that was precisely tuned to the resonant frequency of the targeted pathogens. It destroyed the pathogens, but not the other cells because of the differences in their respective frequencies of resonance. The original Rife treatment consisted of using a specific frequency three times a day for three minutes. Today many types of Rife boxes are on the market; however, there is little data to support their effectiveness. In addition, there is controversy regarding their duplication of the original device.
•Homeopathy — Samuel Hahnemann, MD (1755-1843) was the founder of Homeopathy in Germany. To stimulate a person’s natural healing response, a homeopath dissolves in water minute dilutions of natural substances from the plant, mineral and animal kingdoms. The more the solution is diluted, the greater its potency. Homeopathy considers cancer to be a symptom of an underlying imbalance associated with poor diet, chronic exposure to toxins, genetic disposition, and repressed feelings and thoughts, to name a few. A homeopath treats the person and their disease by using a client’s unique symptoms (considered “strange, rare and peculiar” to the disease) to select a remedy. Homeopathic treatment is intended to strengthen the cancer patient’s immune system, reduce or eliminate tumors, and control metastatic processes. Homeopathic remedies bring a person’s “lifeforce” back into a balance that promotes wellness. If the resonance of one specific remedy is incorrect, the person will require a new remedy to get well. Individual remedies have demonstrated prolonged survival and symptom relief. In the early 1900s the pharmaceutical industry in this country got stronger, and Homeopathy as a legitimate medical treatment was shut down.
•Not included here but worth mentioning: Chinese medicine uses acupuncture to treat cancer successfully.
Mind-Body Healing
Mental patterns stored deep within the subconscious mind have a powerful influence over the body. This unconscious programming is formed from the situations, traumas, emotions and interpretations an individual experiences from birth into adulthood. The experiences from birth to approximately seven years of age form rigid scripts and beliefs that can interfere with a person’s health and wellbeing. An important part of healing involves uncovering and clearing this subconscious programming because it influences a person’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors and spirituality on a daily basis. Cutting edge research is revealing the role cellular memory plays in the disease process.
Negative emotions, like hate, anger, resentment, frustration, fear, depression, helplessness, sorrow, guilt, and shame, to name a few, can produce harmful changes to the body’s biochemistry. In contrast, positive emotions produce life-enhancing biochemical changes. These chemical changes are documented in scientific research. Neuropeptides demonstrate that the body is fluid enough to match the mind. Neuropeptides move with thoughts and affect the body’s chemistry to promote health or destroy it. Chronic stress is another documented source of biochemical changes that interfere with the body’s ability to heal itself. The latest research on stress reports that 80% to 95% of the time stress is the underlying cause of illness. Long held negative thoughts and emotions and chronic stress, whether conscious or unconscious, weaken the immune system and disrupt normal processes within the body. When people change habitual negative thoughts and beliefs to positive thinking, they are changing their emotions and chemistry. They are promoting a healthy body.
According to mind-body therapies, people are able to contribute to their recovery by improving their emotional, mental and spiritual practices. The techniques of visualization, affirmation, meditation and energy psychology can change the course of a disease. A small number of people have healed themselves of cancer through mind-body techniques alone. They remind the health care community and people who are struggling with a disease that anything is possible when mind-body-spirit techniques are brought into the healing equation.
•Ayurveda Medicine — Ayurveda medicine treats disease holistically by including physical, mental and spiritual factors. From the Ayurveda perspective cancer has many causes—toxic environment, devitalized foods, negative emotions, sedentary lifestyle and lack of spiritual purpose or fulfillment. Emotional, mental and spiritual stagnation contribute to a weakened immune system.
A person develops cancer as the result of biological, emotional and spiritual imbalances. Treatment involves diagnosing the patient’s constitutional type (humor) and state of bioenergetic balance. Three stages of treatment include removal of the accumulated toxins in the body, balancing the excess biologic humor (constitutions—air, fire, water) and rebuilding and rejuvenating the body. Treatment includes herbal medicine, diet, massage, detoxification, breathing exercises, yoga, meditation and mantras. Ayurveda offers a holistic lifestyle of wellness.
•Carl Simonton, MD — Dr. Simonton, the Father of Psychosocial Oncology, died in 2009. He generated a new level of awareness and understanding concerning the mind’s role in healing. In Getting Well Again (1992), he highlights the role of emotional stress in the development of cancer. Through relaxation and visualization, people worked to overcome their cancer. Cancer Recovery Foundation continues his legacy today.
•Louise Hay — Ms. Hay guides many toward wellness. Her book, You Can Heal Your Life (1984), her affirmation tapes and DVDs associated with this book, as well as other books, offer insights and techniques to heal the body, mind and soul. Louise Hay healed herself of terminal cancer with mind-body techniques alone, a great inspiration for other cancer patients. Self-love and ownership, not blame and condemnation, enable people to look within themselves to uncover the psycho-spiritual causes of their illness and work through them.
•Deepak Chopra, MD — Dr. Chopra describes in Quantum Healing (1990) how the individual is central in the process of creating the universe that exists within the individual’s perception and without in the physical world. Awareness, attention and intention are an important part of the physical healing process. He describes the individual going to the deepest core of the mind-body system to the point where consciousness starts to affect healing. Bringing the body back into balance and harmony reawakens its own healing ability.
•Lawrence LeShan, PhD — Dr. LeShan encourages cancer patients to cope with the losses and disappointments of their past and do what makes them feel more alive. In Cancer as a Turning Point (1994), Dr. LeShan describes how people can make psychological shifts and create lives with personal meaning and passion. This mind-body approach influences the body’s ability to heal itself. Many of his clients with late stage cancer go into remission.
Chapter 3
Don’t Think or Feel; Just Do It!
(Surviving a Mastectomy)
November and December 2000
The morning I entered the hospital to have a left modified radical mastectomy with reconstruction, I was plummeted into a stunning reality. Nothing and no one could rescue me from this assault to my body and wellbeing. Once again, I had to endure a traumatic experience that left me feeling vulnerable. There was no escape. Surviving two divorces and repressed memories of sexual abuse prepared me to face life’s challenges courageously. Over time, I learned to trust that everything would work out OK.
Paul drove me to the hospital on November 29, 2000. My other support people were thousands of miles away, which did not seem to matter because I felt alone in what was about to happen. People offered to be there, but I thought I would need them when I got out of the hospital. Wrong!
As I entered the large bathroom off the surgery waiting room with its eight curtained stalls, I was stunned that I could be so calm. Observing myself, I thought, “Would I be this calm if my life were in serious danger?” I only had stage I breast cancer and had to cope with having a mastectomy with reconstruction, about a four-hour procedure. The surgeon would remove the breast tissue from the left breast, including the nipple and place an implant under the chest wall muscles. On the right side she would insert an implant so the two breasts looked symmetrical. She would remove the nipple and take a piece of skin from my abdomen to place over that opening. I would come back six months later so she could take another piece of skin on the other side of my abdomen to build a nipple.
What the Expert Says...
Oncoplastic