Many have asked me what's happening since I came back from Mexico. Instead of getting better, I seem to be getting worst. I can only guess this is what is happening to me. I do expect that my body to react differently than before even though I was already on the Gerson diet because I started taking the full supplements. I started taking new supplements which includes Colostrum, Milk Thistle, Inflazyme and the liver and thyroid injections. I believe my body is going through a phase of detoxification and healing. Another reader, Mona said that "The Healing Crisis" mentioned in Herings Law of Cure which states, "All cure comes from within out, from the head down and in reverse order as the symptoms have appeared in the body." Healing is also painful, so best not to get sick.
If I were to look back at my experience in the past, I believe I also went though a period of pain and difficulties which lasted for about three months. So this is not something new for me. When you have stage 4 cancer, you just try to do whatever you can to help your body. I am always looking for additional therapies to boost my immune system. So long as these therapies are complimentary to Gerson therapy, I am keen to explore. You may interprete it as an act of desperation but you will noticed that I have also been very selective of my other complimentary therapies.
I know of a stage 4 cancer patient who was on conventional medication for 1 year but the medication is now no longer effective. There are nothing much the oncologist can do. Just imagine the stress the patient is going through now. From the outside, sometimes it appears the things we are doing looks silly or desperate. But when you have no medications or therapy to hang on to, where do you draw your strength and hope?
One reader, Mona has offered to send me a bottle of Noni juice as a gift. I thought I would collect it from her personally so that I could thank her personally but I was pleasantly surprise to find out that she hails from North Carolina! I am touched by her gesture and the trouble she will have to take to sent the juice all the way from USA. I am indeed lucky.
Only you know honestly what is troubling you. No one said that journeying through Stage 4 cancer is easy. You seem to be dwelling on the technical and external part of the healing process wholly rather than being transparent about what keeps you awake at night. Is it reconciliation with your spouse? your family? Are you being selfish with what you moan about each day? Some of the sharings in your blog seems artificial and superficial, hiding yourself behing theories, concepts, formulas, etc; textbook stuff.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to fear opening up what is bothering you, troubling you. Because of this, you have lack of peace within you. If you read the blog of Liz, you will find her tone very different, transparent, bitter at times, none of those textbook stuff which you like to occupy your journal each day. Face it, you are not researching for a cure for cancer. Search as you may, it will be a lost cause.
I believe you need to share more of this with your family and not keep a lot of this in your own control. Being vulnerable is not one of your favored response. The more control you gain, the more you try to "cure" this yourself, the worst it seems to be getting.
Liz seem to be able to be thankful for everything, carry much more hope albeit feeling bitter at times. She is more open in her feelings and this is the difference. It has nothing to do with being a christian but as a buddhist, surely faith must form a bigger part of your healing process.
Many readers have blog along this tone and I trust that you dislike responding to such comments. You run away and hide behind new processes, etc.
We all do not know what holds for us tomorrow, neither will we know whether we will open our eyes after we shut them tonight. Is the fear of dying bothering you? It is ok to admit it as the important thing is to confront your fears and reconcile your differences.
Fear, stress, artificialness will provoke the cancer even more unless you can live a simple life of openness, honesty and tranparency. Let nothing bother you and you will soon be on your way to better living.
No one can guarantee anything but you can decide whether you want to love more for the remaining time you have or continue searching for that worldy cure. I believe you just need to continue doing what you have been doing from the start and polish it up with loving more so that a miracle can happen. Yes, you need a miracle just as you need God. Don't ever for a moment think that you can take control of your life; that itself is already preparing for your own funeral! Bottom line, because you have a lot of people caring for you, YOUR EGO IS KILLING YOU!
CT,
ReplyDeleteSome of the comments I read in your blog is sharp and piercing these days. The readers, I would like to think are concern about you and probably figure that they have to do something to get you up and running again. Yes, you are indeed very lucky but do you realise that?
Where to draw your strength and hope? Only you will know but let me share with you about someone very close I know whose newborn first child suffers from a disease called Muscular Dystrophy. There is absolutely no cure for this disorder of muscle weakness. The muscles will slowly waste away as the child grows until it kills the heart.
