulting in a difference in the quality of life.

· Healing brings inner peace and a sense of connectedness with the Absolute or Higher Being.

· You can access healing regardless of internal or external circumstances.

· There are cancer patients for whom curative treatment ultimately proved impossible, yet inner-healing process takes place. When it happens even if there is pain, there is no suffering. 

Go for Healing!

We are aware that to help patients find healing for cancer is not an easy task. Since healing comes from within one’s own self, we can only help to point out the direction to healing as ultimately, it is the patients themselves who make the choice and efforts to achieve their goals.

In this world, we cannot choose when we die and how long we can live but we do have a choice of whether we want to be healthy or not. We can choose to live a peaceful life or a life full of worry, anxiety and uncertainty.

Most people who come to see us are generally desperate and lost. They do not know what else to do. Some of them have never had any experience with cancer before. So they are unsure of what to do: to go for surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Yet many others are told point blank that there is no more treatment available or there is nothing that can be done. In simple language it means to go home and wait to die. They receive a good supply of painkillers or morphine to tide them against the pains.

There are also the more experienced patients. They know what these treatments are about for they have gone through them all. Apparently, they have been well and thought that they have been fully cured. Then cancer strikes again. They come to seek other avenues of help. Whatever category you are in, I have the following advice for you: Go for healing!

·  Never say die and never give up. As long as you are still breathing, know that there is still hope even when you are told that you have no more hope. Hang on to your hope and believe that you still have hope.

Some people may accuse me of trying to give people false hope. It is cruel to raise false hopes. But on the other hand, some doctors tell you: You only have 3 to 6 months to live. There is no medicine, no cure. Just prepare to die. Some patients are told to enrol themselves with the palliative centre for further management (and you know the reason why!). Don’t you not think such insensitive comments or actions are even more cruel than raising false hopes?

I am fully aware that during distressed moments, cancer patients become very gullible and will grab at any straw that promises the slightest chance of hope for living. I have heard of vultures descending on your home, even in the middle of the night, offering magic potions with a promise of cure.

The mother of a boy who had cancer told me of one salesman who would call her 4 to 5 times a day to keep tab on how the son was doing. And each time the phone rang, it was with the advice to take more and more of the capsules he was selling. So the son ended up taking 60 capsules of the product a day, besides another dozen of other supplements. Use your discretion and be cautious.

From the point of view of science and medicine, hope and feelings do not count or exist. These attributes do not belong to the physical body for they do not show up on the X-ray film or CT/PET scan. Therefore, they are not supposed to exist. Yet, you and I know that there are things such as hope, love, feeling and inspiration. These are attributes of the soul and mind. They do exist and they matter – irrespective of what the medical world says.

I would say that there is no such thing as false hope. But there is such a thing as false hopelessness because no mortal on earth can play God. Only God decides who dies or when you die!

When the terminally ill patients come to me I used to tell them this:

·  Don’t worry. All of us have to die someday. It is a matter of when – tomorrow, next month or the next 10 years. But, let me tell you that you need not die yet just because you have terminal cancer. I am younger than you and do not have any cancer but I may even die earlier than you. So don’t worry so much. Death is not an issue here. What matters now and the future is that while you are still alive you do not have to suffer. Let us pray that we can help you lead a normal, pain-free life. When the time comes and you have to go home, let us pray that you die peacefully.

Petrea King of Quest for Life Foundation, Australiasaid:

·  Life is not a competition about how long we survive. It’s about the quality with which we live.

This is what Cancer Care Therapy is all about (discussed later). We see healing at various levels – physical, mental and spiritual. We may not be able to cure the physical body but we may be able to touch and heal the mind and the soul.