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Disclaimer • Welcome • Why Alternatives? • Alternative Cancer Therapy Guides
Healing Cancer & Your Mind (10):
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Introduction
to the link between thoughts/consciousness/emotions and disease & healing, including a complete list of Healing Cancer Naturally articles on
Appendix C My name is Gerald White and I am a kidney cancer patient. It is a characteristic of the disease that, no matter what progress is made, I shall always live under this modern day "sword of Damocles". Now, almost 5 years down the road from initial discovery, I am referred to as a long-term survivor. This would not seem to offer much encouragement to the short-term survivors. Therefore, we must get every RCC patient into the long-term survivor category without delay. I would like to submit my experience and present outlook to this group in support of the sincere belief that survival is, indeed, possible. I should like at the onset to claim what I believe may be a record. My RCC tumor weighed in at a healthy 20 pounds. I have heard others claim that there have been bigger ones but, so far, no firm documentation. Since I have always endeavored to be a high achiever this was, of course, quite pleasing. I knew the operation was not going to be like removing an ingrown toenail. A day or so later upon awakening, it was apparent that it was more akin to those autumn events associated with livestock butchering. The only thing that I could think to ask for was a glass of water. When it was refused I said "I don’t need it for thirst, I just want to see if my ribs leak!" Like most of you the relief that I felt when the surgeon announced that he had "got it all" spread over me like a euphoria. Thus endeth the first lesson. I was soon to discover that a parallel and even deadlier disease always accompanies RCC. The name of this disease is ignorance and it can be a deadly killer. Although fully aware that I was totally ignorant about RCC, I simply refused to activate an honest effort at learning. Truly if ignorance is bliss, its folly to be wise. Things rocked on with business as usual until a year and a half later when the lid on my complacence was blown off. A CT scan, done at another hospital because it was timely and convenient and not out of any real concern with my primary team in Dallas, gave the radiologist some concern. The primary team in Dallas assured me that this other hospital was just trying to get my money. I then made what turned out to be a life saving statement to wit "Why don’t we do a punch biopsy and there will be one less liar in the house". Sure enough, it was recurrent RCC and reality had begun to set in. The second operation was, I suppose, efficient in that the surgeon used the same scar. I thus had two operations with only one scar. Even though the recurrent mass was tiny by comparison, the recovery was a far worse experience. I was, however, a far wiser man having just discovered that the five most dangerous words that an RCC patient can say are "I just LOVE my doctor". The second surgery saw some different thinking on my part. For one thing I managed to locate a private institution in Franklyn, Tennessee that was one of the first to offer processing of harvested tumors to the general public. I was not too concerned with the state of the art at the moment as I was with preserving the specimen in liquid nitrogen against the day when it could be a life saving backup position. The growth of T-cells was successful but the GMCSF attempt failed, in part from lack of adequate sample size. This did not make me think any more of those myopic individuals in Dallas who, without my permission, took 20 pounds of perfectly good cancerous tumor and threw it into the incinerator. They tried to defend their actions by saying that the techniques deriving from this approach would at most be only 30% successful, to which I replied "The damned incinerator was 100% successful". If there were ever a time to roll over and die that would have probably been a good one in view of what lay ahead. After my surgeon had "got it all" for the second time I did not feel quite so relieved. Sure enough, a CT scan six months later showed a family of little ditsels growing in both lungs. At that time it was decided to go with IL-2 and save the TDAC for later as needed. It is senseless to try to describe eight solid months of Interleukin to someone who has never taken it. I recall observing to a young lady who had just given a paper at an KCA meeting that other than fits, fever, blind staggers and frothing at the mouth I didn’t really have any side effects. The trouble with the program was that after 8 months, the tumors were still growing with a possible involvement of the pericardial liner. This did not bode well for long range planning. Contemporaneous with the above, I had developed an active interest in mind-body medicine and the role of spirituality in medicine. I had read with interest books by Dr. Bernie Siegel and, in particular a marvelous book by Greg Anderson, himself a cancer conqueror entitled "The Triumphant Patient". It was after the fact when I finally read Norman Cousins "Anatomy of An Illness", which I would recommend be read first. It was beginning to dawn on me that there was a role for me in achieving. In fact, it began to be obvious that if I really wanted healing that I was going to have to go after it myself rather than merely depending on others. What was even better, it gave me a meaningful activity to fill those dreadful hours and nobody sent me a bill for it. It has been previously said that if you don’t have an active spiritual belief system and you have cancer, you’d better get one quick because you are going to need one. Regardless of what faith you profess or whose system you use, they all start with relaxation and peace of mind. It is noteworthy that forgiveness of your enemies seems to be a requisite. You can bear grudges and hate or you can successfully fight cancer but you can’t do both. All my life I had been a nominal Christian, although for many years the preacher could scarcely count on me even at Christmas and Easter. Now, with time on my hands and a desire to learn, I turned to the scriptures for guidance. I was amazed to find how much of the Bible is devoted to healing. I saw all this as complimentary to, not in controversy with modern medicine. Nevertheless, with the aforesaid set of circumstances, a decision had to be made and I made it. I said in a friendly