It saddens a parent to know that from day 1, the bundle of joy is already heading towards death. God knows when. But the people I know actually have begin to value each second more. Life has become more meaningful and their understanding of the situation is that God has given them opportunity to love more on what matters most. Because of this, what use to be some career rat race has now tone down to a more simple and joyful life. Not many parents live with this kind of bond to their own kids. Death may be the ultimate end but they do not allow death to dictate what happens each day. Their household is overflowing with love.
The reason I share this with you is for you to know that the baby does not even know what dying is all about. Just as their birth is merely an accident amongst the millions of fellow sperm swimmers, putting it in a humourous way. What the child will know is that life is beautiful and time is spent with loving parents. The memories will be sweet just as life is a miracle.
CT, be a child and allow yourself to be mothered. You need the love of your family, That will make you strong. Cancer is not something to battle with soldiers, instead cancer is to be embraced with love. Love can bring about miracles in many events and the fruits of love is healing.
You just take care and mind not the many readers that care for you because we are all the same, flesh and blood, part of the human race.
Wanna share a story with you.
ReplyDelete"There are three stages in one's spiritual development", said the Master. "The carnal, the spiritual and the divine".
"What is the carnal stage"? asked the eager disciples.
"That's the stage when trees are seen as trees and mountains as mountains".
"And the spiritual"?
"That's when one looks more deeply into things -- then trees are no longer trees and mountains no longer mountains".
"And the divine"?
"Ah, that's Enlightenment", said the Master with a chuckle, "when trees become trees again and mountains, mountains".
MORSEL:
How wonderful! How wonderful! All things are perfect Exactly as they are! -- Buddha
Regardless of your condition, you are perfect in your own sense. Therefore, live a life that is perfect.
Chang,
ReplyDeleteEarly morning, many comments from readers. I share a simple but meaningful morning reflection with you. Its a story of a pilgrim and a mystic.
"Where shall I look for Enlightenment"?
" Here".
" When will it happen"?
"It is happening right now".
"Then why don't I experience it"?
"Because you do not look".
"What should I look for"?
"Nothing, just look".
"At what"?
"Anything your eyes alight upon".
"Must I look in a special kind of way"?
"No. The ordinary way will do".
"But don't I always look the ordinary way"?
" No".
"Why ever not"?
"Because to look you must be here. You're mostly somewhere else".
Reflect:
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. -- Henri L. Bergson
Empty your mind Chang so that it can be filled with love.
Like the morning reflection from a reader. I remember a funny story told by my Vietnamese high school teacher. It goes something like this...
ReplyDelete"I am in desperate need of help - or I'll go crazy. We're living in a single room - my wife, my children and my in-laws. So our nerves are on edge, we yell and scream at one another. The room is a hell".
"Do you promise to do whatever I tell you"? said the Master gravely.
"I swear I shall do anything".
"Very well. How many animals do you have"?
"A cow, a goat and six chickens".
"Take them all into the room with you. Then come back after a week".
The disciple was appalled. But he had promised to obey! So he took the animals in. A week later he came back, a pitiable figure, moaning, "I'm a nervous wreck. The dirt! The stench! The noise! We're all on the verge of madness"! "Go back", said the Master, "and put the animals out".
The man ran all the way home. And came back the following day, his eyes sparkling with joy. "How sweet life is! The animals are out. The home is a Paradise, so quiet and clean and roomy"!
She quoted Abraham Lincoln - "Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be." Be happy as you have many love notes from your blog readers this evening. Try to be cheerful tomorrow.
God keep you happy!
Connecticut
When you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live.
ReplyDeleteUnderstand another illusion, too, that happiness is not the same as excitement, it's not the same as thrills. That's another illusion, that a thrill comes from living a desire fulfilled. Desire breeds anxiety and sooner or later it brings its hangover. When you've suffered sufficiently, then you are ready to see it. You're feeding yourself with thrills.
This is like feeding a racehorse with delicacies. You're giving it cakes and wine. You don't feed a racehorse like that. It's like feeding human beings with drugs. You don't fill your stomach with drugs. You need good, solid, nutritious food and drink. You need to understand all this for yourself.
