Is a Cancer Diagnosis a Death Prognosis?

One thing I have learned from studying about cancer is there is so much valuable information available. I encourage you to sometimes pick-up a book and read 5-10 minutes about this most interesting topic. When you go to battle or you engage in some type of competition, it is often advised to know your enemy, to study their every move, analyze their strengths and weaknesses and come up with a plan-of-attack, if you want to win. 

I am certain we'll eventually have an official cure for cancer, because that only makes sense. The current amount of information as a result of all the research is mind-boggling. But this has also caused a lot of confusion about cancer. 

We should not just focus on the disease itself, but on the person as a whole, and how the person is affected by stresses in life. Getting to know yourself better will most often lead to therapies and approaches more spiritual/emotional in nature. These often can have deep and life-changing effects on the individual, hopefully assuring that cancer will never return.

In western medicine therapies often seem more simplified, as the approach is primarily focused on the physical body. However, they are very aggressive: chemo, radiation, surgery, and long-term medication. The good thing is physicians and oncologists are willing to look at diet and lifestyles and recognize certain habits can cause different forms of cancer, depending on which organ is most over-used: tobacco smoke can cause lung, kidney, bladder, and head and neck cancers; tobacco chew and –snuff may cause mouth and tongue cancer; sun exposure can cause skin cancer; certain dietary fats may cause colon, prostate or breast cancers, etc. 

But western medicine considers “treating” cancers as one of the most complex aspects of medical care. The sad part is they have used these types of cancers to create specialized research groups and to create experts, who become so detail oriented, they know a lot about almost nothing. This approach divides the body into so many sub-groups, it is hard to imagine there is a “person” attached to the cancer… Treatment therefore focuses on the specific tumor and the chemicals used for that may have a devastating effect on other parts of the body. Surgery is often used to eliminate the tumor or to make it smaller for better treatment with chemo and/or radiation drugs. I’ll be honest with you: this is sometimes the necessary approach for certain individuals, but I also think it is overused as the only viable option. 

Coming from a more body-mind-spirit approach to life, I believe there are reasons why we live on this planet, and one is to get to know ourselves better. There are specific lessons to be learned, which are as different for each individual as there are fingerprints! We have many rights, rights that help us pursue and obtain certain freedoms on many different levels of existence. We even have the right to break the laws of the land... Problem is, if we get caught doing that, we may end-up paying a hefty fine and/or go to jail, thereby losing many of these freedoms. Using a similar philosophy: when we become sick we cannot give a 100% and therefore feel our freedoms are limited. Our reason for being sick is often that we have broken the law of our own individualized body. We somehow did not take care of ourselves enough. And now, maybe because we didn’t know ourselves enough, have to pay the fine. Because of misguidance we have often become our own worst enemy. Living more consciously every day, even taking 5-10 minutes to reflect on our accomplishments at work, on our relationships, and on our spiritual life, can cause a feeling of balance and excitement that triggers a healing wave throughout our bodies. We can go back centuries to find scientists who have discovered that everything consists of energy. Two interesting articles on this topic; one about the Swiss scientist Hans Jenny (1904-1972) and his work called cymatics.(1) Another is from Francesca McCartney who gives an interesting list (2002) of Energy Medicine Practical Ancient Wisdom.(2) We can manipulate that energy in different ways. Many direct it outwards, but we have an innate ability to direct it towards healing. Some have studied and mastered this modality and are known as “healers” amongst us. They can heal without ever meeting the person. 

My oldest sister has had a remarkable healing at the age of three. She was taken to the hospital after becoming sick with an acute lung condition. Doctors actually gave-up on her, and told my parents she would not make it though the night! This was 1959 in the Netherlands. The shock and panic that ensued in my parents (I wasn't born yet, and my two other sisters were too young to understand) must have just ripped their hearts out. Suddenly my dad thought of a person who used prayer and insight to help in any healing process. When they received the horrible news it was early evening. My Dad told my Mom he would go to this person, unannounced, right away on his moped (they didn't have a car yet at that point). My Mom stayed home with my other two sisters. When he arrived at the man's home about 30 minutes later, he had friends over, and they were playing cards. Slightly hesitant at first he noticed my Dad was very worried. He asked if my Dad perhaps had a photograph of my sister, which he did. He looked at her picture, then looked at my Dad and said: "This is very serious. I need to focus on this right away. I'll be right back!" He went inside with the photograph and asked my Dad to wait. When he returned, he gave my father the picture and said: "Please go home; your daughter will be OK!" When my Dad came home, he had a smile on his face. My mother was perplexed, but my Dad was at peace. The next morning he went to the hospital to see how my sister was doing? The doctor and two nurses came outside to greet him. They had smiles on their faces and said: "A miracle must have happened overnight, because Marieke is standing up in bed and she is smiling!"

