Friday, July 6, 2012

Milestone Turning to a Tombstone

In early June I was invited by a local cancer group to share my cancer experience despite I am not in remission. I told the organisers that I will speak on two topics, namely Milestones and Self Treatment. The sharing session took place last Saturday, 30 June 2012. Anyway, a few days earlier on Tuesday, 26 June 2012, I received a call from someone I nearly forgotten for I have not heard from him for almost a year. I have written about this young person in my blog and you can read his story here. Now, almost 11 months later, he called me to tell me that he has undertaken chemotherapy and the cancer has spread all over his stomach. And from our conversation, I gather that there is not much the doctors can do for him anymore. I can sense his desperateness of don't know what to do. He was sort of wanting to hear from me under the circumstances, what other therapies are available to him. I did suggest a few therapies that he can read up and possibly do. I then asked him about his finances and he said it's not good.

So what is this story have to do with the talk about milestones? If you can recall in two of my long ago posts, I said that every terminal cancer patient will one day come to realisation that he/she has reached to end of the road in terms of treatment. A milestone is a marking of a significant event or journey. When I was diagnosed with cancer, the doctors says there are no conventional treatments that are available to me. My milestone then was the end of the road and for many, this milestone later became their tombstone. Then I said I will create my own path using the alternative treatment or approach. I can tell you that when I reached the end of the road milestone, it's a very difficult situation to handle, much like when the doctor first tells you of your cancer. I can tell that this young person who called me on Tuesday, he was very emotional and just wanted to hear some news from me about an extension to the end of the road. I told him that when we are at the end of the road milestone, we must now create our new path. I know it's difficult because we have to read and find out what are the suitable treatment that we can do. He gave me loads of excuses (like he's not fluent in English and not well educated) which I soon broke it down for him. I think he expected me to be his doctor and just tell him what to do. That unfortunately, is what I am unable to do for many reasons. I did however, point him to some available therapies that he can consider in the hope to jump start his searching. I also suggested books, those written in Mandarin which he is fluent in.

In my next post, I will share with you my experience on how I select what therapy or therapies that are suitable for me. There are many books written about alternative cancer therapies and what's the difference them and my approach? I will explain that as well. In dealing with cancer, I believe you need to find the "extra edge" that therapy A offers over therapy B and why is the "extra edge" is important in cancer healing. I will offer some clinical evidence where possible to support my believe.

1 comment:

  1. Hi CT. Thought you might want to read this: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/07/woman-stuns-researchers-by-overcoming.html

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