Story
"There is no road to follow; you make your own path as you walk", a Spanish poem says.
These words evoke a lot of uncertainty, but for a chronic illness sufferer without prospects for a cure, an uncertain path to a life worth living is more promising than a certain path to disability.
Crises
My first experience of oncological illnesses was a childhood cancer. That was the first and only time when I experienced the conventional trio of cancer treatments as I was too young to suspect that that might not be the best solution for me. Like many people, I’d been conditioned to think that the better I comply with doctor’s recommendations, the higher my chances of survival would be. I ignored my intuition that was clearly telling me that it wouldn’t work. And, of course, it didn’t.
However, that early experience turned out to be nothing but a preparation for a more complex condition that really made me learn and grow. When I was in my 20s, I discovered that I have Von Hippel Lindau, a rare genetic disorder which develops recurring tumours, cancerous and noncancerous, throughout the body, and for which there is no known medical cure.
First Steps to Taking Back Control
While I consented to urgent surgeries to remove the constantly growing tumours in my brain and kidneys, this time I didn’t simply rely on what doctors told me and did my own research. I radically changed my diet to include cancer fighting foods, kept track of how much exercise I was doing, gave up unhealthy lifestyle habits I was now conscious of, experimented with all the complementary therapies I could afford, and was constantly expanding my knowledge to create a healthy terrain and enhance my body’s self-healing abilities.
Despite all these changes, MRI scans kept showing growth, new tumours were popping up where the previous ones had been removed, surgeries were still expected regularly. I have no doubt that healthy lifestyle habits contribute to healing, but why is it that for some patients lifestyle changes are enough to cause cancer to go into remission, but not for others?
Freedom From Victimhood
For cancer to develop, a combination of factors needs to be present – physical, psychological, energetic and even karmic, – and if modifying physical lifestyle factors didn’t stop tumour growth, it means that the primary causes of that particular cancer are not physical. I deepened my research to look beyond diet and exercise, studied energy medicine, became a reiki master, researched emotional blockages to healing, learned about cancer personality, looked after my emotional hygiene, created a spiritual practice, and sought meaning behind adversities in my life (health issues being only part of my adverse experiences). Most importantly, having seen how little medical professionals had contributed to all this empowering knowledge, I took full responsibility for my healing.
"Although fear will always have more arguments, choose hope."
Seneca
Freedom From Medical Authority
But still, my third brain tumour wasn’t going away, every MRI brought more frustration, every follow-up appointment resulted in more pressure to submit to another surgery immediately, failure of which, I was told, would likely result in death.
I declined. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure of how “safe” my decision was. The question “What if they are right?” was always at the back of my mind. But as years went by, the more confident I felt about my decision. I felt that the medical professionals who were assigned to help me get better in fact:
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pressured me to undertake highly invasive treatments,
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threatened deadly consequences of refusing those treatments,
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belittled the natural abilities of my body and mind to fight off the illness,
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had no regard for the life I had outside hospitals,
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reminded me that I was indefinitely at the mercy of the healthcare system.
This felt more like intimidation than support. While I realise that conventional medicine doesn’t have a solution for all the diseases in the world, I don’t see how programming the patient to get worse by making them feel hopeless and helpless (which are the traits of a cancer-prone personality) can be justified.
When we do get better, we have to ask ourselves, did we get better thanks to or despite the medical treatment that we received?
Freedom From Genetic Determinism
In my case, the medical approach was adamant that the genetic nature of my disorder justified the removal of all hope for me. Back then, I also believed my biology to be limited by my genes. I therefore assumed that no matter what I did, stopping the growth of tumours wasn’t possible because I lacked the tumour suppression gene. But it felt wrong. What if the key was not which genes we were born with or without, but how those genes expressed themselves? What if the influence of the mind on the body was so great that it could override genetic programming? Coincidentally (even though I don’t believe in coincidences), at that point I came across the study of epigenetics, which gives the scientific basis for what I already knew intuitively. If I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that my body has the innate ability to heal itself, then it’s exactly what it’s going to do, because the body follows the mind. Caught between the unacceptable quality of life that came with never-ending conventional treatments on the one hand, and death on the other, I was the perfect candidate to experiment with the power of belief.
And then it worked. My brain tumour shrank by more than half. Doctors were incredulous at first, but as soon as they ascertained that I achieved it without their methods, lost interest. As far as I know, my so-called “spontaneous regression” hasn’t yet been reported in the medical community, nor has it been investigated, and the medical statistics of survival and improvement that newly diagnosed patients are shown remain unchanged. I still have tumours and cysts in other organs, but I feel that it’s entirely within my power to manage them.
"Belief modification can induce rapid changes in gene activity."
Dr Bruce Lipton
Blessing in Disguise
If we have a persistent illness that doesn’t go away with the solutions we were conditioned to turn to, it means inevitably that there is something wrong with our body or mind to the extent that the body refuses to function like this any longer. No matter how much we suppress symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries (or even natural remedies), the illness will not go away until we resolve what our body is asking us to resolve. And only when we learn (and hopefully, grow) from this experience, will this illness go away, its job done.
If I were given the choice to go back in time and live my life with or without this condition, I would choose to keep it. How else would I have learned all the lessons I’ve been taught by it?
I wonder how much stress and life energy I could have saved myself if I had had support. The reality is that doctors not only don’t help but harm chronic patients by instilling fear, powerlessness and doubt in their innate abilities, thereby taking all hope away from them, complementary therapists are trained not to contradict the medical establishment, radical remissions and other “spontaneous” regressions are being omitted from medical statistics, mental health therapists don’t have the same personal experience, and relatives are sometimes even more scared than the patients themselves. For me personally, the support I needed was non-existent. My ambition is to change that for people who are going through similar struggles but believe that they should live their life on their own terms.
ITEC Diploma in Anatomy and Physiology
Reiki Master
Pranic Healing & Psychotherapy
Counselling Skills Diploma
Diploma in Oncology Counselling
Essential Oils Science
Transformational Coaching
The Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma
Foundation Certificate in Psychotherapy and Counselling