sort of way to my oncologist "To hell with this. It isn’t working and death is preferable to putting up with this mess in my life indefinitely." He was most understanding and seemed anxious to observe the outcome. Now in our community there was a little Episcopal Chapel, built in 1863 and located in the same little country cemetery that Davy Crockett’s wife is buried. I had never even been inside an Episcopal Church but when we heard that the Rector, Father Jared Foster, had decided to offer a biblical healing service, it got my attention. It is difficult to describe the peace of mind that accompanied that service. I had not imagined that it would be that wonderful. The question that I had felt dealt with all the so-called "Super Christians" and TV evangelists was "Why does Oral Roberts need Glasses?" With this component of the healing program set in place, I set about to get the guided imagery into high gear. One hears the term "Guided Imagery" referred to often these days. I can tell you from experience that getting at the "how" of it is not so easy. It is a method by which the conscious left brain communicates with the subconscious right brain by the use of imagery. More importantly, the desired result is for a particular mechanism in the human body to be activated to accomplish a specific purpose. The purpose of this particular exercise is to locate and kill cancer cells. The human immune system is endowed with many effective and wonderful protector cells. They have names such as neutrophils, macrophages, T-cells and natural killer cells. When cancer slips through the protective screen and grows, the visualizations of guided imagery seek to sound the alarm and send these friendly warriors into battle. Beginning with relaxation there are the visualization techniques that are personalized to the individual and require intense mental focus, discipline and regularly allocated time. These techniques involve animation and colors. It should be emphasized that this is not a quick fix for something as voracious as cancer. Many people are eager to get started until they find out the extent of commitment required. I really believe that most will opt for taking their chances with death. It is important to note that this is not "alternative medicine". Far from it, this can be a marvelous compliment to modern medicine and it is in this light that it should be viewed. Most doctors seem unwilling to discuss this modality with cancer patients. Perhaps this is due to unfamiliarity but more likely to disbelief. As I was told, this is not within the body of the conventional wisdom of the times. The Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith first proposed "Conventional Wisdom". He defines it as ideas that are so engrained in our culture that no one dares question them. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom is often wrong and he points out that policies based on conventional wisdom are usually doomed to failure. Conventional wisdom can continue to influence our behavior in spite of overwhelming, irrefutable evidence that they are wrong. Medicine has historically been slow to give up its traditional attitudes that emphasize the conventional wisdom and cancer patients all too often find themselves cut off from valid treatment programs such as guided imagery for lack of an available source. There is absolutely no excuse for an oncologist to be unfamiliar with the excellent results that this methodology has recorded, usually with the "terminally" ill. Perhaps you are wondering what happened in my case. It seems that I went off treatment and on with the program as discussed above in July of 1996. One result of my career in the physical sciences has been a passion for documentation. I insisted on doing all the scans on a three-month basis. When, three months later, I saw the oncologist put up the films and heard him exclaim, "Well I’ll be a son of a bitch!" I knew that something had changed. Sure enough, all but two of the ditsels had disappeared and these had shrunk down to nubbins. My doctor at Northwestern, whose kind and compassionate manner I shall never forget, confirmed this. A typical response from conventional wisdom is that the Il-2 finally "kicked in", to which I reply "Why in the hell didn’t it kick in during the eight long months when I was taking it?" The tests keep coming back negative except for the two little "ditsels" that remain on the CT films. It was necessary for my peace of mind to deal with them and this I was able to do in a very straightforward manner. I was in attendance at the Seattle meeting of the KCA when an excellent paper was presented on Positron Emission Tomography (PET). This marvelous diagnostic machine resembles the CT machine in outward appearance but is totality different in methodology. Active cancer cells ingest glucose at a much faster rate than do ordinary cells and certainly faster than dead cells. The patient is injected with a vial of activated fluorodioxyglucose and time is allowed for circulation. The machine then looks for "hot spots". Cancer "mets" will then light up like a Christmas tree. Dead tissue will not show at all. My little "ditsels" did not show "uptake" indicating that they were dead. Reassurance is such a wonderful thing. What is surprising about PET is that so few oncologists seem to be aware of it. The technique is almost as old as CT. It has been used more in heart and Alzheimer’s studies although it is finally coming into its own in the cancer arena. Generally speaking, the docs who have access to PET will generally praise it, while those who do not will dismiss it as either too costly or as merely a research tool, neither of which is strictly true. It is only necessary to look around us to see the growth of academic interest in mind-body medicine. I recently attended a three day seminar on "Spirituality In Medicine" directed by Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard University Medical School. The course was presented in nearby Houston and I was surprised to note that over 700 people from all over the world were in attendance. The cases presented were awe inspiring, usually from cases deemed hopeless by conventional wisdom. With the full weight of the scientific method now being applied to ongoing studies it is apparent that conventional wisdom in the medical field, particularly as regards the treatment of cancer is in for some astonishing and wonderful changes. Failure to disengage from the past does not preserve the past; it merely destroys the future.
