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.
CANCER STORY 