1. 关于癌症的真相
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2. 手机辐射 & 癌症？
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3. 25个癌症幸存者的故事
Here's a link to "25 Survivor Stories", a free e-book , courtesy of Jonathan Chamberlain Download it here or Read below:
Cancer: the Complete Recovery Guide Series—Book 8
I dedicate these books to the memory of Bernadette, Sau-fong—for whom the information came too late.
Copyright © 2011 Jonathan Chamberlain
The right of Jonathan Chamberlain to be identified as the author of this book
has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Published by Long Island Press
Printed edition available as ISBN 978-1-908712-07-3
Complete series of eight volumes: ISBN: 978-1-908712-08-0
This Book
In this book you will find the stories of 25 people who have cured themselves of
cancer—some by combining conventional and alternative therapies, but the vast
majority by means of alternative therapies alone. These stories demonstrate the
important role complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) can play in
helping people with cancer recover fully and completely from this terrible
disease—the incidence of which is rising year on year.
Disclaimer
I am not a doctor. The information in this book is for educational purposes only.
None of the treatments in this book are recommended for any particular person
with any particular cancer. You, and you alone, bear the responsibility for any
decisions you make in relation to any cancer treatment you may choose, be it
orthodox or alternative. The best decisions are based on the best understanding
of the facts.
Cancer: the Complete Recovery Guide Series
The Cancer Complete Recovery Guide Series—in eight volumes—is the updated
and expanded version of the book Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide (2008
edition). Based on 18 years of research, which I did in order to discover for
myself what I would do if—as my wife did—I ever got cancer. I am sharing this
information with you because it could help you live much, much longer and
save you a great deal of pain. It is the single most comprehensive discussion of
all your cancer recovery options in print anywhere in the world.
Book 1: Cancer? What Now?
Make sure the first steps of your cancer journey are heading in the right direction
This book gives you all the basic cancer facts you need and outlines the four
sensible strategies for dealing with cancer—and the arguments supporting
them. Everybody approaches cancer differently. In this book I help you focus
on the strategy most appropriate to you—and then I give suggestions for
resources so that you can continue your journey.
Book 2: Cancer: Diagnosis and Conventional Treatments
The Pros and Cons of Cancer Tests, Surgery, Radiation and Chemotherapy
What are the benefits and drawbacks of conventional diagnostic tests and
treatments? This book provides a detailed look at what is available and what
the benefits and drawbacks are. Included also are various non-conventional
testing options and suggestions as to how you can protect yourself if you wish
to proceed with conventional treatment.
Book 3: Cancer: Research and Politics
This book helps you understand the wider context of cancer—why cancer
research has not come up with a cure and most likely never will; why the
medical profession is unable to recognise the value of herbs and supplements—
if a herb or supplement can cure cancer you will never hear about it from the
medical profession; and why we should all be worried by the erosion of our
health freedoms. You will also learn about the scientists who have bucked the
system, and what has happened to them.
Book 4: Cancer: Detox and Diet
Whatever else you decide to do for your cancer you would be wise to undergo a
radical change in diet. This book looks at the arguments and options in the area
of detoxification and diet. You will also find here a lengthy list of individual
foods and their benefits.
Book 5: Cancer: Herbs, Botanicals and Biological Therapies
Many herbs can help in the fight against cancer. Here we look at all the major
herbal options. Herbs have many advantages over drugs—but there are also
potential dangers. This book explores this world and explains all the issues and
options involved. This book also covers homeopathy and other biological
therapies.
Book 6: Cancer: Vitamins and Other Supplements
Everyone knows that vitamin C is good for you—but what kind of vitamin C?
In what quantities? And what about the other vitamins? The minerals? The
other chemicals—both natural and man-made? You will find everything you
need to know here.
Book 7: Cancer: Energy, Mind and Emotions
This book covers a wide range of ideas from electrical and magnetic devices,
sunlight, energy healing, prayer, exercise and the extraordinary interplay of our
physical and emotional lives.
Book 8: Cancer: Survivors’ Stories: They did it. You can too!
The proof is in the pudding. These stories tell how 25 people have reacted to a
diagnosis and how they became once again cancer-free. These stories are proof
that cancer can be cured with the help of diet, herbs, supplements and many
other strategies. Here you will learn what people have done to get well again.
There is hope.
Testimonials
Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide
‘Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide is an inspirational guide [and is] a must for
anyone who fears the dreadful diagnosis.’—The Midwest Book Review
‘This book gives hope .... It explains clearly the arguments for and against a
multitude of treatments .... I wish I’d read this book before I was diagnosed. My
doctor and the cancer charities didn’t tell me any of this.’—D Bushell
‘A very well written book, beautifully organised and easy to read and
understand.’—June Black, cancer survivor.
‘This book tells me everything I want to know. Why didn’t my doctor tell me
this?’—Rev Bill Newbern
‘I want to say how inspirational your book and all its suggestions have been. It
has enabled me to keep positive for my sister over the past terrible months.’—
Emma Greener
‘I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. You gave us hope
when all we could see was despair and you gave us a path when we thought all
was lost.’—Colleen Crim
‘Being someone diagnosed as a terminal cancer patient, I have scoured the ’net
and read many books. This is the best. And it gives hope too ... Get this book;
read it; be inspired by it.’—Ian Clements, cancer survivor
Further testimonials can be found at the end of this book.
Why should you read this book?
The simple answer is that one day, cancer will come knocking at your door.
It may not be your cancer (you have approximately a fifty-fifty chance of
getting cancer yourself) but it will certainly impact on the life of someone close
to you, someone you love.
Of course, many people will read these words and still set the book aside.
This is not a problem for them now, why should they worry? They’ll deal with
that if and when the need arises. The trouble is that when cancer does come,
they will most likely panic and make some speedy decisions that one day they
might regret.
The time for thinking is now.
If there is one message I would like you to take on from reading these
stories, it is that there is no need to panic. Cancer doesn’t necessarily mean pain
and potential life-long damage. It can, instead, mean health and happiness.
Cancer is a bit like the war in Afghanistan. Attacking the tumours won't
work unless you also attack the causes of the tumours. Force alone will not win
the war.
