Cancer E-Book

Oleg I. Reznik

• Herausgeber: Modern History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Serie: World Voices
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 412

Beschreibung

Cancer: A Personal Challenge by Bob Rich, PhD 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.
Contributors: Andrea Oz, Paul Bedson, Siegfried Gutbrod, Steve Hawley, David Hooper, Phyllis Phucas, Oleg Reznik M.D., Bob Rich, Yvonne Rowan, Victor Smith, Carl Stonier, and Cheryl Wright.
"As a lay-person and one who has seen family and friends rage against cancer, one of the most fascinating parts of this book are the first-person stories from those who are 'bloody-minded' enough to refuse to give in. Their courageous accounts allow us inside the mind of those ordinary people whose lives have been turned upside down, and paint a picture far more complex than the media's single-dimensional image of 'cancer victim.' On the contrary, their poignant stories are ones of hope, strength and faith in becoming a survivor and treating cancer not as a death sentence, but as a challenge along life's trail-or transition along a path of ultimate perfection". --Brandon Wilson, Lowell Thomas Award-winning author
Oleg I. Reznik, M.D. is the author of Secrets of Medical Decision Making: How to Avoid Becoming a Victim of the Health Care Machine
Bob Rich, PhD writes in several genres: historical fiction, contemporary, science fiction, psychology, and practical self-help. He is also a professional editor, a counselling psychologist, and several other things that are none of your business. Two other books by Bob Rich have won international awards.

Leseprobe

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

[phone]

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 ProgressVictor Smith

3.    My Cancer 101David Hooper

4.    With PurposeYvonne Rowan

Part II: The Facts

5.    For The Ones Facing the DragonOleg Reznik

6.    PsychoneuroimmunologyBob Rich

7.    A Holistic Understanding of Cancer from an Anthroposophical PerspectiveSiegfried Gutbrod

8.    Other Factors In The Development Of CancerCarl Stonier

Part III: Living With It

9.    “I can't go on, I'll go on”Steve Hawley

10.    Surviving CancerVictor Smith

11.    The Overwhelming TruthPhyllis Phucas

12.    How Do I Live Without You?Cheryl Wright

13.    Chinese BirthdayBob Rich

To a Grieving HusbandBob Rich

Part IV: Tools For Fighting Back

14.    A Little Girl With WrinklesCarl Stonier

15.    The Psychological Management of PainBob Rich

16.    Meditation for Health and HealingPaul 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 them, though.

So the night passes and to my surprise I find I've enjoyed myself.

When it's time to go home, somehow Sheila is the one ushering me into her car.

We drive in silence for a while, then she says “You were human tonight.”

“Don't start.”

“Dale, why won't you let your friends help you?”

“Because you can't. Get it into your head, I'm dying. I want to separate from all of you now, so it'll hurt you less later. OK?” This slips out before I've thought about it. I've never told anyone else.

She pulls over, switches off engine and lights, then turns to me. A distant streetlight glints off her eyes, and from something below them. A tear. She is crying. “Dale,” she manages after a long moment, “that's so crazy it's wonderful. I… I thought you disliked me.”

“Nothing personal Shelia. I dislike the whole bloody world.” We both laugh.

“Look, this business about a death sentence, dying in three months and…”

“Three months less a week.”

“I'm telling you, it's not like that! For all we know I could die before you, get shot in a bank holdup or have a meteorite fall on my head or catch a bug at work.” She is putting herself through University by working as a part time nurse's aide at the Hospital. “And the three months for you is only an estimate. Something fatal could happen inside you tomorrow, or not for years. There is no bloody timetable!”

“Didn't know you were a cancer expert. Why not go for Dr Hunter's job instead of carrying bedpans?”

“You're impossible. I don't know why I bother. Listen buddy, remember the other day when I came to visit and you sent me off?”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to tell you something wonderful I learnt that day in Psych. You know that each Monday we get a talk from a Graduate student. Well, the last one was this girl, Jackie something. She's doing her Ph. D. in psychoneuroimmunology…”

“Talk English, would you? That means nothing to me. Even when I was a student, I was in Agriculture.”

“OK, OK, let me just tell you about her work. She is studying miraculous cures from cancer.”

“I sure ain't one of them!”

“No but you're the most aggravating fellow to talk to. So far, she's studied five people who were in your position, having incurable cancer, on palliative care. Only, these people recovered despite the medical predictions. I was so excited I had a chat to her after her talk, then cut a couple of classes to come and tell you.”