Another illusion is that someone else can do this for you, that some savior or guru or teacher can do this for you. Not even the greatest guru in the world can take a single step for you. You've got to take it yourself. To repeat that lovely Arab saying "The nature of the rain is the same and yet it produces thorns in the marsh and flowers in the garden". It is you who have to do it. No one else can help you. It is you who have to digest your food, it is you who have to understand. No one else can understand for you. It is you who have to seek. Nobody can seek for you. And if what you seek is truth, then you must do this. You can lean on no one.
There is yet another illusion, that is it important to be respectable, to be loved and appreciated, to be important. Many say we have a natural urge to be loved and appreciated, to belong. That's false. Drop this illusion and you will find happiness. We have a natural urge to be free, a natural urge to love, but not to be loved. Sometimes in my psychotherapy sessions I encounter a very common problem - Nobody loves me; how, then, can I be happy? I explain to him or her "You mean you never have any moments when you forget you're not loved and you let go and are happy"? Of course they have.
A woman, for example, is absorbed in a movie. It's a comedy and she's roaring with laughter and in that blessed moment she's forgotten to remind herself that nobody loves her, nobody loves her, nobody loves her. She's happy! Then she comes out of the theater and her friend whom she saw the movie with goes off with a boyfriend, leaving the woman all alone. So she starts thinking, "All my friends have boyfriends and I have no one. I'm so unhappy. Nobody loves me"!
Another illusion is that external events have the power to hurt you, that other people have the power to hurt you. They don't. It's you who give this power to them.
That's what someone else thinks. That's how he experienced you at that moment. Are you in fact a genius? Are you a nut? Are you a mystic? Are you crazy? What does it really matter? Provided you continue to be aware, to live life from moment to moment. So why are you anxious? Can you, for all your anxieties, add a single moment to your life? Why bother about tomorrow? Is there a life after death? Will I survive after death? Why bother about tomorrow? Get into today. Someone said, "Life is something that happens to us while we're busy making other plans". That's pathetic. Live in the present moment. This is one of the things you will notice happening to you as you come awake. You find yourself living in the present, tasting every moment as you live it. Another fairly good sign is when you hear the symphony one note after the other without wanting to stop it.
AdM, Hong Kong
Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.
ReplyDeleteBuddha
Don't let others have to keep on fanning to keep your spark going. You must want to sustain the spark into a flame for your wife and family, and your mother.
CT,
ReplyDeleteIf you want to give up, then just get on with it. You have come this far and you just want to get into the lousy mood every other day. You have chosen to let everyone down. Don't self pity with the excuse that you have cancer and all that jazz. Wake up and make that change to live stronger, if you so choose to.
I am also tired of your tiredness. Don't cheat yourself, your family behind a whole load of excuses.
If I am too blatant with the comments, well, it was meant to be. I have read the other comments today and I can bet that you will turn a blind eye on all these and instead cook up something else tomorrow to hide behind and get sympathy.
You are a sad case, only because you want it so.
Agree with the above. CT, you are not a computer so stop behaving like one. Get over your emotions and salvage the will to live stronger.
ReplyDeleteDon't keep everything all pant up inside. No amount of medicine or juice will save you unless you wake up to the reality that you must want to stay alive for a million good reasons!!!
You are lucky that many of your readers have not given up on you like you do
Where are all these comments coming from?
ReplyDeleteThis must be a sign for you to turnaround, stop sulking, keep loving, keep living.
Mary
Mumbai
Dear CT,
ReplyDeleteI am so disappointed with some of the comments of these people.
Although they may be literate in many ways...they are primitive in that "they are very cold and unfeeling." "Anybody can have faith in a religion or the philosophy of sages; but the religion/sages won't save them...it's the taking of action on your own behalf that will truly benefit you. "They should walk in your shoes for awhile"..."then see if they are so cynically critical" "Never let them discourage you!"
I can't believe someone even implied, you were being selfish for not just accepting the cancer and embracing it..."bull crap;" "it is the enemy...fight...fight...fight!!!"
If these people want to embrace/accept the cancer and just lay down and die...don't let them take you with them!