Based on 18 years of research, this series of books is the most complete and
comprehensive discussion of all your cancer recovery options. The stories in
this volume demonstrate beyond doubt that complementary and alternative
medicine has a key role to play in helping anyone with cancer get well again.
So I urge you to read this book—and then to send it to all your friends and
relatives so that it might reach someone for whom it will have an immediate
benefit. You could help save someone’s life, extend their life.
‘An inspirational guide’—The Midwest Book Review
‘I wish I’d read this book before I was diagnosed. My doctor and the cancer
charities didn’t tell me any of this.’—D Bushell, cancer survivor
‘A very well written book, beautifully organised and easy to read and
understand.’—June Black, cancer survivor
Contents
Introduction 1
Who am I and why did I write the Cancer Complete Recovery Guide
Series 1
The Stories of Two Children 6
Cash Hyde 6
Connah Broom 7
Personal Stories 9
Beata Bishop 9
Michael Gearin-Tosh 10
Christopher Sheppard 10
Anne Frahm 11
Felicity Corbin-Wheeler 11
Glynn Williams 11
Elonna McKibben 13
Mark Olsztyn 14
Shirley Lipschutz-Robinson 15
Pattie McDonald 15
Bob Davis 16
‘Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins 17
Bruce Guilmette 17
Ian Gawler 18
Fred Eichhorn 18
June Black 19
Percy Weston 20
Cliff Beckwith 20
Chris Wark 22
Polly Noble 23
Ruth Heidrich 27
Ian Clements 31
Nuro Weidemann 35
Appendices 43
The rich can afford the very best medicine 43
Letter to oncologists 45
Summing up 48
Tell others 49
Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide Series 50
Testimonials 52
About the author 55
Other books by Jonathan Chamberlain 56
Acknowledgments
The original version of this book was Fighting Cancer: A Survival Guide. I would
like to thank Brian Stratford for introducing me to Pam Dix who, in turn, agreed
to be my agent and for finding me my first publisher, Hodder Headline.
Without Pam’s enthusiasm the book might very well have died an early death.
I also owe a profound debt to Vicky Parker who supplied detailed
comments on the chapter on radiation and whose commentary enabled me to
avoid many errors. Vicky was one of the leading activists of RAGE—an
organisation founded by and for victims of radiation treatment. Sadly, this
organization has ceased its activities, as the radiation victims were physically
unable to maintain their work.
In writing this book I have also been very fortunate in having the library
resources of the Hong Kong Cancer Fund. Without access to these books it is
unlikely I would have been able to start work on this project.
I wish also to acknowledge the invaluable help of Edith Segall, Annette
Crisswell, Gary Oden, Hazel Thornton, Charles Ha, Alan and Martha Cheng,
Louise Aylward, Chris Teo, Dr Alan Greenberg, Jack Gontier, editor of the
French edition, whose input has resulted in this new edition of the book being
very much better than its predecessors; Leonard Rosenbaum, who combined
editorial savvy with unbridled enthusiasm and support for this book; and to Dr
Shamim Daya and her staff at the Wholistic Health Centre in London, for
reviewing this book and educating me in some of the latest testing modalities;
to Pete Spurrier for facilitating the publication of the book and Margit Whitton,
whose critical support on the home front was very much appreciated.
I would also like to acknowledge the input of the people whose stories
appear in this volume, who had the courage to follow the alternative route,
solely or partly in their own cancer journey.They shared their stories in books
or in emails to me personally—in particular, I thank Ian Clements and Nuro
Weidemann whose input and involvement went beyond simply telling their
story. Thanks are also due to those contributors to various health Yahoogroups
who provided many much needed discussion and information that has
moulded my own understanding.
Finally, serendipity led me to Andie Davidson who has who has played an
important editorial, design (and sometimes even educational) role in guiding
this latest incarnation of the Complete Recovery Guide to press.
To them all, I would like to say thank you.
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 1
Introduction
Who am I and why did I write the
Cancer Complete Recovery Guide Series?
In January 1994, my wife Bernadette was finally diagnosed with cancer. She had
been showing symptoms for about six months, but because of a series of
mishaps, she was told everything was fine when the test results clearly
indicated that all was not well. For the next six months she underwent gruelling
surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, and then she started suffering some of
the consequences of this treatment—for one thing, her kidneys were failing.
And then she was told the cancer had come back and was now untreatable. At
midday on Easter Sunday, 16 April 1995, she died. She could not have died
faster if she had done nothing.
This experience was extremely traumatising for both of us. From the
minute we learnt that she had cancer I set out to read everything I could on the
subject. What I learnt stunned me. But no matter how fast I read I could not
keep up with events. Even when Bernadette died I still did not fully have a
grasp of the information I was coming across. All I knew was that I too was at
risk of cancer (as we all are) and that if I didn’t wish to follow in Bern’s
agonising footsteps then I had better keep on reading and learning. Eventually,
I felt I had enough information to write the first version of this guide—called
Fighting Cancer: A Survival Guide. This was published in 1997 by a leading UK
publishing house, Hodder Headline—but after two editions they allowed it to
go out of print. I was still reading more and more—and suddenly the Internet
began to blossom and a great deal more information became available to me, so
I rewrote the book and published it myself under the new name: Cancer: The
Complete Recovery Guide. In the same year, another small publishing house
agreed to put out a slim volume which looked at the options available from a
different angle. That book is Cancer Recovery Guide: 15 Alternative and
Complementary Strategies for Restoring Your Health (Clairview Books).
But still new information was coming my way and I wanted to include
these new facts and options in an updated version. Then the ebook revolution
arrived. I felt the Complete Recovery Guide was already too bulky (being close to
200,000 words) for it to grow any larger. So I decided to divide it up into eight
shorter volumes. Together, these books truly are a guide to complete recovery
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 2
and at the same time a far more complete discussion of all the options available
than you will find even after a year or two of surfing the Internet. And
reviewing the material has given me an extraordinary sense of how much hope
there is for the person seeking to cure their cancer by combining detox and diet,
herbs and supplements and exploring the world of mind-body interactions.
Let’s face it, there is a biochemical aspect for every emotion we feel. The
healthier our emotions, the healthier we will be in the physical realm.
