Modern Medicine and Cancer Healing
I remember clearly the breakfast we had on the morning that my father told us, in a calm relaxed manner, that he was going into the hospital for surgery and that there was no need to worry as "It was only going to take a couple of days". That morning as similar to many mornings was a good one. Lake Dennison, the lake we frequented in our town had a perfect walking distance of two to three miles and we enjoyed a walk prior to breakfast on a nice Fall morning. He gave little detail into what was wrong which signaled to us that it was something that he did not want to talk about and therefore might be serious. On my father's side of the family, there has been a lot of cancer. My grandfather and 3 of his 6 siblings had cancer. My father also lost 2 out of his 8 brothers and sisters to different forms of the disease. Maria, who was diagnosed with leukemia her senior year of high school, I never met and knew only by pictures. She had long red hair and my grandmother had several photographs of her in cheerleading attire for year book pictures. And then there was my dear aunt Patty, who used to watch my siblings and I. She died of brain cancer at 35 and left behind a husband and my two younger cousins Johnny and Jenny. She was a nurse and found out that she had cancer when she passed out from a seizure one day at work. One day while helping people. The woman was always smiling. Some great advice as passed on to me by my cousin Johnny was what she had told him on one of her last days while lying in bed, that "life is short and one should have as much fun as you possible, and enjoy it as much as you can".
We found out mostly from my mother more details about my father's situation. She told us that he had a tumor several years before that had been removed but that cancer had come back and that he was going to be going in for treatment. She herself was kind in the dark about everything as my father had held back on giving her the information he knew about how serious it was. As it turned out, my father most likely had a tumor growing in him for almost two years. After his previous procedure he had not returned to the doctor for routine checkups.
It was after my father's first procedure that my family moved out of my grandparent's and bought our fist house. It was a 4000 sq. ft Victorian house in need of a lot of renovation and my parents put the kids to work. My brother, two sisters and I put hours upon hours of work into it our house, with guidance from my father and our uncles at times. We helped them with most of the work that was done on the house. During that time we did everything from jacking up the house, to replacing all the windows, replacing all of the electrical, renovating the kitchens and bathrooms, and finishing the floors. In addition we built a new staircase, moved several walls, built a new back deck and cut down more than 30 trees in our back yard. It was good work and served as a great learning experience for my siblings and I
It is my belief that my father made a decision after buying our new house that he was going to try to live each day to the fullest and enjoy it as much as possible by doing what he loved most, spending time with his family. I also think that he felt that it would be better than going through chemo and spending his last days feeling sick. He had seen the effects of chemo on family and friends; how debilitating the treatment was to a person's immune system and to their immediate health and well being.
By the time my father went in for the surgery I was back in school for civil engineering. My mother called to say that he was going in and that she would call me when he was out of surgery. It was worse than they had expected. The doctor's at the hospital, after spending 13 hours on what they thought would be a 6 hour surgery had removed 20 pounds of tumors and possibly infected tissue from him. Afterwards they said that that was the second largest amount they had ever removed. After talking to my mom throughout the night and the next day, I went to see him in ICU. He was there for 6 weeks and then other hospitals for 2 more months. My sister Sarah and I would drive from college as much as possible to see him and spend time with my Mom and our younger brother and sister.
Those were tough times. After being unconscious for several weeks the doctor's slowly started to wean him off morphine and other drugs they had given him. As remarkable as my father's surgery was so also was his recovery. The doctors were amazed to see him talking again so soon and asking if he could go home after being out of ICU for only a month. As a result of the doctor's great work my father was released with and told that he could return home after only a couple of months.
Upon returning home, he spent most of his time lounging in the driveway, basking in the sun. Because his family and friends were so happy to see him again, he usually had plenty of company. He went on to live for another year before ultimately losing his battle to cancer.
I think of the extra year my family got to spend with my father as having been a great blessing, as many people don't have the opportunity to spend the final time with their loved ones in awareness that they may not be around forever. During that last year that my father was alive, he went right back to his old routine of working on the house with his children and sharing in his wisdom.
It was also during this time that my father invested in an herbalist to help with his breathing and with the cancer if possible. He always believed in using natural medicine as a means of curing one's ailments. Sonia, the herbalist was immediately effective in helping him in several different ways. Having trained with a master herbalist in France, she seemed to really know what she was talking about. She gave him herbs for digestion, cancer treatment, breathing, and healing.
In revisiting the hospital where he had originally had his surgery, the doctor's said that they were amazed to see that the tumors in his lungs had shrunk considerably. My father believed that this was a result of the herbalist's treatments and said that his lungs felt better immediately, upon using the herbal tonics she had given him. While it is unknown whether the herbs were the actual cause of them shrinking, I think that it is definitely a possibility. I think that it would be greatly beneficial for western medicine to incorporate holistic medicine into their treatment regimes and to consider this method of practicing medicine as much of the knowledge that we have about modern medicine came originally from holistic medicine. With time and advancement, I would hope that the medical community does a better job of thinking more objectively and considering these less normative techniques. It was only after my father went through a 2 rounds of chemo that he ultimately became very weak and his lungs shut down.
A year and a half after my father passed my sister Sarah was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the age of 27, Sarah beat her cancer. She had a mastectomy and because they caught it early only had to go through one round of chemo. When she went to Brigham and Women's and told them of all the random types of cancer in my family they immediately suggested a P-53 genetic test. The P-53 gene which every person has controls cell division. It is a part of our gene program that works to suppress tumor formation. Unfortunately sometimes the P-53 gene doesn't work right and in some families there is a mutation. Two doctors while working at Brigham and Women's actually discovered the P-53 gene and developed a test called the Lee-Fraumini test which tests to see if there is a genetic mutation in the gene. To date worldwide there has been less than 500 families that have been diagnosed with the gene. Mine is one of them. Six months ago I was tested and after waiting for a month found out that I do not have the gene. I had a 50% chance of having a P-53 genetic mutation and since it most likely came from my father's side of the family so do my other 30 first cousins on that side of the family. I have been telling them to get tested for it and many of them have said that they are going to. If you have the P-53 mutation you have just about a 50% chance of developing cancer.
Modern medicine has done great things for my family. It has saved lives and brought new ones into the world multiple times and I am thankful for that. With the advent of new cancer treatment technologies the chances of recovery are improve dramatically everyday. Medicine also allowed me to realize that I do not have the P-53 mutation nor can I pass it on to my children. With selective embryo research, scientists can now test an embryo for the gene so that an embryo can be chosen that does not have the gene and be implanted. By doing this the gene can in reality be wiped off the face of the planet.
If faced with the same situation as James Rhio, I think that I would try to take a similar route as he did. I would try to gather as much information about treatment options available while also considering holistic alternatives and herbal treatment options. I would do my best to work hard to strengthen my immune system and try to live as healthy as possible with exercise, by eating right and laughing and try to live each day to the fullest.