She is 66 today and a physical therapist, acupuncturist, and meridian color therapist.(4),(5) Many times these healers are very spiritual, but might not belong to a specific religion. Their healing often only works if the “patient” is willing to heal… 

It's one thing when an Oncologist tells you have cancer; it's another when they add a timeline of how long you will probably live... ("Get your affairs in order, because you're not gonna live another year/six months/four weeks.") What its that all about. It puts a horrible scare in families. I personally look at it another way: "Oh, you have a year/six months/four weeks to start the healing process! Let's go!" 

But realistically, when a doctor tells you have been diagnosed with cancer, your world falls apart. There are tremendous feelings of fear, powerlessness, and confusion. These feelings are a natural and important part of the grieving process; and if held inside, can strike a more intense blow to an already weakened immune system.

With the help of a support system, in the form of friends, family and hopefully physicians, your next step will be to become a student of your disease, and start doing research about possible causes (i.e. genetics, diet, stresses, toxic exposure, etc), treatment options, and success rates. The more educated you are about your ailments, the more empowered and confident you’ll become, and that will give you hope! This is part of mentally and emotionally strengthening yourself. 

Another important thing will be to look at what your personal responsibilities are in the healing process: which personal changes are you willing to make? Are you willing to cleanse the body (the liver, the colon, the blood vessels, the cells)? And how about your (possible) work situation? Does work stress you out? Are you overloaded with responsibilities? Are you working well with colleagues? Do you travel to much for work; or to-and-from work? etc. The obvious reason for these changes is that whatever you have done before and got exposed to, got you in this situation to begin with.

Cancer demonstrates there is a pH-imbalance of our cells, mostly acidic, but too alkaline/base is not good for our overall health either. The more acidic our cells become, the more oxygen is pushed out of them. The less oxygen in the cell, the less fuel there is for the mitochondria to burn energy. Mitochondria are the little furnaces in our cells that produce ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). The chemical process needed to produce ATP is called the Krebs Cycle. When you play around in the chemistry lab and add acid to living tissue, you see how it deforms; the life is sucked out of it. Our body is often slightly acidic. But when it becomes too acidic, our cells become damaged; the mitochondria become deformed and often start to lump together, completely debilitating the production of ATP. Cells now become ineffective, infected and diseased.  Less energy is produced, which causes problems with our digestion, work output, mental clarity, emotional well-being, and overall performance. Slowly but surely it starts to affect more and more parts of our body. The immune system is working overtime to bring healing, but might eventually lose the battle, thus causing disease. 

Where does this disease start, you might wonder? Usually in that part of the body that is the weakest link. So it could be the skin, the heart, the liver, the brain, the stomach, the blood, etc. A weak link may be caused by genetics (“…One of my parents had a weak heart, and so do I.”…Cholesterol problems run in the family…”, “…My grandmother had arthritis, so did my father and my uncle, and my knees are hurting already…”). It may also be caused by a birth defect, an old injury or even surgery. It may be triggered by outside sources.

A good way to test your pH is by checking your saliva first thing in the morning. It's no use to check your urine's pH because that is waste material coming out of the body. According to Burt Goulding, ND from the company Positive Power Nutrition(6), testing your saliva pH one time a week, first thing in the morning, before you drink or eat anything, is the best way to test for most people. Burt suggests to use a plastic camping spoon (no metal or other material), and spit/drool that first morning saliva into the spoon and fill it. Then he suggests to take a litmus paper strip and wave it in the saliva for as long it tells you to do that (25-90 seconds depending on the brand.) Then, look at the the color/number. Your goal is to be at the range between 7.1-7.5, because this is neutral. Cancer cells cannot live in a neutral environment. The longer you can stay within the neutral range the better chance you have to survive cancer. Remember, you only have to check this one time a week. So pick a day when you can get up and not rush out the door. 

Based on your result there are different things you can do diet-wise and lifestyle-wise to improve or maintain where you're at. 

Our environment has changed much during the last century.  We are exposed to many more elements (molds, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, pesticides, artificial sweeteners, exhaust fumes, plastics, etc). It is neither here nor there if these are all good changes, fact is that they are here and we have to learn how to live with them. One of the problems is that our body has not been able to build resistance against many of these toxins. It's one thing to slowly introduce something to our body's environment, another is the bombardment of prescription drugs, (early life) vaccinations, plastics, herbicides and pesticides, synthetic hormones, and personal electronics within the last three generations of people.