“And then I sent you packing.” I feel like shit.

“You did, you bastard.” She is smiling, dim light glinting on white teeth. “But anyway, there's something else for you to think of. Are you having fun, being a miserable sod?”

“Should I be having fun, on death row?”

“Dale, Jackie quoted one of her cases. He'd said, ‘Every person is living under a death sentence, from conception onwards. When I was given a time limit, when I believed that I was going to die in six months, I decided to make them the best six months of my life. And I think that's why the cancer left me.’ And Dale, that's word for word what she'd quoted.”

I know for a fact that Sheila has a fantastic memory.

“So?”

“So what I came for that day was to try and start you on that road. To say that, even if you do die in three months’ time, make them three GREAT months, don't waste whatever time you have left on resentment and anger and whatever else has been eating at your soul.”

I feel like crying. I feel like leaning over and giving her a kiss. But I must make her understand. “Sheila, dear Sheila, the whatever else is shame and disgust. I don't want to live another ten or thirty or fifty years in the body that's left to me.”

I can't go on, and we sit there for a while, then she asks without words, “Hmm?”

“You do know where my cancer started?”

“Bowel?”

“Yeah. They've cut it out. When I shit, it goes into a plastic bag attached to my abdomen.” I have to shudder, like I do every time I even think of it. “It stinks when I empty it. Can you imagine having sex with a guy whose asshole is between the two of you?”

I have to cover my face with my hands. She says, “I often help people deal with colostomy bags at work. It doesn't bother me.”

“Well, it bothers the hell out of me! And something else. I've had so much radiation therapy down there that if I should ever have children, chances are they'd be poor malformed mutants.”

“Dale, I'm not offering to marry you. Well, not at this stage anyway.” She laughs, lightly, and despite myself I have to laugh with her.

“But that's what I mean. Survival is not that attractive.”

“Dale, according to Jackie, that may be why you had the relapse. You felt disgusted with yourself and ashamed, and these feelings dragged your immune system down so that the cancer came back. And your depression since is why the metastases have been overwhelming you. You're killing yourself with your emotions.”

“Mumbo-jumbo.”

“No it isn't. That's what psychoneuroimmunology is about. Jackie described a physiological mechanism linking emotions and the immune system. You've got it working against you. Her five cases have it working for them. You can change. And… and the change you need is to accept that yes, you'll probably die, but to live life joyously to the full in the meantime. To get out of yourself, and start to do things for others. Come back to University and study as if you were going to live forever. Plant trees. Have fun.”

“You haven't heard me. I don't want to live forever. I don't even want to live until tomorrow.”

“Because you have a colostomy and can't have children?”

“Yeah, that, and rapidly growing lumps all over the place. Will your Jackie-magic shrink them when chemo couldn't?

“Yes. If you give it a chance. It mightn't. But it's your best bet. And like I said, suppose the cancer does kill you. You might as well have the best possible life until then. You're wasting the rest of your life in making yourself miserable, and in the process you're making those who love you miserable too.” Even in the dim light, I can see her face look surprised, like she's given herself away.

So, I can't help it. I lean over and kiss her. Her lips are soft and moist and warm. She sucks in my lower lip and her arms pull me close.

Eventually I manage to separate from her. “This is what I wanted to avoid,” I mutter. Now you'll be devastated when…”

“Dale, I am an adult. You don't need to make decisions on my behalf. I'd rather have two weeks of heaven and then a year of grieving than live in a desert.” She fires up the car and takes me home, both of us silent.

Predictably, I have a nightmare. It starts great: once more Sheila is kissing me, this time in my bedroom. It's so real that I can feel her, smell her, taste her. Then she spins away from me and slowly undresses. I've never seen her naked, but we've gone swimming together. Perhaps that's why, in the dream, when she removes her T-shirt and kicks off her jeans, she is wearing her red bikini. I can see the nipples push against the shiny material as she slowly approaches. She unbuttons my shirt. I want to say ‘no’, I want to take hold of her hands and stop her, but I am a frozen statue. She pulls the shirt off me, undoes my belt and still I can say nothing, do nothing. She unzips my jeans and they fall to my feet. A terrible stench arises, like when I empty the bag. Her eyes are on the plastic bag full of shit that hangs off me. Her face is screwed up in disgust. She runs toward the door, screaming, and I wake up.

