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People
Tell Their Stories: One Woman’s Journey Through
Catastrophic Illness: Surviving Cancer with Alternative Medicine Mary Pat Palmer In April of 2001, during a
workshop on Facial Diagnosis at EarthSong Herbals in I am a professional
herbalist and psychotherapist and have worked with people with cancer for many
years. My experience as a healer has taught me to seek information from without
and to make decisions from within. I contacted my doctor for
a blood test. This led to a colonoscopy in early May. The colonoscopy found a
mass "of malignant appearance." My husband, Bill, directed my
attention to the word malignant. “No one in my family had cancer,” I told him. “We
all got heart disease.” Unsure what I would do
were it malignant, I sent emails out to many members of the herbal community
seeking help. I was still at my computer when herbalist David Winston of
Herbalists and Alchemists sent a return. "Red clover is useful. You might
think of adding Turmeric and Violet for intestinal tumors. Your idea of trying
alternatives, then checking for response and considering surgery if it doesn’t
respond is very sensible." My partner at our Boston School of Herbal Energetics, Kwah Wa’Adabi, prepared wonderful reishi
and Chaga potions for me. I practiced my yoga, as I
have done since I was 17, and tried to stay calm and centered. The colonoscopy results
came back on May 14. The tumor was malignant. My doctor, Dawn Osborne, informed
me that it was eating through the wall of the colon. I decided on surgery,
reasoning that it was an ancient art and clean. My cancer was colon cancer and
relatively easy to heal from. I met with Dr. Dana Fugelso at I entered into surgery
with headphones and healing mantras. I gave a slip of paper to Dr. Fugelso and the anesthesiologist that said: "As I am
going under the anesthesia please say, ‘This operation will remove your cancer,
leaving your colon healthy. You will bleed little during and after surgery.
Afterwards, you will feel comfortable and will heal very well’. After saying
these statements, please put on my earphones and start my tape. Toward the end
of surgery, please remove my earphones and say, ‘Your operation is successful.
You will now heal rapidly. Your colon will rejoin and your incision
heal effortlessly. Your entire digestive tract will begin to function
normally rapidly.’ " They had no problem fulfilling my wishes. Surgery was on May 22. I
had asked my family, herbal community, and other friends to pray for me as I
went under anesthesia in the morning. I felt that I was on a soft pink cloud.
My strength returned rapidly after the surgery, and I looked forward to going
home and having the whole ordeal over with. I was stunned when Dr. Fugelso came into my room and told me that three out of
twelve of my lymph nodes were infected. I needed chemotherapy. The ordeal was
not over. I continued to recover in
the hospital, receiving wonderful telephone calls and visits from family and
friends. Flowers filled my room like a jungle. On May 27, my younger brother,
John, strode purposely into my hospital room and said, "I can’t stand the
smell of hospitals. I’m getting you out of here." He did. John cooked me
gorgeous meals at home and held me as I shook with the memory of the surgery.
My daughter, Courtney, came to help. Friends and family surrounded me, there to
help with love and faith, healing circles and precious crystals. I went to see the
oncologist Dr. Keith Stuart at Beth Israel to talk about chemotherapy. Dr.
Stuart said that I would die without chemo, and had a 40 percent chance of
living with it. He estimated that the tumor had been growing for five to ten
years. He told me that the chemicals, 5 FU and Leucorin,
were standard for colon cancer. He also said that they were much gentler than
for breast and other cancers. Side effects included diarrhea, some nausea, and
teary eyes, but I’d keep my hair. Coming from a poker
playing family, the 40 percent odds didn’t seem that great, but then again, the
alternative sounded worse. I dearly wanted to become a grandmother. Surgery had
been surprisingly easy, and allopathic medicine was treating me well. I agreed
to eighteen rounds of treatment in the following six months. I went in for my first
treatment on June 18, and met briefly with Dr. Stuart. He pushed a button on
his computer to print the orders for the treatment. Nothing happened. He tried
another printer. Still nothing. This was a message that I didn’t heed until
later. We went down to the chemo room without the orders. The nurse prepped me,
reassuring me that the chemicals would enter through the streams of my veins,
travel to the rivers and then to the ocean of my heart. While this explanation
calmed many patients, it was horribly frightening to me. I was allowing my body
to become a toxic dump. I persevered. The IV was terribly cold, and I felt
trapped much of the time. I felt well enough at the
end of the two-hour treatment to drive home, stop on the way for grocery
shopping, read after dinner, and go to sleep. I woke up four hours later in
terrible agony, with nausea and head pain so great that I couldn’t move. My
journal records these symptoms as still being terrible five days later. They
persisted for another week while I stayed in bed trying not to move. My
daughter, Maia, came from I called Dr. Stuart to tell
him I was ending the chemotherapy. He was surprised that I didn’t ask him for
pills to prevent the nausea and headaches. I said counteractive medication was
not what I wanted. He was disappointed in my decision, but told me that I could
resume whenever I felt better. What made me choose to
stop chemotherapy and seek effective alternative means? I was certainly no
stranger to the horror stories of chemotherapy. How could something that felt
so deathly and destroyed my immune system heal me? I believed strongly that
faith in the cure was the most important factor in healing. I knew I had great
faith in herbs and acupuncture. And a quiet inner voice said that my quality of
life was the most important thing to me and would be lost with chemo. I began to research
alternatives to chemotherapy. Margi Flint of EarthSong
Herbals sent me a packet of Shiitake, Milk Thistle, and Siberian Ginseng solid
extract and another packet of Reishi and Siberian
Ginseng solid extract in August. Margi suggested one teaspoon three times
daily. The name of Bo In Lee from
the My first appointment with
Master Lee was on July 9, and I worked with him for over a year. We began with
appointments five days a week. By September I was down to two days a week, and
by February once a week, then once every two weeks as I became stronger and
healthier. He gave me acupuncture
treatments to points on my temples, right for the small intestine, left for the
colon. I received antioxidant supplements and Master Lee’s own mix of herbal
tea, as well as Enkill, the Korean PSP formula for
Cloud Mushroom Extract. Master Lee was very
expensive. A ten-day supply of his tea cost $400, and a single acupuncture
session was $149. A one-month supply of Enkill was
$550. It was a miracle that a small clause in my insurance covered most of the
costs. Most people stayed for a week to ten days at his clinic, at a cost of
$3,000, which included meals and lectures. Since I lived a five-minute bike
ride away, I was a day patient for over a year instead of 10 days. The waiting
room was full of wonderful people with moving stories, some who lived and some
who died. Master Lee himself was very warm and a great healer. I had two rounds of his
remarkably effective tea at ten days each. They contained Reishi,
seaweed, and licorice, and I’m not sure what else. I found a wonderful company
in Why did I get cancer?
