striving toward some perfectionist ideal. It happens in moments of inner darkness and outer turmoil.
We may talk about grace casually in a crisis: “By the grace of god I made it.” “God was looking out for you.” However, when the crisis is over, we often forget that something remarkable intervened. Once we acknowledge grace as a spiritual resource, we may decide to make it our ally. We can work with grace consciously by acknowledging its existence, invoking it by request, giving thanks when it touches us, and having faith in its mystery.
Acknowledgment: Grace is present in our lives and souls whether we recognize it or not. It is a force waiting to be harnessed and cultivated, not controlled. Once we acknowledge and work with it, we will witness miracles consistently.
Invocation: We may ask for a divine intervention to spare us from a negative consequence, guide us when we are lost, comfort us when we feel despair, or strengthen us when we feel overwhelmed.
Gratitude: If we are filled with gratitude when the miraculous shows up in our lives, grace will continue to shine upon us, light our way and unite us with a Higher Power.
Faith: Grace intervenes in its own way and own time; we need to believe in it anyway. As we accept and work with this sacred resource, grace lifts us from the havoc we create or tragedy we encounter.
Grace takes us beyond the limits of human love into the transforming power of unconditional love. When we see ourselves and the world through the eyes of acceptance and gratitude, grace will become our constant companion.
Chapter 1 Lessons Learned...
•When you are making plans, life may take you on an unexpected adventure. Go with the flow!
•Bad news can shatter you. But purposeful actions, support from others and grace will put you back together.
•Your wake-up calls are usually a signal that something isn’t right. Pay attention or the soft ring can become a loud blast.
•The easy path is not always the best path for a positive outcome.
•Risk takers often finish ahead of the pack.
•Herbs, supplements and medications may have negative side effects. Be aware and speak up!
•When you do not know the way, ask for support and guidance from your intuition or Higher Power.
•Self-love and acceptance is the key to healing and personal empowerment.
•Ask questions and be willing to hear the answers. The truth will lead you toward more aliveness.
Chapter 2
Where Do I Go from Here?
(Treatment Options)
October and November 2000
The surgeon scheduled the modified left mastectomy with reconstruction approximately six weeks after the diagnosis. She gave me time to do my cancer research and take my parents to Hawaii the middle of November. They were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. While I had the dread of a mastectomy hanging over me, I did not want to cancel the trip. My father had not been back to Honolulu since World Word II, and my mother had never been there. It seemed like a great way for them to celebrate their marriage of sixty years. Plus, it provided a good distraction for me. While researching cancer treatment options, I was planning a vacation to Hawaii. It took some of the heaviness out of my body and soul.
Getting the Whole Story
After the biopsy and breast cancer diagnosis, the surgeon requested that I get an oncologist. She would not operate unless I had one. Because she was a breast surgeon, I assumed that she needed a cancer doctor to confirm her treatment plan. I could understand that, so I did some research in the book, Third Opinion (Third Edition) by John Fink, an international directory of alternative therapy centers and doctors. I found an oncologist about 30 miles from my home. From the description about him and his work in Third Opinion, I was willing to make an appointment. When I walked into his office, I received another dose of reality. It felt strange to be in the office of my oncologist. This was the last place I expected to find myself. I like to feel in control of my life; clearly, my body had other ideas. Rather than dwell on feeling like a failure, I looked around the waiting room and felt grateful that my cancer was stage I.
The oncologist also agreed that a mastectomy would be his choice. On my post-surgery visit with him, we would explore treatment options based on the pathology of the breast tissue. He was also optimistic about my prognosis. The mastectomy should be all that was required. (Later, we would find out that was not true.) The most important news I received from him that day was his suggestion that I use a cortisone (steroid) oral spray to control the asthma. It was getting toward the time for me to use the asthma spray, and he could hear the slight congestion in my lungs and throat. I took his advice. My lungs had to be healthy enough to get me through a four-hour operation, plus hours in recovery. (I was taking the non-cortisone spray three times a day.) The cortisone improved my breathing, which got me through the surgery without any breathing complications. Even though I had an oncologist, I still had a lot of reading and exploring to do. No matter what the surgeon found, I would be treating my whole body in order to heal the physical terrain that produced two cancerous tumors in my left breast.
The six weeks between diagnosis and mastectomy were filled with learning about alternative treatment options. Conventional approaches were relatively straight forward—surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. I could put that aside while I read several books on alternative treatments. I discovered that the alternative experts have a very different philosophy about cancer than the conventional medical community.
The alternative medical community views cancer as a systemic disease, not just a cancer site. Cancer cells develop and interfere with normal cell reproduction, especially during the aging process. A compromised immune system cannot detect and destroy these developing cancer cells fast enough, and eventually they clump together to form a localized cancer.
Most medical practitioners and researchers agree that, in fact, we all probably have cancer cells developing in each of us all the time, but our bodies are able to dispose of them before they rage out of control. In other words, a healthy body can normally defend itself quite well against the development of cancer because it knows how to deal with these natural occurrences.
—Tanya Harter Pierce, MA, MFCC, Outsmart Your Cancer: Alternative Non-Toxic Treatments That Work (2009, p. 21)
Alternative doctors and other health care practitioners believe a breakdown in the systems of the body, particularly the immune system, allows the body to produce a cancer. Therefore, their treatments often focus on strengthening the immune system. A healthy immune system not only destroys developing cancer cells, but also kills cancer cells that have formed a tumor and/or have spread to other parts of the body. I began to understand that natural killer cells protect the body from getting cancer and also eliminate the cancer once it has taken up residence.
Conventional medicine is focused on naming diseases based on geography, body location, and specialty, instead of by the cause, mechanism, or pathway involved. Doctors say you have a liver, kidney, brain, or heart disease. But this approach to naming disease tells you nothing about the cause, and it is quickly becoming obsolete as we understand more about the mysteries of human biology…Functional medicine gives us a method for identifying the conditions in which disease arises and shows us how to begin changing those conditions.
— Blog Post by Dr. Mark Hyman November