The complementary/alternative approaches to cancer recovery
In the previous books in the Cancer Complete Recovery Guide series I have argued
that there is a great deal to be wary of in the conventional approaches to cancer
treatment. While surgery, in the short term, appears to be a fifty-fifty
proposition, the same cannot be said of radiation and, with a very few
exceptions, chemotherapy. The dangers associated with these treatments are
not simply that they are painful. They can result in life-long damage to health
and quality of life, and what is less often recognised, they often significantly
shorten life. One statistician has calculated that the average person with the
average cancer will live four times longer if he/she does nothing than if she/he
does something (i.e. undergoes conventional treatment).
On the other hand, I have argued that there are enormous numbers of
other approaches—diets, herbs, supplements, along with therapies that engage
the body, mind and emotions in a health-promoting, cancer-defeating way.
But the key question is this: Is all of this just nice-sounding theory, or do
they really work? Can these alternative or complementary approaches really
cure cancer?
How do we measure effectiveness?
The problem we face is that of measuring effectiveness. We have seen in the
discussion of research and politics (see Book 3 in this series: Cancer Research and
Politics), that the people who control the validating process, the people who
control medical and cancer research, have very little incentive to find cures that
don’t make money. The enormous profits that pharmaceutical companies make
on drugs cannot be made from selling diets, herbs, supplements or meditation
and visualisation strategies. In the absence of a real commitment to do scientific
research on these alternative approaches, how then can we judge whether or
not something works?
The answer has to be empirical—are people following alternative
approaches and succeeding in extending their lives, improving the quality of
their lives and even becoming cancer-free again? The answer is a resounding
yes.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 3
This book
In this book you will read the stories of two dozen people who have indeed
recovered from cancer either by a combination of conventional and alternative
approaches—or more commonly by means of the alternative approaches alone.
In preparing this book I set out to find people who had cured their cancers
and invited them to contribute their stories. Many were happy to provide their
stories and I would like to thank them for their generosity. In some cases,
however, there was suspicion that I was seeking to profit from other people’s
work (a quite understandable concern) which I hope to avoid by circulating this
book as widely as possible free of charge in pdf format. If you have this version,
please send this book to all your friends and ask them to send it on to all their
friends. If you want to obtain a pdf version then please go to my website at
The more people are made aware of the real potential of alternative
approaches to cancer, the less frightening a diagnosis will become. Let us
remind ourselves: This is a disease that currently fifty per cent of us will face in
our lifetimes—and it will strike perhaps three-quarters of our children’s
generation (if incidence rates continue to climb as they are expected to do). So it
makes sense to be prepared.
And then there was one case, a well-known exponent of alternative
approaches, who refused to have her story appear in this book because she
disagreed with much of what I had written. In her view there was only one way
to deal with cancer—her way, which had been revealed to her by God. Ah well!
You can’t win them all.
Many cures already exist
The idea that there is only one way to deal with cancer is not one that I agree
with, and not one supported by these stories. The people whose stories appear
in this book have done very many different approaches. So I think it is clear that
the search for a cure for cancer is misplaced. There are already many cures.
None of these cures may be 100 per cent effective on their own (though of
course some may be pretty close) but in combination with other therapies their
potential increases.
Do the maths
The mathematics is simple. If approaches A, B, C and D each have a fifty per
cent chance of working—and if they have different curative mechanisms, and if
they don’t interfere with each other—then if you do one of these approaches
you have a fifty per cent chance of curing your cancer; if you do two, the
probability will increase to seventy-five per cent; do three and it rises to eightyCancer
Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 4
seven per cent; do all four and the result is close to ninety-four per cent. And
then of course there are approaches E,F, G and so on.
And what if each of them has an eighty per cent likelihood of curing your
cancer? (The answer for four approaches is 99.84 per cent!)
You may find this simplistic, but we can see that there isn’t a lot of
difference between the combined effects of four approaches despite the
apparent difference between fifty and eighty per cent. And what comes out of
these stories very clearly is the power of diet and herbs and supplements to rid
the body of cancer.
But let’s make a very pessimistic assumption. Let us assume that each of
our alternative approaches has a very low probability of success—say 20 per
cent. Then combining four such approaches will give you a 60 per cent survival
probability, and you can take that up to 80 per cent by doing another four.
Clearly the more you do, the greater your chances of beating cancer.
Be your own guinea pig
Another issue that we should remind ourselves of is that we are all unique—noone
else on earth has a physiology exactly the same as mine or yours. Every
single one of us has bio-chemical processes going on in our bodies that place us
at the extremes of the normal distribution curve. This is a statistical certainty.
That means that what works for you may not necessarily work for me. There is
a good chance it will but there is no guarantee. Or it may have a different effect,
maybe stronger, maybe weaker, maybe completely different.
This in turn means that each of us has to be our own guinea pig. Trial and
assessment is the only way to proceed. We need to try things out for ourselves.
If we like it, continue. If we don’t like it, set it aside and do something else. We
need to take responsibility for ourselves. But how are we going to know where
to start? For some the answer will be glaringly obvious, for others a matter of
grave uncertainty and consequent anxiety.
I believe very strongly in the subconscious. I believe it knows what is good
for us—and it will tell us in its own way. If one approach seems very attractive
for some not very clear reason, this may be because our subconscious is
prompting us, or we may wake up at three in the morning with an image of a
particular approach. Trust this intuition, it is almost certainly our subconscious
talking to us. Or maybe just plunge in, make random choices and see where
they lead you. If you really can’t decide draft in some friends to help you talk it
through—but remember, all decisions have to be your own decisions. You are
the one who will suffer the consequences so you must do the choosing.
It is now time to let the stories do their own talking.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 5
The stories
The stories on the following pages are by people who have taken the step to
stand up and tell the world. They are doing so because they want to help
others. Some of them have written books, others have websites and in most
cases they have said they are willing to be contacted directly. These are not
anonymous, faceless anecdotes. These are stories by people who are not afraid
to stand up and tell the truth as they see it, as they have experienced it.
The collective weight of this testimony allows only one conclusion:
Alternative therapies do work and are vastly preferable to the conventional
‘weapons’. They offer health and happiness, not damage and pain.
I urge you to read these stories and take note for yourself. If you have
cancer you can apply these lessons immediately. If you don’t (at present) have
cancer at least these stories will help you prepare yourself for that possibility.
And I urge you to spread this word as far and as wide as you can.