The screaming is a siren—police or ambulance—in the distance.

I wake again after ten o'clock, to a silent house. Mom and Dad have gone to church, and to my surprise I feel disappointed that I've slept in. I haven't been to church since the relapse, guess I've been angry at God. But now I wish I'd gone.

I remember Sheila saying I should do something for others, and wasn't that the thing that helped when Rachel and Cameron were here? Mom has stacked the breakfast dishes neatly in the sink, so I run hot water, make foam and start to wash up. Maybe…

I'm not half finished when an incredible pain stabs my back. The morphine might as well not be there. Somehow I manage to take a couple of Panedeine Forte and stumble to bed. It's all bullshit after all, I know it's wishful thinking, I shouldn't have allowed myself to hope. I've had attacks like that before: it's when a growing tumor pushes on a nerve for the first time.

A growing tumor means that the death sentence is still valid.

It's not fair. Why couldn't it have been true?

I take no notice of car sounds, the mutter of speech penetrating through the door, the ringing of the phone. I am back in my black hole, and nothing matters.

The door opens, Mom with a steaming cup and a plate. “You've taken bad?” she asks.

I manage to sit up. The pain has receded, it's just background now. She places a cup of coffee and a couple of sandwiches on the bedside table. “I've got a pain in a new place,” I admit, though I usually keep quiet, not liking to worry her.

“Eat this, then have a wash. You're getting visitors.”

“I don't want to see anyone.”

“I've already invited them. It's your lovely friend Sheila with a couple of people she wants you to meet. And you be polite, hear?”

Swearing doesn't change the situation. I do as I'm told, and am ready by the time Sheila's red Toyota pulls up. She and two other women get out. I don't want this.

They come in. Mom must have told them, because Sheila is chewing on her lip, face a question mark. The brown-haired girl behind her seems hardly older than me, and walks with a crutch. Her left leg moves in an unnatural way, but there is a friendly smile on her homely face. A woman in her thirties is last. Unlike the other two who are in jeans, she wears a neat skirt and top.

Sheila points to the girl with the crutch. “Dale, meet Jackie Weiss. She's the Ph. D. student I told you about. And this lady is Martha Mercuri. Ladies, this is my friend Dale Seddon.”

I politely mumble, but Jackie speaks over me. “Dale, I've got bone cancer, that's why I walk on a tin leg. But I've been in remission for over three years, and I don't plan on going back.”

“Sheila didn't say anything about you having cancer, only that you were studying it.”

“I didn't know,” Sheila answers. “I knew about the artificial leg of course, but thought that might have been a car accident.”

Martha Mercuri comes forward. “You'd better be worth it, young man,” she says in a pleasantly low voice. “I'm in the middle of planning my wedding, cannot really spare the time—but anything for Jackie. I started with stomach cancer. They took that out, but there was a secondary in the lower bowel too. Look.” She pulls up her top until I can see the bottom of her bras. A capped little tube dangles from her stomach, and below it is a colostomy bag, just like mine.

“Well, thank you for coming, ladies.” I can hear the sarcasm in my voice, but don't care. “As a matter of scientific curiosity, could you bring along a few people who failed with the magic?”

Jackie answers me. “You're right, Dale, there are no guarantees. And actually there's no magic. I learned about psychoneuroimmunology, and devised a method that worked for me. Then I went looking for other apparently miraculous cures. Each of the other four had a different method, but the essence was the same. And there are books published on the subject. One man teaches a course to people who have been diagnosed as having terminal cancer. He wrote that maybe ten percent of his students are able to make the necessary changes in thinking and feeling. Of these, eighty percent still eventually die of their cancer. But, and listen good, all his students feel their money well spent, all of them benefit, even the ones who can't master his method. They live better lives until they die.”

“So, the chances are two out of a hundred?”

Martha cuts in, “You weren't listening. A hundred out of a hundred benefit. Also, a hundred out of a hundred die, sooner or later, from one cause or another. Ninety-eight out of a hundred die of their cancer, but that barely matters.”

“Well, I thought I had improved, thanks to Sheila. But this morning, a new lump in me made itself known. I'm still galloping toward death. And I still think, the sooner the better.”