Pretty much all in the medical field agree that our bodies are energy! Everything that is alive has an energy field that consists of vibrations. The idea of life is to create harmony between all those vibrations, kind-of like a fine-tuned orchestra. When one instrument is off, most of us will hear that. Many great conductors will hear a somewhat out-of-tune instrument before we hear it. Once the instruments are perfectly tuned, we can all kick back and enjoy a great performance. Our bodies are like an orchestra. There are big, dominating instruments, such as the organs and limbs, and then there are the smaller ones, such as our cells, our nerves, cartilage, tendons, etc. They all play their own important roles, and they play their best to make the conductor happy. A bad note here-and-there will not be observed by all, and the performance will go-on as planned. But if too many musicians screw things up, it indicates that they probably needed more practice. You don’t want to fire the musicians or take the specific instruments out of the performance, because they’re all part of the whole. 

Our cells and organs are part of the orchestra, and in order to function better they need to practice more. They also need us as the conductor to teach them the proper technique and give us the correct music pieces so we know what key to play in. Every tone is a vibration, vibration is a sign of life and it creates more life. Depending on the size and weight of a human there are about 35-75 trillion cells in our body. These need to hum in the right vibration in order to sustain life. They will vibrate out-of-tune when fed the wrong nutrition. The vibration of the above mentioned toxins and chemicals are so discordant that they cause negative shockwaves in many cells. Add to that the vibration of daily stress, because of an over-stimulation of our adrenals, as well as the nutritional deterioration and lifelessness of many of the foods that we consume, and you realize that we are part of a symphony that is so syncopated, that eventually the conductor will walk out and let the whole orchestra fall apart!

Wouldn’t it be nice to live a higher quality of life, and have more time to do the things we love? Is it possible that death and disease are brought on prematurely because of choices we make in life, including risky behavior and wrong dietary choices? Yes, that's very well possible. Then again, life can become an uphill struggle because of certain inherited conditions; and also from one being on the receiving end of an accident, natural disaster, (above-mentioned) environmental toxins, or abuse. Being diagnosed with cancer is not a death sentence, in my opinion. Not only does it bring disharmony in our body, mind, and spirit, but it can also be the manifestation of disharmony in the world around us. Some people are more sensitive to this than others, and they show symptoms/diseases quicker, or more intense. There is work to do to restore harmony. We all have an innate power to do that. We just need to tap into it, and make it our sole focus until balance and healing are restored.

ALL OF US have millions of cancer cells in our bodies. They lay dormant for years or decades until they are somehow activated through a build-up of previously-mentioned toxins, stress or other forms that strongly affect the Natural Killer cells in our immune systems. A certain genetic weakness can now be sparked into a full-blown disease that is highly resistant to treatments. 

I am well aware of the many great developments western medicine has brought forth to better understand the human body. Modern medicine has expanded the horizon on what is possible in fixing the body. But sadly enough this approach is primarily focused on emergencies and severe traumas. Most of the equipment used in allopathic medicine is very impressive as far as diagnostics and rebuilding is concerned. But the problem comes in when recommendations need to be made about prevention. The usual “…improve your diet and exercise!” doesn’t cut it anymore, especially since many Americans have been exposed to so much more additional (and behind-the-scenes) information. They are demanding better from their physician. Prescription drugs have made the body and mind chemically dependent. 

Conventional medicine has had a strong grip on the cancer industry for the last 50+ years. But realize that in spite of your own good intentions and faith in the medical establishment, cancer has turned into a very lucrative business for many professionals. It has been said “…more people are LIVING off of cancer than people DYING from it!” 

Bottom line is modern medicine is very limited in its approach to cancer and does not have a long-term plan for true recovery. But alternative medicine doesn’t have definite answers either. Its options are broader and often deal with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual approaches. A combination of western and alternative approaches may be necessary to get a disease under control. However, the road to complete recovery will come from natural methods, since they have demonstrated extending the (quality of) life of the patients, and therefore give the body more time to try possible options for true healing! 

Luckily, there are a growing number of conventionally trained physicians who, since being in private practice, have been working with cancer patients who have healed from this dreadful disease by way of all-natural, or integrative methods. These doctors are now integrating what they have witnessed and experienced and they have become inspirational to new patients they're seeing in their practice. They have also used their professional title, expertise, and name to write books and scientific papers showing the benefits of both alternative therapies and promoting the integrative approach to better health from both modalities. 