With best wishes for your health and happiness
Jonathan Chamberlain
Brighton, September 2011
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 6
The Stories of Two Children
Children with cancer present a heart-searing problem. We want to do the very
best for them—and it seems sensible therefore to put them in the hands of the
best doctors at the best oncology units specialising in children’s cancers.
Although this seems at first sight to be unarguably the best course of
action, by doing so we know that we will be subjecting them to immense pain,
that they will inevitably suffer some form of brain damage—and their longterm
health will almost certainly suffer grievously. If you want to see the list of
possible ‘late effects’ of chemotherapy and radiation go to the American Cancer
Society website and do a search for ‘childhood cancers late effects’—the
description makes for sobering reading. And remember, these late effects are
not possibilities, they are much closer to certainties.
The problem for parents is that if they attempt to extract their children
from such punitive courses of treatment they are likely to find that the medical
system, child protection agencies and courts will require them to proceed.
For any parent wishing to explore the area of alternative therapies,
therefore, the options are limited and you may need to go for a long trip
abroad.
Is there any evidence that alternative approaches can be healing? These
two stories suggest there is.
Cash Hyde
Cash Hyde, a young boy from Missoula Montana, was only 20 months old
when he was diagnosed with a highly aggressive stage 4 brain tumour
surrounding his optic nerve. The doctors gave him very little hope of survival.
They gave him seven different chemotherapy drugs and among other
impacts this caused Cash to suffer septic shock, a stroke and heavy
haemorrhaging of his lungs. He was given the highest possible doses of
chemotherapy for two months. Cash was so sick that he didn’t eat anything for
40 days. In the end the sight of his son’s suffering was more than he could take
and his father, Mike, asked them to stop the treatment.
Without telling them what he planned, Mike decided to try out something
on his own. He didn’t tell the doctors because he knew they would oppose it.
Mike bought some marijuana and boiled it in olive oil. He then added this in
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 7
small doses of around half a teaspoon each time to his son’s feeding tube. His
father reported the impact in these words: ‘Not only was it helpful, it was a
godsend. Within two weeks he was weaned off all the nausea drugs and he was
eating again and sitting up in bed and laughing.’ When he admitted what he
had done the doctors continued to prescribe the cannabis—for his nausea. In
February 2011, news reports announced that young Cash was still in remission.
If he recovers the doctors will of course claim that the chemo. did the trick. But
although the cannabis is being prescribed as an anti-nausea medication, it has a
strong anti-cancer effect of its own (see discussion of cannabis in Book 5 in this
series: Cancer: Herbs, Botanicals and Biological Therapies).
Mike Hyde has set up the Cash Hyde Foundation to promote the medical
use of cannabis, which remains such a contentious subject.
Connah Broom
On 10 February 2009, The Daily Mail newspaper (UK) reported the following
story. In August 2006 Connah was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, an
aggressive childhood cancer. He was given intensive chemotherapy for seven
months but in the end was sent home by the doctors so that he could die at
home. He had at this time eleven tumours in his body, mainly in the neck area.
The doctors said there was nothing more they could do and told his parents
that they should enjoy Connah’s final months of life as best they could. That
was in 2007. The Broom family decided differently. They put him on an organic
vegetarian diet and a daily sauna. They also did Reiki and went to a Mexican
clinic where they were able to undergo sono photo-dynamic therapy. They also
give him an ultrasound treatment (unspecified) but likely from the photograph
accompanying the story to be SCENAR (see Book 7 in this series: Cancer Energy,
Mind and Emotions for details). In 2011, Connah was doing well, and all but one
of the tumours were in retreat.
The doctors admitted this was unusual but denied that the alternative
therapies had had any impact. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make
a doctor accept that a diet is more powerful than chemotherapy drugs.
????
I have no doubt that one day, hopefully one day soon, doctors will eventually
recognise the benefits of approaches that they currently ignore—and that a
truly integrative medicine will result. I believe the pressure to do so will come
from patients who, taking responsibility for themselves, inform themselves of
all the options and make their own judgements as to the value of diets, herbs,
vitamins and so on. By doing so, they will force doctors to recognise that there
is, in fact, a great deal of scientific support for these non-conventional
approaches to cancer recovery.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 8
Both these stories are very positive and clearly support the idea that
complementary or alternative approaches can be health promoting in the short
term and potentially curative in the long term. How these two boys will
continue to respond to their new therapies no-one can say but how many
stories like these do you need before you say: ‘Maybe there is something in
these alternative ways of dealing with cancer.’
It is now time to look at stories of adults who have chosen alternative and
complementary ways and who have, in many cases, survived cancer-free for
decades as a result.
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 9
Personal Stories
The following stories are of people who cured their cancers using alternative
therapies—although in one or two cases they also used conventional therapies. I
use the word ‘cured’ without the usual apologies because no other word will
do. People like Beata and Percy (read below) lived and have lived for decades
free of cancer. That is what ‘cured’ means. Others, it is true, did succumb to
their cancers, but only after having lived for years without any sign of cancer.
Others in this list will not assert that they are ‘cured’. They will simply say that
they are fighting a battle against cancer and up till now they appear to be
winning! Here then are some remarkable stories.
Beata Bishop
In the early 1980s, while working as a writer at the BBC, Beata Bishop
discovered that a mole on her leg was a malignant melanoma, one of the fastestspreading
and most lethal of all cancers. She underwent painful and disfiguring
surgery, but within a year it was found that the cancer had spread into the
lymphatic system and was appearing elsewhere on her body. She was told by
her doctors that she had a matter of weeks or months to live, and that there was
nothing they could do about it.
Fortunately for her, a friend had heard of the Gerson Institute and not
having any other options she chose to follow this diet developed by an eminent
German physician, Dr Max Gerson (see Book 4 in this series: Cancer: Detox and
Diet for further details). Taking her fate in her hands, she spent two months at
the world’s only Gerson clinic in Mexico where she learnt the theory and
practice of the intensive therapy which she then pursued for a further eighteen
months in London.
After two years on the Gerson Therapy, which transformed her both
physically and psychologically, Beata Bishop made a full recovery.
Today she is still alive, in her 70s, extremely active and free of her cancer.
She wrote her story in a book, My Triumph Over Cancer, first published in 1985.