“Dale,” Jackie says gently, “it's not like throwing a switch. It's a race between your immune system and the cancer. You've been handicapping your immune system and so the cancer's got ahead. Now you need to feed and cherish your white blood cells and antibodies and things. There are many tools you can use. I've brought you a stack of books, and also web site addresses. Give it a try—for Sheila's sake.”

What can I do? I thank them, accept the pile of books and papers, promise to do my best. But I can see their disappointment as they leave. Did they expect me to light up like a neon sign?

* * *

Monday. Reading does fill the time, and I get sucked in. Before I realize, it's half past four, and Sheila turns up. She looks delighted at the mess of books surrounding me. I'm well into the one by the Dalai Lama.

“C'mon, you've worked enough. We're going out.”

“I…”

“Get ready. You've got half an hour.” She walks out the door. Bossy women!

We grab takeaway hamburgers and soft drink—she's driving, I can't have alcohol because of the morphine—then she takes me to the movies. This theater shows vintage movies on Mondays. We watch Peter Sellers in ‘Dr Fu Manchu’. I laugh so much it hurts in a dozen places, but I don't care. Sheila snuggles against me in the dark and I put an arm around her shoulders. She takes my hand and places it onto her breast. I stiffen. Old habits say I must not let her get too close, but she nibbles on my ear and whispers, “Nothing exists but now.”

Afterward, she drives me home. The house is dark, Mom and Dad are in bed. She comes into my room with me, then is in my arms, mouth on mouth, heart on heart. When we separate for air she whispers, “I brought some condoms, but Dale, be gentle, I'm a virgin.”

I pull away. “But…”

“But nothing. I want you.”

She acts as if my horrible colostomy bag didn't exist.

I've been brought up a Christian: sex is for marriage, but such ecstasy can't be wrong.

I wake in the morning to see Sheila dressed, at my computer. “Come and look at this, love,” she calls.

She's at one of the sites from Jackie's list: anxietyanddepression-help.com. I put on a T-shirt to hide the bag, then look over her shoulder. There is a poem:

I know the thought is quite absurd,

but it'd be fun to be a bird.

To soar above the treetops high

and fly under a pale blue sky.

Birds are people of little brain

and that's a great plus—let me explain:

Troubles and sorrows to not last

but soon become the distant past.

The joys of NOW fill all the world—

it's quite clever, being a bird.

Come to think, you don't need wings

to get such a good view on things.

“That's what Jackie was talking about?”

“Exactly that, Dale. When you feel the horrible negativity creeping back, just say this poem to yourself.”

After she's gone, I phone the Bursar at the University. Yes, I can apply to complete last year's subjects at the end of this year. The cancer had struck me just before the exams.

And on Wednesday, I surprise Vicky by reciting the bird poem to her.

I don't know if I'll die in three months less two weeks, but it hardly matters. For now, I am happy.

2. A Pilgrim's Progress

by Victor Smith

As this book shows, there is a lot that each individual can do to support the healing process by mobilizing their inner healing resources.

Siegfried Gutbrod

So you've got cancer. You've become one of the cruel statistics we read about daily, now you have a personal interest. No longer are all the numbers solely in your newspaper, there's one in your lounge, your kitchen and even your bed. It's you!

Diagnosis is always a shock, you'll probably never have a greater one. Take a deep breath. Like me, you may have traveled the world, but now you are at the beginning of the most important journey of your life. Cancer is a lottery. With one set of numbers you get it. With another set you beat it.

Throughout your journey there will be many variables, doctors, treatment, hospitals, advice and information. Mostly they're out of your control. However, there are some constants, mainly yourself and the fellow patients you will meet. Make the most of both.

Your first instinct might be to retire to your home and close the door. That's the natural instinct of the wounded animal. Don't. Withdrawal could be your first mistake, possibly your final one too. There is a lot more to life than four walls and a television set.

Frustration and anger may be very familiar attendants in the early stages of your Cancer Journey and will probably never leave you. Whatever your immediate personal problem is, always remember that you are not the first. Others have successfully dealt with the same difficulty before you. You are not unique, neither are you alone. Find the solution.

Your consultant and his staff, your G.P. together with Social services [Victor is writing in Britain] will have most of the answers you need to get by. But remember, they probably haven't had the disease, they haven't experienced the surgery and they don't know how you feel. By no means do they have all the answers.

To understand the Cancer Journey, one has to make the pilgrimage!