"The Triumphant Patient" (ISBN 0-8407-7714-0) by Carl Anderson, himself a triumphant cancer patient, is loaded with self-help principles. With a cover note by Carl Simonton and an introduction by Bernie Siegel, it gives a terrific boost to the person who wishes to take charge of a seemingly hopeless situation, and emerge as a triumphant and whole person healed in both body and mind. To those of you in the audience that have RCC as a painful reality and not an academic interest, let me assure you that there is a dimension of hope available to you that you may wish to know more about. Before I am accused by the proponents of conventional wisdom of generating "false hope", I should like to point out that hope is neither true nor false, it is just hope. It is a beautiful word and fits right in with peace, healing and faith. Many within the medical community actively believe that you have the cure within your own body if you can just activate it. Many researchers are seeking to define and activate the mechanism of spontaneous remission. Whatever you do, I urge you to take personal charge of your healing. If you don’t, somebody else will and you probably won’t like the outcome. It will seem awkward at first, like driving on the left side in England, but with time it will grow to seem natural. I should like to close with a quotation from Anderson’s book, which he calls "The Triumphant Patient’s Creed". Hope reigns in my life today. Gerald White Also compare Spirituality & Cancer.
Appendix A Throughout my recent five-year battle with renal cell cancer I have sought to reduce it where possible to elements familiar with the methodology of engineering physics. Now that the battle appears to have been won, I must look at those elements that were atypical of most cases. I believe that the central theme of a victorious effort was the efficacy of a combination of prayer, meditation and guided imagery. My professional career was devoted to work in the combined fields of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. In this line of work, the
investigator is continually faced with problems that sometimes involve dozens of independent variables. This can pose a seemingly insurmountable problem in system analysis. We are indebted to the
great physicist Earl Buckingham for his development of the theory of dynamic similarity. This teaches that systems of vastly different scale can be compared dynamically by grouping variables into terms that
will themselves be dimensionless. Some familiar such terms are Mach number, which relates craft velocity to that of sound, Reynolds number, which is used in dynamic flow systems both for
comparisons as well as to define when the flow regime has moved from viscous to turbulent. Use of these dimensionless numbers enables scientists to evaluate the performance of an experimental
airframe design in a wind tunnel before the craft is actually built and similar uses of dynamically similarity are employed in thousands of cases all over the world. Now I believe that an excellent case for a rat
or a monkey being dynamically similar to a human can be made. There would appear to be no reason in theory why test results should not be transferable on a reasonably predictable basis. One of the major tenets of dynamic similarity is that no fundamental and operative variable be present in one model and not in the other. Suddenly it appears quite logical that the ignored variable in all cancer testing is the cognitive element. The rat is simply not confronted with the battery of dire warnings, disclaimers, and consent documents that are written by a battery of blood sucking attorneys and thrust at the poor test subject for his advised consent. He is further cautioned not to raise any "false hopes". In short, the body may be receiving a truly marvelous and effective miracle drug but the mind is being programmed for death. At a recent conference on renal cell cancer, I was struck by the similarity in results from a very wide range of treatment protocols. It seemed that no matter what type of experimental treatments were used, the results always seemed to show a 15 – 19% response rate. Strange indeed; not so much that they all failed of a high percentage cure rate but that the good, bad and ugly always seemed to produce the same percentage response. Success in truly creative work comes not from answering questions but from asking the right ones. In this case, what if the predominant variable being measured is the ability of the human spirit, as manifested by the mind/body relationship, to ward off a lethal assault of disease, fears, superstitions and an unfriendly and sometimes arrogant medical system? My own personal conclusion is that 15 – 19% of human patients, already sick with worry and fear, are able to muster up enough resolve to beat the system and survive. I am of the view that it doesn’t really matter what the protocol is as long as it is being applied in the same self-protecting manner by a self-serving