Beata hated this title and later had the book re-published as A Time to Heal. She
has also collaborated with Charlotte Gerson, who now runs the Gerson
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 10
Institute, in writing an updated introduction to the Gerson Diet called Healing
The Gerson Way.
I have interviewed Beata for Conscious TV and you can find a link to this
interview on my Facebook ‘Cancer Recovery’ site (scroll down the page as the
link is near the bottom —the link can also be found at
www.cancerfighter.wordpress.
many people live thirty years having received a diagnosis of untreatable
terminal stage melanoma.
Michael Gearin-Tosh
Michael Gearin-Tosh was, for 35 years, tutor in English at St Catherine’s
College, Oxford. In 1994 he was diagnosed with myeloma, a cancer of the bone
marrow which is normally considered to be untreatable. Although urged to
take chemotherapy, he discovered that this would give him only a four per cent
possibility of a cure. His conclusion: ‘Touch it [chemotherapy], and you’re a
goner’.
He embarked on a series of alternative treatments consisting of 12 freshlymade
vegetable juices a day, high-dose vitamin injections, acupuncture, raw
garlic, coffee enemas, and Chinese breathing exercises. He also used
visualisation techniques in which he imagined his immune cells attacking the
tumour. The result was that his cancer went into remission. He was still cancerfree
11 years later when he died in 2005 from an untreated blood infection.
Gearin-Tosh described his battle with cancer in his book, Living Proof—A
Medical Mutiny (Scribner, 2002).
Christopher Sheppard
In November 1999, Christopher Sheppard, a film producer, was diagnosed with
‘locally advanced’ rectal cancer and his doctors recommended surgery—as did
the homoeopathic doctors and acupuncturist that he approached to help him.
However, Sheppard refused surgery and chemo. but eventually, after a lot of
soul searching, did decide to accept radiation treatment. He also decided to go
on what he called a healing journey. It was his view that each cancer victim, not
their doctor, should be the authority on what they should do for their cancer.
And they should make their decisions on the basis of their own self-knowledge,
intuition and sense of the world.
For himself, he selected a modified version of the Gerson diet, developed
by his nutritionist, heavily supplemented with vitamins, minerals and herbs—
at one point he was taking over 100 pills a day.
He also decided to visit a Brazilian spiritual healer, Joao Texeira, also
known to his followers as ‘John of God’. He felt strongly that there was a
spiritual dimension—that his cancer was a sign of a spiritual malaise. This led
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 11
him to Tibetan Buddhism and he studied a special form of meditation at a
Buddhist community. Another self-devised therapy was to join an emotional
counselling group.
Within a year he was cancer-free, and remains so to this day. Radiation on
its own is not generally considered curative for rectal cancers.
Christopher describes his journey in great detail at his website at
Anne Frahm
At the age of 34 Anne Frahm found a tiny lump in her breast but, having been
assured it was not malignant, she did nothing. By the time the cancer was
diagnosed a year later, it had spread throughout her body. ‘I will never forget
seeing that light board with my skeleton displayed on it. It had tumours
covering my body. The tumours covered my skull, my ribs and shoulders.
Quarter-size holes had eaten through all my pelvic bones and the report
showed that virtually every vertebra of my spine had tumours grown right
through it. At that point, the doctor said that he thought he could keep me alive
for a while. He told me straight out, “I can’t cure you.”‘
Despite this she underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation,
hormone therapy and a bone marrow transplant. During this latter procedure
she was in isolation for 52 days during which she very nearly died. ‘My kidneys
shut down, my lungs shut down, I got pneumonia, I was covered with fungus
rashes from head to toe, my fingernails and toenails fell off. I was a wreck!
[Then] toward the end of the 52 days, they did tests and came in and said they
were very sorry but “it just didn’t work for you”. I found out that I had a lot of
cancer still growing in my body so they basically sent me home to die.’
But Anne refused to give up. She decided to follow a strict nutrition plan
(which I have described in Book 4 in this series: Cancer Detox and Diet) and five
weeks later her astounded doctors could find no trace of the cancer at all.
Anne Frahm, with the help of her husband Dave, wrote her story up in a
book called The Cancer Battle Plan.
Sadly, Anne did eventually die ten years later from cancer, but to live
nearly ten years cancer-free after being given weeks to live is surely a great
achievement.
Felicity Corbin-Wheeler
Felicity Corbin-Wheeler is a Reader in the Church of England and also has an
international bible-based health ministry. She is also a Hippocrates Health
Educator, Hallelujah Acres Health minister, and she teaches around the world.
She is currently based in Portugal.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 12
Her own cancer story started in September 2003 when she was diagnosed
with untreatable pancreatic cancer. Having already lost a daughter to cancer,
despite what she refers to as ‘“the best” of orthodox medicine’ she began to
research the importance of nutrition in cancer. The conclusion she came to was
that a nutritional therapy should be firmly based on ‘what God tells us to eat in
Genesis 1:29 and 30’.
Although a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is one of the worst diagnoses
anyone can receive, she did not give up hope but put her faith in ‘the living
enzymes in the seeds that God tells us to eat … and the seed of the apricot has
natural cancer cure qualities of hydrocyanic acid. This is also known as
amygdalin or laetrile, which has been given vitamin B17 status because the
seeds are vital for health.’
However, she found that she could not eat as many almonds as she felt she
needed so she underwent 13 intravenous treatments in Jersey, Channel Islands,
of laetrile (vitamin B17) under the direction of Dr Contreras of Oasis of Hope
Christian Cancer Hospital in Mexico, with mega doses of vitamin C and DMSO
(dimethyl sulphoxide) in the intravenous bag. She then continued to take B17
tablets for two years.
In addition, she also did the Gerson coffee enemas five times a day which
she continues to do. ‘I also went on a diet of living foods, fresh vegetable juices
including wheat and barley grass and detoxed from animal protein, dairy, fats
and flour.’ Within four months of starting this regime, scans showed the
tumours shrinking, and within a year all that was left was a scar. In a recent
email to me she said this:
‘Actually at [the age of] 70, I am fitter now than I have ever been! Yesterday
I won the Christmas golf competition, and also the December Medals in my two
different golf clubs here in Portugal, which is my daily source of vital oxygen,
exercise, friendship, laughter (!) and sunlight …. In my opinion, the answer to
all disease: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, digestive disease, is in
correcting acidity in the body and building the immune system. We are what
we drink, eat, breathe and also think. The psychological and spiritual side of
healing is also vital.’
