Considering unconventional therapies and support for cancer treatment can be a very challenging thing to do. Many people have an interest, curiosity, even a desire, to use holistic modalities to treat cancer or support conventional cancer therapies, but it is difficult for them to know where to start. Even if there is an interest, there is so much pressure and urgency placed on individuals during the diagnosis process, it becomes overwhelming to even think about attempting anything else. The word cancer carries so much weight. We could easily say it is synonymous with the word fear. How often have you heard the words, “I had a cancer scare?” And let’s be honest, when you think of the word cancer, what emotions and what words come to mind for you? Fear, dread, sickness, physical pain, being emaciated, losing your hair, and of course, death.
In our culture, it is so ingrained that the traditional western medical system is the only right way to prevent or recover our bodies from disease. This makes it difficult for people to pursue other therapy options once they’ve received a diagnosis of any degenerative disease, especially cancer. I hear story after story of individuals who are diagnosed with cancer and then rushed into having a port surgically implanted, or being rushed into chemotherapy treatments where they are literally being signed up and scheduled the next day to go in and begin protocols. I hear stories of individuals feeling pressured to move forward with these therapies quickly, and without a full understanding of the treatment, including potential short and long term side effects, and even before receiving information on all of their options. We are expected, as good patients, to take what the doctor says as the only option and to do what is recommended. We are expected to not question our doctors. This isn’t good, and here’s why.
In the conventional medical system, there are certain standards of practice. There are guidelines that doctors need to follow in the United States, which limits their ability to even extend their interest beyond what is considered standard of care, even if there is success with other options. For instance, when we went in for my mother’s follow-up scans 6 months after starting treatments at Hope4Cancer, her oncologist was shocked to see my mom’s scans showing no evidence of disease after just 6 months prior he had told us that kidney cancer does not get cured or go away, and she will have to manage it until it takes her life (He gave 2-2.5 years best case scenario). She also was told that the treatment options that they offer could buy her time or even potentially shorten her life, depending on how her body responded. I assumed that her oncologist would be very excited to learn about the amazing protocols that helped to clear the cancer from my mom’s body! He asked, “So what did you do?” and she started to list off all the therapies that she had been doing for the past 6 months. About a third of the way through the list, he stopped her and said “Oh, okay, interesting.” He didn’t want to hear about it; it didn’t really matter because it was nothing that fit within his scope of practice.
It might surprise you to know that in other countries around the world, doctors are given the liberty to recommend therapies, any therapies, that they feel would suit their patients best. With the American Medical Association at the helm in the United States, the doctors’ hands are tied in this regard. How do we overcome this challenge? How do we support people in getting this information? There are more options beyond what conventional doctors are sharing with patients, but because of the system, this information will never reach these people through their chosen caregivers. That is unless they step outside of the conventional medical system, which is often an uphill battle when it comes to getting support from friends, family, and doctors.
We’ve just returned from another visit to Hope4Cancer, as my mom approaches her 6-year mark of being cancer-free. Every year when we return, we meet incredible people who are courageously going against the grain, against the conventional medical system, and are stepping into territory that requires them to trust what they are feeling and that what they know inside is the right decision for them. What they feel and know is that they do not want to put poison into their bodies. They don’t want to experience the negative side effects, both short-term and long-term, of chemo therapeutics and immunotherapy drugs. They have already often gone through conventional treatments and either did not have success or the cancer went away and returned and they just can’t imagine going through another round of treatments.
I’ve heard them say, “I feel like it will kill me.” or “I see people getting chemotherapy treatments and they look so sick, yet at Hope4Cancer they are getting treatments and look well!” They just have a feeling inside and know they don’t want to go through conventional treatments, so they have to face the challenges of not following conventional standards of care. As I said, this requires so much courage. They are following their heart, an inner knowing, an inner voice that says “NO, that doesn’t make sense to me. I want to strengthen and support my body in fighting cancer. I want to take an approach that isn’t going to cause horrible side effects or poison my system. I want to do things that are actually going to improve my immune system rather than crash it.” Because this is such “outside-of-the-box” thinking, it does require a certain level of ability to stand and walk where others are afraid to.
I hope that someday, these options are considered as equally valid as conventional therapies. You might say, “well, why wouldn’t you want holistic approaches to be the only standard of care?” and my answer to that is, I believe that people deserve options! Whether it’s conventional medicine or a holistic approach. I believe that every individual has a right to choose what path of medicine they want to follow, including a full spectrum of all combinations of conventional and holistic approaches. But, when fear of rapid progression of disease and an urgency to start treatments immediately are pushed on people, unfortunately patients aren’t given the chance to fully evaluate or process anything.
Simultaneously, conventional cancer treatment options weaken the body’s immune system, liver, and other organs and systems and are cancer causing in their own right. They wreak havoc on the digestive system and often cause symptoms that are very difficult for the body to handle. Even just considering that there’s candy, soda and chips inside some chemotherapy rooms is just so disheartening. The complete lack of acknowledgement of the importance of nutrition on the cancer healing journey from the conventional medical system is outright disturbing and unacceptable. There is so much research now available about the benefits of healthy nutrition for the body and direct links of unhealthy foods such as trans fats, sugar, alcohol, and highly processed foods causing degenerative disease in the body, recommending a holistic nutrition consultant should be standard of care.