Perhaps the cause was a physiological imbalance in my right hipbone and a
missing layer of muscle on the gluteus maximus. These
are in close proximity to my ascending colon. I also had chronic appendicitis
as a child, never removed because the white count was incorrect. Perhaps it was
because I was sexually molested as a child in a bathroom and always wanted to
poop "later". Are there other reasons?
Master Lee was distressed that I had been a vegetarian and off and on vegan
since the age of 19 (I was 54 at this time). He categorized patients as animal
types and diagnosed me as a lion who needed red meat.
It was true that I had been anemic most of my life. I tended toward heavy foods
like brown rice and heavy breads, and have always battled a sweet tooth. I also
had several years of open rebellion in my eating habits starting in my forties.
Since working with Master Lee, I began eating more protein, although I still
can’t eat a lot of red meat. I am now cancer free. I
had a colonoscopy in January 2004 that was clear. I joked with the technician
that I should be charged less with only four feet of colon instead of five. The
colonoscopist was great and laughed. I change my
protocol and regimen every now and then. Cancer is very clever and one needs to
switch things as one would with a virus. I eat lots of yogurt, which helps with
colon cancer, and I take a probiotic bifidopolis supplement. One of my favorite parts
of my regimen is my chai. I was never consistent with
any pills except the Reishi and Coriolus
that I took for two years. I even have problems with vitamins and probably take
them every three days. But chai has worked for me for
a long time. I make a large batch, then freeze it in pints and drink it for
several days when the spirit moves me. This chai is
delicious and violates many tried and tested formulae by being almost all
roots. The other herbal teas included in my day to day life easily balance it.
I take chai in the morning, mixed half-and-half with
oat milk. I also use chai to keep my bowels moving
since cancer can develop from stagnation. My chai
contains the following herbs. Chai – to be made in 3 gallons of water (Note: Use chai no more than two weeks at a time) Roots, general, that act as foods as
well and are generally regarded as very safe: ·
1/2 cup
Burdock (Arctium lappa). ·
1/2 cup
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) ·
1/2 cup Ashwaganda (Withania somnifera) ·
1/2 cup
Siberian Ginseng (Eleuthrococcus senticosis) ·
1/2 cup Astragalus (Astragalus membranaceus) ·
1/2 cup Ho Shou Wu: (Polygonum multiflorum) ·
1/2 cup Dong Quai: (Angelica sinensis) ·
1/2 cup
Marshmallow (Althaea officinalis) ·
1/4 cup Ginger
(Zingiber officinale) ·
1/4 cup
Elecampane (Inula
helenium) ·
2 TBL cup
Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa). ·
2 TBL Licorice
(Glycyrrhiza glabra). ·
2 TBL Yellow
Dock (Rumex crispus) ·
2 TBL Prickly
Ash: (Zanthoxylum
·
2 TBL Calamus (Acorus calamus) ·
·
5 Cinnamon
Sticks (Cinnamomum zeylanicum) ·
2 TBL Black
Pepper (Piper nigrum) ·
2 TBL Cardamom
(Eletarria cardamomum ·
1/2 cup dried
orange peel. ·
Simmer all the ingredients
except the orange peel together for four hours. Turn off the heat, add the
orange peel and let sit for another four hours or overnight in a cool place,
then strain and pour into pint containers. I greatly prefer this to tincture
mixes. I usually mix it with oat milk but also use soy or goat milk. It really
is delicious. I wouldn’t use it for more
than two weeks, because it would stress the kidneys over time. However, when
I’ve had lung dampness that I can’t kick, it works wonderfully as it does if my
digestion gets sluggish. My digestion is less sluggish, though, with only four
feet of colon! All of this would be
meaningless without a word about love and the heart. I am eternally grateful to
everyone in the herbal community who carried me in their hearts and minds. In
addition to the loving telephone calls, cards, and conversations, I received
many gifts of herbs, tinctures, and salves from many people. I felt surrounded
by loving energy in my home on the East Coast. However, as I thought
about my life and what was truly important when I was faced with death, I
realized that I missed my family and the West Coast where I grew up. I did not
want to die in Here in the small town of Sources: Mary Pat Palmer, Philo Pharm. mpatpalm@earthlink.net.
(you will get through the spamblocker!).
707-895-3007.
http://www.philopharm.com,
www.herbalenergetics.com Master Bo In Lee, New Prepare for Surgery,
Heal Faster. Peggy Huddleston.
Angel River Press, MA 1996 www.healfaster.com Herbal Medicine,
Healing & Cancer. Donald Yance. Keats Publishing, 1999. www.centrehealing.com |