Her story has been reported by the BBC (August 2004) and she has written
the book God’s Healing Word, which recounts her story. For further details go to
Glynn Williams
In 1995, at the age of 28, Glynn Williams was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s type
Lymphoma. ‘I went to see the doctor because of swelling on both sides of the
groin area which came on within about a week …. I was totally exhausted,
lethargic, did not have the energy to get up, had no appetite and was losing
weight and I was having chills.’
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 13
He started taking Essiac tea (brand name Flor Essence)—two ounces in the
morning before eating and two ounces at night. The swelling grew larger and
then hardened up and the discomfort went away. By this time test results
confirmed that he had advanced stage Hodgkin’s. He was put on a course of 16
chemotherapy treatments but after experiencing severe side effects he quit the
course of treatments after the fifth chemo. session. Throughout this treatment
he had continued with the Essiac tea which he supplemented with vitamins and
herbs, one 400 IU vitamin E, one 10,000 IU beta carotene, two ginseng, one
shark cartilage, one 1,000 mg vitamin C, drops of liquid echinacea on the
tongue every three hours, and then capsules of echinacea 380 mg. He also took
a parasite elimination programme using black walnut tinctures, and
wormwood capsules. He drank kombucha mushroom tea three times a day.
Finally he did yoga with a strong focus on diaphragm breathing.
His doctors were amazed when he was eventually found to be cancer-free
as five doses of chemo. was not considered curative. In December 2007, he
confirmed that he was still cancer-free twelve years later.
Elonna McKibben
In 1989, having taken fertility treatment, Elonna found herself pregnant with
quins. However, as the pregnancy progressed, Elonna began feeling deepseated
pains. It was eventually discovered, after the birth of her children, that
the pains were not a side effect of her pregnancy—the exceptional nature of
which had camouflaged the fact that she had a tumour on her spine.
This was diagnosed as stage 4 glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a very rare
and always fatal cancer. ‘As mine was in the spinal cord,’ Elonna wrote later, ‘it
made it even more rare, more aggressive and faster killing. I was told I would
not survive long enough to see my children’s first birthday.’
If that was not bad enough, the combined effect of the surgery and cancer
had left her paralysed from the waist down. The doctors recommended
radiation but were not hopeful that it would do more than delay the inevitable.
Fortunately, someone who read about her situation in the newspaper
contacted her husband, Rob, and told him about CanCell. Elonna was naturally
very sceptical: ‘If there was a cure for cancer, don’t you think they would be
using it instead of letting thousands of people die.’
However, she started taking it on the basis that she had nothing to lose
and everything to gain. Its effects were quickly obvious. ‘I began to eliminate
the cancer waste product about 18 hours after my first dose. It literally poured
out of me: I threw it up; my bowel movements were extremely loose, stringy
and frequent throughout the day; I lost it in my urine; my nose ran so much I
had to keep a tissue with me at all times; I sweated it out profusely; I had
hot/cold flashes and night sweats. When the nurses would give me a sponge
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 14
bath after a night sweat, the water would be a golden brown colour with what
they referred to as ‘tapioca balls’ floating in it.’
Despite these side-effects she persevered with the CanCell. After several
weeks she found she was feeling much better. Christmas came and went and
she started to do physical therapy to help her mobility. Then, in February 1990
she had scans to see what was happening. The radiologist was stunned to find
no trace of the cancer. Despite being cancer-free, Elonna continued the CanCell
treatment for a further two years. As of September 2011, Elonna McKibben is still
alive, and her full story can be read on her website at www.elonnamckibben.com.
You can read more about CanCell in Book 6 in this series: Cancer: Vitamins
and Other Supplements.
Mark Olsztyn
In March 1991, Mark experienced a major epileptic seizure which led to him
being hospitalized. There, a CAT scan revealed a darkened area in the right
frontal lobe of his brain. He was operated on and the tumour removed. It was
found to be a low-grade astrocytoma. No further treatment was recommended,
though frequent repeat scans would, he was told, be necessary.
Mark ignored this recommendation and for the next six years led a normal,
hectic life. ‘This was my denial phase,’ he recalls. When eventually he did go for
a scan in 1997, he was shocked to learn that the tumour had returned and was
now stage 4. In addition to surgery he would require chemotherapy and
radiation. He was also told by one of his doctors that he had better settle his
affairs. But Mark insisted in thinking positively that a cure was possible.
He followed doctors’ orders and underwent all these treatments even
though he knew that at best they would be palliative. Fortunately, his father was
a doctor of alternative medicine. ‘My father immediately sent me a case of a foultasting
liquid called PolyMVA which a colleague of his was using successfully
on brain tumour patients. Because PolyMVA can be used as an adjunct to
conventional therapy, I embraced it. I felt then that any nonconventional therapy
that came my way, so long as it didn’t interfere with what the doctors wanted
me to do, was what God wanted me to do and would give me the edge that I
needed to survive.
Among many other things, I became an ascetic, practiced Qi Gong, drank
Essiac and Chinese herbs, joined various support groups, received acupuncture,
ohmed and prayed and was prayed for, drank shark cartilage, ate macrobiotic,
practiced visualization and, after four out of six rounds, quit chemotherapy. That
last one was not what the doctors wanted me to do, however I felt I had enough
poisoning. Over the years I gradually let go of each of the aforementioned lifesaving
practices except for PolyMVA and eating organic. Doctors now tell me to
keep on doing whatever it is that I’m doing because it seems to be working.’
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 15
In August 2011, Mark is still very much alive and cancer-free. He can be
contacted at mark.olsztyn@googlemail.com.
Shirley Lipschutz-Robinson
In 1982, doctors recommended a mastectomy on Shirley’s left breast. She had
suffered recurring cyst lumps which no medication could control. Up until this
time Shirley was, as she calls herself, a prescription drug junkie—she was
depressed, overweight and suffering from a seemingly endless parade of
ailments—and the drugs seemed to only make matters worse. Her overall
health was steadily declining.