A good example for this is famed medical doctor, orthopedic trauma surgeon, author and lecturer Lorraine Day(3), who developed severe advanced breast cancer and almost died. She recovered by natural methods, without chemotherapy, radiation or mutilating surgery. In her research she discovered there are known causes for virtually every disease, even though this is never taught to doctors in medical schools! Dr. Day uses a daily regimen, which she feels is the key to better health. She goes to bed every night around 9:30pm. When she wakes up she spends an hour on spiritual enrichment (bible reading, prayer, meditation); her diet is completely raw and vegan (i.e. no food from animal sources) and includes several freshly juiced drinks daily; she walks or exercises at least an hour, and tries to be exposed to sunlight for an hour a day. Dr. Day also abstains from being negative to and about others. Regarding conventional cancer therapies she is very clear, though: she has learned through practical experience that chemotherapy and radiation do not make the body well: “They destroy, they do not heal” she says. “The hope of the doctor is that the cancer will be destroyed without destroying the entire patient. These therapies do kill cancer cells, but they kill a lot of good cells too, including those of the immune system, the very system that one needs to get well!” She continues: “Fortunately, ALL cancer responds to rebuilding the immune system by natural methods. The immune system cannot be rebuilt with drugs, because ALL drugs have side effects that eventually suppress the immune system and damage the body even more.” Interestingly, Dr. Day doesn’t take any nutritional supplements, because she believes that they may often grow the cancer. She only consumes supplements in the form of “whole foods”, such as barley grass, which contains the widest variety of important nutrients in the plant kingdom. 

Dr. Day’s regimen has worked extremely well for a lot of people. However, it is ONE method; a method that includes spiritual power. I personally believe that dietary supplements can also play an important role in the process of healing from cancer. "Pushing back hard" on cancers cannot always be done with food and the other great methods she describes. Specific nutritional supplements can enhance and accelerate the healing. You can find all kinds of articles and references about different nutrients on the internet. I will address those in another article.

There are those who have looked at the macrobiotic diet(7) for answers. It concerns an ancient Japanese method of cooking and/or fermenting foods that help to alkalize the body. The principles of yin and yang are part of this style. They symbolize acid/sweet versus alkaline/bitter; the former indicating things that weaken the body more, the latter factors that are needed to balance and rebuild. Suggested is that foods be consumed that grow in the present climate zone and that are in season. The macrobiotic diet also promotes extensive chewing of foods (often 80x per bite) to have enzymes help in proper digestion. It is not just a diet to heal from cancer, but as a lifestyle it promotes balance within nature.

Others have strengthened and healed the body by going completely raw. This would include raw fruits and vegetables, primarily those of an alkaline nature, as well as sprouting different nuts (almonds, filberts), seeds (sunflower, sesame, pumpkin, alfalfa, radish) and beans (mung, garbanzo, lentils). Sprouting creates more life in the foods because of increased enzyme function. The idea is to give the body live fuel and nourishment, instead of letting it deal with cooked/dead nutrition. For natural sodium consumption, which helps in alkalizing the body, one could try a variety of seaweeds that have been soaked in water, arame (pron. Ah-rah-May), wakame (Wah-kah-may), hiziki (Hee-djee-kee), dulse and nori. Personally I think they taste pretty good. These seaweeds could also be cooked and eaten alone, or made part of a stir-fry. Eating a raw foods diet to beat cancer can be a giant step in the right direction. Look at a 100% raw foods diet as a detoxifying diet, unloading and cleaning the liver; and helping the kidneys to filter better, while also healing leaky gut in our intestines. A primary plant based diet is doable for many people, but perhaps can be adjusted, after cancer goes into remission, to incorporating cooked, steamed, and sautéed vegetables, mushrooms, and some clean (grass-fed, free-range) animal proteins. 

During the last several decades, a myriad of diets has focused on creating healthier bodies, losing weight, fighting diseases and living longer. 

The true alternative approach to better health, though, is not restricted to diet alone, or just supplements for that matter. It is a wake-up call letting you know to drop everything you’re doing and reconsider your life’s strategy, if you ever had one. 

Cancer, for most people, has built up over many years or decades and is an accumulation of different toxins and stresses, be they spiritual, mental, emotional or physical.

Don't look at a cancer diagnosis as a defeat; approach it as an opportunity for a do-over, a pathway to a better you! Everyone in search of a cure needs to find what works for him or her. Whatever choice you make, if it feels right, that's the best way for you! It is the satisfaction of the journey we take (to get to that final destination) that really matters. 

2. https://intuitionmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Energy-Medicine-Practical-Ancient-Wisdom.pdf 

4. https://www.christelheidemannakademie.info/meridian-and-colour-therapy-29.html

6. https://positivepowernutrition.com

7. https://lovehealscancer.org/cancer-care/macrobiotic-diet

8. https://www.pritikin.com/your-health/health-benefits/reduce-cancer-risk/1697-halting-and-killing-breast-and-prostate-cancer-cells.html

9. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-almost-everything-dean-ornish-says-about-nutrition-is-wrong/

10. https://www.atkins.com/our-story/atkins-diet-history. 

11. https://www.verywellfit.com/the-zone-diet-4769505

12. https://thepaleodiet.com/science/disease-prevention/cancer. 

13. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19049574/