Your local cancer support groups will supply most of the remaining answers from their personal experiences. Find out where they are and establish contact. They may prove to be a lifeline, literally.

It pays to collect all the written information you can from every source. It's amazing how all the snippets of information will, in a short time, help you to reshape your new lifestyle.

You may be lucky(?) and able to continue working. Possibly, retirement will come early, you'll enter the world of Disability Allowances and premature pensions [Again, Victor is fortunate to be in Britain with its social services. Find out what is available where you live.] If that is the case, knock on the door of Aladdin's Cave and shout ‘Open Sesame!’ Now you have ‘time’. Time to tackle all the things that working for a living kept you from. I don't mean painting the house or re-hanging the garden gate, admirable intentions though they may be. I mean the things that you never got around to since leaving school and fell into the ‘work ethic’.

Your secret ambitions. Perhaps you've always wanted to write a biological thesis on the sex life of the Bridgewater cider cockroach?

You may think you can paint sunflowers better than Van Gogh? Perhaps you can, he sold only one painting while he was alive. I've done that, and my name is Smith.

Nobody has yet bred a red budgerigar or grown a black tulip. Why not give it a try? There's no law that forbids you sailing in the Whitbread or running a marathon!

There is the matter of ‘prognosis’. Still, that's only the medical term for a calculated guess as to what will happen in the future. Be optimistic. Take the long term view.

You may feel that living ‘day by day’ is the logical route to follow. Thinking you may have one or perhaps a couple of years of survival left is not the best option you have. Choose a target by all means, but don't make it next week or next month. I've survived almost nineteen years now, and as a cricketer I'd like to make it to a hundred, and get there slowly, in style and with a few boundaries. After all I shook hands with the Don before the War. I want to enjoy this new Millennium.

If you are reading this as a new patient, please don't make my mistake. I wasted a whole decade living my life in small steps. Had I followed my instinct all those years ago, my life would have been very different. When I had to retire on the orders of Her Majesty, I wanted to join the Open University and read for a degree, but decided that I didn't have sufficient years left to complete the course. With the benefit of hindsight I would probably be adding M.A. to my name today, always assuming that the little gray cells had been equal to the challenge of course.

The little gray cells—that's often where the battle against cancer is won or lost. I'm certain that they play a large part in the fight to overcome those other cells in our bodies that have passed their ‘use by date’ or are misbehaving in some other way.

Twenty years ago, our perception was that life ended with the diagnosis of cancer. We know today that this is not so, but, sadly, attitudes and beliefs relating to health only fade slowly. It is my experience that most cancer patients fall into one of three categories:

(1) Those who adhere to the pre-1970 philosophy, who turn their faces to the wall and give up.

(2) Patients who accept it as the will of God, and go with the flow.

(3) The patients who both mentally and physically fight.

The most important step on the road to recovery on this Cancer Journey has to be a Positive Mental Attitude (the same attitude that turns some salesmen into millionaires). Make up your mind that you can beat it, and you will. Add to this outlook the support from family and friends, Doctors and Support Groups, and you will win.

Anxiety is a common problem in various forms, usually linked to the new and unknown treatments and to the eternal waiting for test results. Some waiting is inevitable, but it can be made easier. Talk to your Doctors, make them aware of your fears. Make them explain again, or in greater detail, what it is that makes you anxious. If the Doctor is also your surgeon, he owes you his time. After all, you trust him when he is standing over you with a knife in his hand.

Looking back over the years, I would unequivocally advise any cancer patient who does not have a hundred percent trust and faith in his or her Consultant to get another one. By fair means or foul, change to someone who will inspire your belief in his and in yourself.

Many of the battles you have to fight on the Cancer Journey will be fought, not in the hospital ward, but inside your head. A Consultant in whom you have complete faith becomes a valuable comrade in arms at these times.

At the start of your journey, you may lose some friends. Once you mention the dreaded word ‘cancer’, some people automatically step back a yard or two. They're afraid of the word. It must be remembered that it is a word, not a sentence.

Two erstwhile friends who abandoned me years ago recently died of heart attacks. It's a great comfort to me to have outlived them.

Finally, as Sir Kenneth Calman once said, “Health is not about specific illness, but about Quality of life, spiritual life, emotional and psychological life.”

It's feeling good about yourself.

Your journey may be hard. Always be positive, always fight. I hope your pilgrimage will bring success, recovery and happiness.

Pax vobiscum.