But Shirley baulked at having her breast removed. She decided she needed
to change her approach. She consulted a naturopathic/homoeopathic doctor who
put her on a dietary regime—‘a wholesome diet of fresh, organically-grown
fruits, vegetables, and nuts, mostly in their raw form’—supplemented with
homoeopathic remedies. The results were, in her own words, ‘dramatic’.
Within six weeks the lumps were gone. Within 12 weeks she had lost 60lbs.
‘My energy level and stamina improved dramatically. I was able to function
better overall. I became calmer, centred and focused, and generally I felt happier.
My overall resistance to infections became excellent.’
In the 1990s, she experienced a lump the size of a pea in her left nipple. It
grew to be the size of a small grape. She refused to see the doctor, instead selftreating
it with extra flaxseed oil, herbal extracts and homoeopathy. Within two
weeks her body had reabsorbed the lump and it never came back.
These experiences sparked her to study a wide range of alternative
therapies. Her full story, and the story of how she treated her husband through
a series of heart attacks, is told on her excellent website: www.shirleyswellness-
cafe.com. This website is a storehouse of useful information.
Pattie McDonald
In May 2002, Pattie, 58, was diagnosed with breast cancer ‘the size of a quarter’.
She believes now that contributing factors included being on HRT (Premarin)
for six years, long term antibiotic use and a very poor diet (‘I was a fast food
freak’) coupled with a negative outlook on life. Her doctors recommended
surgery and radiation.
However, Pattie had a close and trusted friend who had survived ovarian
cancer by using bloodroot. She used both bloodroot paste and tonic. The effects
of the bloodroot quickly revealed that the cancer had already spread to the neck
and three lymph nodes.
The Cansema bloodroot paste was applied to the biopsy site on her breast.
It took ten days to expel the tumour from her body. As the neck tumours also
began to be expelled, Pattie took the tonic and applied paste against the neck. The
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 16
whole process of treatment took about a month. She experienced excruciating
pain and two days of no sleep. (She later found out you should take pain killers.)
In August 2002 she had an MRI scan that confirmed she was cancer-free,
and four years later she has remained cancer-free.
‘This experience changed my entire life—body, soul and spirit. I am a new
woman. I changed my diet, quit my stressful job, sold my too-big house, rid
myself of all negative friends, and divorced my alcoholic hubby. I had no idea
what real happiness was until 2002.’
Pattie can be contacted at pjmacblondie@yahoo.com.
Bob Davis
In April 1996, Bob Davis discovered he had a massive cancer tumour—a foot
wide and several inches thick—in his abdomen and several other tumours in
his chest, some ‘the size of soft balls’. The cancer had also spread to his bone
marrow.
He was immediately started on a very heavy chemotherapy program over
the next three months. This had very little effect: ‘It [the tumour] seemed to
thrive on the stuff.’
The doctor told him that the chemo. wasn’t working. ‘He later told me that
another treatment would kill me. I knew that this was true because my body
was ravaged by the chemo. I was curled up in a foetal position unable to sleep
or eat. I was emaciated and had excruciating pain all through my body.’
At this time he received a call from a woman who had been selling his wife
pills made of dried green barley leaves for her arthritis. During the conversation
he mentioned his fight with cancer. ‘Don’t you know that cancer and arthritis
can’t grow in an alkaline body?’ she said. The same barley leaves that his wife
was taking for her arthritis would, she told him, also help in his fight against
cancer. He started taking the pills—20 tablets of dried barley green (340mg
each)—and ‘in ten days my cancer was 95 per cent gone!’ A number of tests
including a CAT scan showed that scar tissue remained but the cancer had been
killed. ‘I was incredibly lucky. I know most people wouldn’t be cured so simply.
In fact I only know one other person who had the same response.’
A few years later, even though he had maintained his intake of dried
barley leaves, Bob was diagnosed with a probable prostate cancer on the basis
of a lump and high PSA levels. Resisting pressure to have surgery, Bob went on
the Dr Shulze’s Incurable’s programme—involving juice fasting and colon
cleansing. Three weeks later he demanded a PSA re-test. His PSA levels were
now normal.
In 2011 he was still cancer-free. He still takes 20 tablets of dried green
barley every day. ‘It costs me a whopping 95 cents or so.’ He has adopted a 95
per cent vegan diet ‘I really like it. I feel better than I have in 40 years. People
say I look younger. I have “lotsa” energy.’
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 17
Bob Davis can be contacted through his website at www.cancersuccess.
com.
‘Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins
Ronnie Hawkins is a famous Canadian rockabilly musician, reportedly one of
Bill Clinton’s favourites. In 2002 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and
given no hope of recovery. When the news was announced that he had only
three or four months left to live, a film director by the name of Anne Pick
started documenting the last days of his life. There was a tearful tribute concert
in Toronto to bid farewell to ‘The Hawk’.
But Hawkins didn’t lie down and die. Instead he went on a regimen of
nutritional supplements and pot. Seventeen months later, a gifted, 17-year-old
named Adam McLeod, heard of Hawkins plight and offered his services. Adam
was what he calls a Medical Intuitive Healer. Hawkins accepted the offer. A
short time later Hawkins reported for his regular check-up and the doctors
were stunned to discover that his tumour had completely disappeared.
This caused problems for the film makers documenting his last months
(already they must have been a little irritated that he was taking so long
dying!). They solved the problem by changing the film’s title to Ronnie Hawkins.
Still Alive and Kickin’.
Hawkins attributes his recovery to the psychic healer Adam. Ten years
later Hawkins is still alive.
The healer Adam McLeod has since written a number of books and is a
figure of controversy in Canada. He uses the professional name of Adam
Dreamhealer.
Bruce Guilmette
In November 2004, Bruce discovered that both his kidneys had large cancerous
masses inside them. Kidney cancer is known to be highly resistant to treatment
and he was given only a matter of months to live unless he had both kidneys
removed. Bruce refused this option, turned to a combination of diet, supplements
and the use of a Rife machine. Bruce’s research led him to the conclusion that
cancer needs to be attacked from many different angles to be successfully put
into remission. He eventually put together a complex regimen which he followed
rigorously. Much of his food intake is in the form of juiced fresh vegetables. He
reduced his meat consumption to no more than ten percent of his total intake
and eliminated pork altogether.