I think of you as as a hero in the sense, you have been noble enough to allow people, (via this blog) to peer into your personal life;...that we may know the results of your research and experiences with the cancer and various alternative therapies. Your research may benefit us all someday.
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Every great achievement was once considered impossible." "The only failure which lacks dignity is the failure to try." "When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.' "
Wishing You Well,
Mona
In reply to readers like Mona, let me just share that I have seen enough within my family to know what self pride can do to you when battling with a terminal disease. I have grandparents who passed on due to diabetes, heart ailments, even tragic accident, uncles who have passed on due to cancer, kidney failure, relatives who are going through dialysis, an an uncle who successfully beaten colon cancer, an auntie who has tackled breast cancer. I myself suffer from mild hypertension. You may think that I come from a very sick clan. Well, my comments meant well. It may be direct but when you have terminal dis-ease, the last thing you want to do is to hide and pretend that all's well and you hope for some kind of cure by virtue of your own research.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, no one wants this and from the many experiences with loved ones, life must not fluctuate as the sicknedd dictates you. Its easy to be a reader of the blog and say positive things, read the so-called research, but I have also noticed comments are lacking, if any, they are mere general motivation. Does this actually motivate the person? It gets lonely to keep journalling daily as if talking to yourself. Life does not head towards the end with such sickness that you have to blog as if leaving your will for the rest of the world. The rest of the world wishes the person well and for the rest of the day, don't even carry a thought.
Lets not pretend, stay a distance and watch CT rot away. He is stronger than that and sometimes reality must be confronted to win the battle. Life must go on and the only way is by embraching the cancer. Embracing it does not mean giving up, it means living life and not let the cancer dictate your mood swings each day. You know the cancer is there and you live with it.
The world is not saying give up. The world is saying, keep moving on and let nothing stop you. Make the best out of the situation.
Spirituality is crucial as it gives one a calmness to accept. If one tries to do it alone by one's own efforts, then I must share that the departure is much more painful to all. This I have witness from the many relatives who have passed on.
I was sharing a trail left by many of my family members as I would like CT to live life to all its fullness and if meant to be, leave lasting memories to his loved ones.
Think enough has been said by all.
ReplyDeleteCT, if you feel lousy, try to watch this for inspiration. Like some people say "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet."
Maria Donadio's Fight against Muscular Dystrophy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imlMm78UqDA
CT,
ReplyDeleteI remember you liked the sounds of the ocean. This is the best I can do for you to find some peace. Enjoy this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWZAz9Qbzos
Dear All,
ReplyDeleteI think comments are what makes this blog interesting. Better than a man blogging and talking to himself day after day. At least we get to listen to what the readers think. Whether CT listens and take heed of the advice really depends on what he wants to do with his life.
I believe all the comments stem from care for him. And it is not necessary that comments have to be sweet all the time. People tend to think that frankness and truth is harsh and hurting. But is it really? Is it better to live in a veil of sweetness or is it better to say whatever is necessary to help a friend?
I appreciate the efforts and care of the readers. I hope CT realises how much he needs the love and support of others and how much it has helped him. And though he likes to think he is so independent, he isnt.
Christine
It's often been said that life's a journey, not a destination. It's not the destination that makes the journey worthwhile but the companions you meet along the way; people who will walk with you, accompany you and perhaps carry you when you are burdened. In reality, we do make a difference to each other on this pilgrimage through life. . . or at least we should.
ReplyDeleteChristine and the rest of the readers are correct, you cannot walk this path alone and whatever the nature of the journey, depends on you CT and the sincererity of your readers.
Cheers!
Just to share what I found on the net:
ReplyDelete"Upekha is Equanimity (even tempered, undisturbed, no preferences).
As you meet friends, silently wish them these blessings:
'Upekha' – although I have these wishes for you, you are the heir to your own karma. Your happiness depends on your own actions and not my wishes for you."
Meaning to say, CT, the next step you take depends on what you want out of your life. The readers can wish you all sort of things but ultimately you have the freedom to decide whether to live or to just give up.
Ralph Waldo Emerson also said that you should...
"...Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense....What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
Hope today is brighter for you!