Tough Cookies

Don't think for a minute that someone who chooses not to do chemotherapy is taking the easy way out.  Even with a firm conviction that chemotherapy isn't for you, there are still moments of what if..., and there isn't a lot of support for that decision.  Everyone from the doctors down to family members question your decision. You almost have to have nerves of steel to repeatedly asnwer the question, "why on earth are you choosing this?" And even those who don't ask the question right out, look at you with a look that tells you they think you are a nut job. It takes a certain amount of inner strenghth to follow through with a choice that doesn't follow medical protocal.

I have learned to seriously question the routines and procedures of the medical community beyond just the chemotherapy issue.  I used to think that often doctors have no idea how to evaluate certain issues and even less of an idea of how to treat them, other than to throw some kind of medicine at it. Now I know that is the way it works.  I have learned that it is my job to come to a doctor's appointment prepared with what I think is happening in my body and an idea of how I want to go about treating it.  This is not to say that I don't appreciate doctors and what they do; I know they are tremendously valuable to society.  But I also know they have been limited by the current system. 

I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I do think that the medical community is presently dominated and controlled by Big Pharmaceuticals.  The drug companies are behind the research that educates the doctors who end up prescribing patented and expensive pharmaceuticals that are marketed directly to the public through constant marketing campaigns.  Does anyone else see a problem with a product that is advertised on television and then must be prescribed by your local physician who is educated by the company who advertises that product?  What would we think if the makers of the Big Mac advertised big juicy burgers as health food and then "educated" your doctor to tell you NEEDED a Big Mac to control your appetite for junk food and gave you a slip of paper with a prescribed diet of Big Macs?  Would we not stop to question that?  Why do we just take the slip of paper and head over to the pharmacy without stopping to ask, "isn't there another way?" 

I believe our bodies are amazing things created by a loving Father in Heaven.  I believe he made these bodies in a way that given the proper environment, can overcome many things.  I also believe that our bodies are engineered to eventually fail.  That's where science and physicians should come in; not before.  So in some ways my body has hit that failing point; cancer.  So why don't I take hold of everything medicine has to offer to help with that failing?  In my position, it is because I don't feel like the research shows that it is not scientifically sound. I am 100% likely to experience side effects of treatment, including a very small possibility resulting in death, and have only a vague, unpredictable percentage of being healed or cured.  For me it is way too UNpredictable.  Yet this is the standard of care simply because we lack something better; or do we?

I have learned so much from several sources about the profound effect that diet has on our systems.  I am not naive enough to believe that diet changes are going to heal the world; but I do believe that western society has a lot of improving to do in the diet realm of our lives.  We don't eat like our bodies were meant to be fed.  Our food is so tampered with, it barely resembles the food our ancestors consumed, and in my opinion, it is taking its toll on our bodies.  Just look at a group of random strangers.  Puffy faces, expanding waistlines, dry, rashy skin, blemishes galore.  The list goes on.  Isn't it logical that in a society where food is more available than ever before in history and yet we look like we are slowly killing ourselves with it, that something is wrong?

Okay, I have rambled enough for one day.  I'm not sure I meant to put all of this out there but, these are certainly thoughts that are on my mind.  I don't know how my alternative to chemotherapy is going to go, but I do know that in the past I have been one of the puffy, unhealthy minions walking around oblivious.  Cancer has been my wake up call to clean up my life and environment and hopefully clean up my health.  I am taking steps to treat my body more like it was intended to be treated.  Hopefully, fifteen or twenty years from now I will be able to say it is working.