system. As the years go by and thousands die, treatments are finally viewed with some degree of optimism. As this occurs, we would expect to see the numbers go up and indeed they do. What if, on the other hand, some truly creative researcher had the nerve to tell the patient/test subject that the medicine he was going to inject was absolutely the cure we had been looking for and he should put aside his fears? Here the proponents of conventional wisdom would rise up in indignation. There would surely be lawsuits, careers destroyed, facilities ruined, and the patient might even die. The latter would be thrown in as an ostentatious concern for the patient even though the odds suggest that the patient is going to die anyway. The horrible truth is that these are all valid concerns that suggest at the enormity of the system barriers that in many cases preclude what might in fact be best for the patient. It would take a genuinely creative person to pursue such a course and this is a good example of how creativity is so very different from its imposter, research. Granted that the above might be a little extreme and admitting that it might be risky to try to encourage a patient by telling him that he is sure to get well, there must surely be an acceptable middle ground. Sometimes it is only necessary to acknowledge a particular devil to cast him out. The antiangiogenesis drugs are causing quite a stir now. Unfortunately, unless the mind/body relationship is dealt with early on, these will also fail. They have one thing going for them. A hyperactive news media has already started to implant the widespread belief that these are, at last, the magic bullet. If the media campaign can press on with fervor, they may, indeed, be just that. Would it be so difficult to design such a program? I think not. Lurking somewhere in every medical school is a department of psychiatry. If they prove insensitive, then go to the psychologists or perhaps better, go there first. I believe that, in view of the operational ignorance of the placebo effect, the protocols aren’t double blind but the researchers conducting them surely are. It is easy to be led into the trap of numbers. Unfortunately, in the case of cancer research, the number turns out to be not just one suffering human but spouses, children and loved ones of all sorts. At the present rate, there will be over 1,600 Americans who die each day from cancer. These deaths will not be pretty. With 1440 minutes in a day there will be roughly six people die every five minutes. It took the Viet Nam war all day to kill fifteen Americans but look at the upheaval that caused when the American people had finally had enough. If I thought it would do any good, I would get down on my knees and beg a researcher to please give due consideration to this most friendly of all treatment modalities. There are now a multitude of cases wherein patients have managed a self directed mind/body healing with wonderful results. To my knowledge there has never been a case where it did any harm. Healing is such a wonderful word. It fits nicely with others such as peace, love and well being. Surely that to attain it is worthy of the severest sacrifice, perhaps even setting aside a well nourished ego. Any one so doing will have no further need of ego, as he or she will stand so far above the crowd that it would no longer be possible to notice it. Better yet would be a youngster saying "Thank you, brave researcher, for giving my mommy back to me". ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gerald White was born in West Texas during the height of the socio/economic
disaster that came to be known at the "dust Bowl". Vowing never again to be poor, he embarked on an engineering career that spanned multiple disciplines. Initially, he
did research in fluid dynamics and authored the first mathematical description of one regime of fluid flow through vertical eductors. Career stops included work at Varian
in Palo Alto, California and Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas. In 1972, he left the big company umbrella to found his own company to pursue interests in hydraulics
and plasma physics. For a decade, he maintained an active program of teaching engineering short both in the US and abroad. Some of the latter included United
Nations lectureships in emerging countries which included the Peoples Republic of China, India and Indonesia.
More excerpts from Gerald W. White’s Cancer Wars MAARS Journey:
A Self Hypnosis Cancer CD - Guided Imagery CD to Fight Cancer can be purchased
from a wonderful free cancer help clinic implementing a mind/body approach inspired by Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer’s German New Medicine. Help your thoughts stay positive by running an amazing free affirmations display (subliminal messaging) program and displaying over 850 positive affirmations on your screen (or any you like such as your own personalized ones).
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