Is a Cancer Diagnosis a Death Prognosis?
By Jacobus Hollewijn
This article is a combination of articles originally published in Bozeman, MT’s semi-monthly newspaper called The BoZone in March and April of 2004.
It has been re-checked and edited September 13, 2022.
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.
ENGAGING THE ENEMY
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.
In natural medicine this disease is regarded as a stage of ultimate acquired weakness in the body, caused by possible prolonged stress, and/or exposure to specific toxins. These toxins could be dietary and/or chemical and/or nuclear. On top of that an imbalance in hormones (especially the over-use of estrogens) is most often a cause of prostate, breast, ovarian, fallopian, uterine, cervical, and vaginal cancers.
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.
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.
MASTERY AND MIRACLES
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!"
DEALING WITH A DIAGNOSIS
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.
Based on your result there are different things you can do diet-wise and lifestyle-wise to improve or maintain where you're at.
WRECKING OUR INNER RHYTHM
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.
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.
DOCTORS CHANGING DIRECTION
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!
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.
EATING ESSENTIALS
During the last several decades, a myriad of diets has focused on creating healthier bodies, losing weight, fighting diseases and living longer.
- The Pritikin Diet(8), the Ornish Diet (Dean Ornish, MD)(9), who states the following about his dietary suggestions: “An optimal diet for preventing disease is a whole-foods, plant-based diet that is naturally low in animal protein, harmful fats and refined carbohydrates. What that means in practice is little or no red meat; mostly vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and soy products in their natural forms; very few simple and refined carbohydrates such as sugar and white flour; and sufficient “good fats” such as fish oil or flax oil, seeds and nuts. A healthful diet should be low in “bad fats,” meaning trans fats, saturated fats and hydrogenated fats. Finally, we need more quality and less quantity.”
- The Atkins Diet (Robert Atkins, MD)(10), which focuses on clean proteins and high-quality fats while restricting carbohydrates, and
- Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type (Peter D’Adamo, ND)(11). I have been intrigued by the concept of blood types, since his first book came out in 1996/1997.. Obviously, there are four types that are not automatically interchangeable. Yes, blood type O- is considered the universal donor, but otherwise blood transfusions have to be done with much care. Preventing cancer and adding a blood type diet to any cancer treatment is an interesting concept. Can certain foods and supplements indeed enhance the quality of blood and therefore help prevent diseases and aid healing from disorders? I think it makes a lot of sense. Comments are found all over the internet there is not enough scientific evidence. Perhaps try it yourself and see if you notice any difference?
- Then there is The Zone Diet (Barry Sears, MD)(11), better known as the 40-30-30 diet, which was published in the 1990's and where a person is suggested to consume 40% carbohydrates, 30% lean, healthy, unprocessed protein, and 30% healthy fats. Amounts are based on a person's weight and activity level. Eating the nutrients Dr. Sears suggests in these researched ratios has shown to improve overall health, lose unnecessary weight, and make our body's cells stronger in fighting cancers.
- There is also The Paleo Diet (Loren Cordain, Ph.D. via Walter Voegtlin, MD), "A paleo diet is a dietary plan based on foods similar to what might have been eaten during the Paleolithic era, which dates from approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago"(12). Dr. Cordain is the world's foremost expert on the Paleo Diet; Dr. Walter Voegtlin is the real inventor back in the early 1970's.
- And, finally for now, the Ketogenic Diet; This diet was originally invented in the 1920's for treating epilepsy(13). Today it's premise for incorporating it as a cancer therapy (perhaps with conventional approaches?), is that the ketogenic diet consists of very-low carbohydrate intake. It has been known that many cancer cells thrive on sugars. This process is being blocked now(14). At the same time the emphasis is on a higher percentage intake of quality (saturated) fats, with moderate proteins, because these rebuild and refuel our cells for healing. By incorporating Intermittent Fasting in this process (eat within 8 hours, then fast for 16 hours) in order to reset our body's metabolism, our digestive system will become both more protective and proactive as part of our innate immune system.
All these diets have their answers for fighting chronic ailments. Individuals try and pick the diet that fits best in their lifestyle.
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.
The purpose of this website is to inform, educate, and entertain, not to diagnose, treat, or cure. Jacobus is not a licensed physician. If you intend to utilize any of the information contained in the articles and/or podcasts, it is recommend you see a licensed, competent medical provider of your choice, or find additional information from other reputable sources. I cannot control the opinions of my guests. I will double-check my facts in good faith, but may not be able to fully verify every statement made by any third party. If you utilize any information from this Website, you do so at your own risk.