There is so much research saying that these things are currently causing conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer! These diseases are lifestyle diseases. Diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease have been acknowledged as diseases that can be prevented at the very least in a certain percentage of the time solely through lifestyle changes. If this is the case, then it is absolutely inexcusable for the conventional medical community to ignore this important piece of the puzzle. They are doing their patients a complete disservice. Beyond that, they are actually encouraging harm to their patients bodies by condoning alcohol and sugar consumption while someone has cancer. Inflammation is part of the cancer process. Acid in the body is a part of the cancer-forming process. Why would you tell people to eat whatever they want? And why do hospitals still serve highly processed foods containing sugar, high levels of sodium, preservatives, and carcinogenic dyes? This is just one very small piece of the puzzle when we are looking at how to holistically approach healing cancer in the body. And yes, I say healing. It is not the chemotherapy or the alternative therapy that heals the individual, it is the individual’s body that heals itself. When it comes to conventional treatments and drugs such as chemo therapeutics, it is DESPITE this therapy that the body still rises up and recovers itself. In this case, the body has to overcome the cancer as well as the toxins from the therapy!
Don’t believe me? Direct from AI GOOGLE: Autopsies have revealed that certain cancer therapies can lead to significant damage to healthy tissues, contributing to patient mortality. While cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation are designed to target cancer cells, they can also harm surrounding healthy cells, leading to complications that may result in death.
Key Findings
- Tissue Damage: Autopsies often show extensive damage to organs such as the liver, lungs, and heart, which can be exacerbated by the toxicity of treatments.
- Secondary Infections: Weakened immune systems due to aggressive therapies can lead to infections that are difficult to treat.
- Treatment-Related Mortality: Some studies indicate that a portion of cancer patients may die from treatment-related causes rather than the cancer itself.
A discussion about this and the potential long term side effects are often not fully discussed, and if they are presented, it’s in a “lesser of 2 evils” scenario: yes this therapy has terrible side effects BUT if you don’t do this, the cancer will kill you. There’s no other choice.
Where I’m going with all of this is that in our society we are faced with a great challenge when it comes to diagnosis of cancer. People are not given options and are fed misinformation, they are fed fear, they are pressed with extreme urgency to rush into decisions. In most cases, very rarely do I hear someone say “I met with my oncologist and they told me to take 1-2 weeks to think about the options that they gave me, and to explore alternative therapies in case I feel that might be better for me on my healing journey.” I’ve never heard one person say that. I also want to say that I am really grateful for our medical system and for so many aspects of modern medicine. I’m also grateful for the individuals who have gone into medicine because they love people and they want to help and heal them. I do believe however, the system in which they are taught through and must provide their services through is limiting and in many aspects, broken.
Some people know right away that they want to take an alternative approach to healing. Some people do conventional therapies first and then make their way to alternative healing modalities. Some people are happy with moving forward with conventional therapies because they feel that it is right and it makes them feel the most comfortable and safe. This is valid, too. That being said, there are many things happening within this system that are not okay, including rushing people into treatment decisions and not fully disclosing long-term potential side effects of the use of these therapies. Beyond this, people need to be informed that other ways to treat and fully clear cancer from the body are available. Therapies that have minimal to no negative side effects on the body, are minimally invasive, and do not poison and weaken the body. Rather they build it up and strengthen it to clear the cancer through its own means, its own immune system, and regulation.
By not acknowledging this information with patients, I believe conventional medical doctors are doing harm. I do not blame doctors or oncologists. Unfortunately the doctors hands are tied and they don’t have much choice in the matter regarding what they can recommend. However, what they can do is say, “there are other non conventional options, I’m not allowed to speak to you about them, but you can do your own research and see if that’s a path that feels more aligned for you.” They can say that. They cannot make the recommendation, they cannot speak about specific therapies, they cannot make any claims, but they can say “What we are offering here is not the only option, there are other options if this doesn’t feel aligned for you. I’m happy to answer all of your questions about the treatments I’m recommending and you can then weigh the risks and rewards of other options compared to what we offer here.”
When it comes to cancer, there is no magic bullet. It is a very complex disease. It often develops through multiple layers of challenges and issues within the body, including toxicity, stress, the role of genetics, the role of environment, nutrition, economic status and more. Alternative therapies and conventional therapies, from my research, have shown similar outcomes when it comes to the success of battling cancer. Neither is WINNING the fight against cancer better than the other. The big questions we really need to be answering are why do some people get cancer and others don’t? Why do some people recover and heal and others continue to fail, even when doing similar therapies? Why do some people have recurrence while others don’t? Whether it is a conventional or holistic approach, we see people make it, and we see people die. I believe this is because of the complex nature of us all as humans. We all have a different starting point when it comes to health when we enter this planet, we also have different lifestyles, genetic predispositions, states of mental health, so of course what works for one person may very well not work for another.
I feel very strongly that this is why it is important for individuals to know all of their options and to be supported in a comprehensive way when making a decision regarding cancer therapy. People need to be able to choose what is best for them, without guilt, fear, shame or negative reactions from doctors or family members. Through all of the experiences I’ve had in my life, I feel very passionately about the mission to help change the paradigm of the conventional medical system to be more open and honest with the patients it serves regarding supportive therapies external to the conventional medical system. This includes not only full disclosure of treatment options and their risks and possible rewards, but also on the true nature of the body’s ability to do miraculous things when given the right tools at the right time. Please keep your eyes open for the publishing of my book, a support guide for individuals newly diagnosed with cancer and their caregivers, slotted to release at the end of the summer! I’m really excited to share it with you!
In the meantime, be well, and KEEP THRIVING!