Bruce died in November 2007—but he did not die of cancer. At the time of
his death his regular blood tests all confirmed that the cancer was no longer
active. His full story is told at www.survivecancerfoundation.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 18
Ian Gawler
In 1975, Ian Gawler, a 24-year old Australian veterinarian, was diagnosed with
bone cancer. He underwent surgery and had his right leg amputated. He was
told that he had only a five percent chance of surviving for five years and that if
the tumours returned he would only have a few months. The cancer did return
later that year.
Deciding to take a proactive approach, Ian went to the Philippines with his
wife, and received treatment from several folk healers (psychic surgeons). On his
return to Australia, he decided to follow a diet, take up meditation and explore
a wide range of natural therapies, He believed the secret lay in stimulating the
immune system and to letting go of stress and anxiety.
He won his battle and the cancer went away. To this day he remains
healthy and cancer-free. He wrote a book, You Can Conquer Cancer, and set up
The Gawler Foundation, based in Melbourne, to provide cancer support
programs for anyone seeking to follow the alternative path.
He attributes his success to the fact that he took responsibility for his
condition and recognized that he had been responsible for causing it. By taking
responsibility, he felt in control and believed that he had the power to reverse it.
In an interview with the journalist Beryl Rule he said: ‘Psychologically, the
big need is to change. If we recognize that a particular pattern has aided in
creating the disease, then obviously a new pattern is required …. The disease
creates the excuse for change. It produces a new situation or insight that allows
the patient the space to change their rigid patterns.’ For more information go to
Fred Eichhorn
In 1976, Fred was found to have islet cell carcinoma, and was given a maximum
life expectancy of three years though most of the doctors he consulted believed
he would be dead within a year. He underwent surgery in which 90 percent of
his pancreas was removed along with his spleen and part of his stomach.
However, this was not expected to provide a cure. Fred decided to define the
problem. He felt that in every case ill health follows like a domino effect from a
first cause. The solution is to find that first cause in terms of the body’s
biochemistry and correct it. Then a good domino effect will result in the
elimination of the disease.
He decided good nutrition—a return to pre-1900s standards (i.e.,
completely organic)—along with exercise and a positive mental framework,
were the key cornerstones of good health.
In 1980 Fred enrolled in medical college and studied for four years
followed by a further three years research.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 19
Fred Eichhorn is cancer-free today 30 years later and so committed is he to
spreading the word that he has set up the National Cancer Research Foundation
(www.ncrf.org). He provides a number of testimonials on his site of people who
have benefited from following his regime. For further information contact
June Black
June Black was first diagnosed with cancer (stage 1) in November 2000. She
eventually had a mastectomy but no radiation or chemotherapy. She was put
on tamoxifen but reacted badly to it and ‘threw it down the toilet’. In 2005, June
noticed a lump growing on the mastectomy scar and had it biopsied. The tests
came back positive. The cancer had returned. She underwent two further
operations but it was clear the cancer had spread. By this time she had read a lot
of books and had come round to the natural approach to treating cancer. So,
when her third oncologist (she had dumped two) told her: ‘I recommend the
whole gamut; chemo., radiation and adjuvant hormone therapy.’ She found the
courage to refuse, saying: ‘I am sixty years old, I have lived a good life, and I
have other plans.’
But at first the natural path did not appear to be doing her any good. ‘After
spending a month of a very strict diet and enough vitamins and supplements to
fill a small shop, I realized I was losing the war against this cancer. I was losing
weight, I had sweats, I was really weak and it was so bad that I thought death
would be a wonderful alternative to the hell I was going through.’
Then someone suggested the supplement PolyMVA. She went on it and
within four days felt better. This was in October 2005. In June 2006 she had a full
array of tests and they all came back clear. She was cancer-free.
Her regime was eight teaspoons of PolyMVA a day for six 1/2 months. She
then went to six teaspoons a day for about two months and since then has been
taking four teaspoons a day. She also takes CoQ10, artemisinin, pancreatic
enzymes and IP6 (inositol hexakisphosphate).
‘This is just the tip of the iceberg of what I am taking. I also take different
mushrooms, EpiCor, Lugol’s iodine, DIM (diindolylmethane), and calcium-Dglucarate.
If anyone is interested in my complete list please feel free to contact
me at june1@mesquiteweb.com. I just had my 62nd birthday March 1, 2007 in
Hawaii and gained more weight and feel fantastic. As of now, no signs of
illness. I have excellent health and work full time and care for 11 cats.’
June’s story is one of many testimonials that can be found at
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 20
Percy Weston
Percy Weston was an Australian farmer who, despite being diagnosed with
terminal cancer in his late thirties, went on to live till he was 100.
His story is a remarkable one. At school his favourite subject was chemistry,
a fact that was to stand him in good stead when as a farmer he began to wonder
why his sheep were going down with an arthritic condition affecting their knees,
and manifesting cancerous lesions on their ears. Plants grown in the soil which
had been heavily treated with superphosphate fertilizer also exhibited strange
mutations. Thinking it through he wondered if the superphosphate fertilizer
that he had been using for the previous five years was the cause. He moved the
sheep onto pasture which had not been treated with superphosphates and fed
them the mineral salts that the superphosphates had leached from the land.
They recovered. He moved some of them back onto the treated paddock and
they developed the same problems again. He moved them off it and again they
recovered.
Sometime later Weston himself was afflicted with arthritis and a cancerous
tumour which developed on his hand. Remembering his experiences with the
sheep, Weston decided to reduce his own intake of phosphorus and started
taking in minerals—particularly magnesium and potassium. The arthritis went
away and the cancer tumour dried up and finally broke away from his hand.
Later he treated his wife with the same low phosphate diet and mineral
supplements when she had been diagnosed with cancer of the uterus. The top
gynaecologist in their state (Victoria, Australia) had advised an immediate
hysterectomy. Her cancer too disappeared and she went on to have two healthy
children. The specialist, when he was told of these events, commented that he
had never known a woman in the condition Mrs Weston had been in when he
had examined her to survive for twelve months, let alone have children.
Percy wrote his story in his book Cancer: Cause and Cure and has also
written a book entitled Cancer Fighting Foods. The mineral supplements that he
used can also be bought from various online suppliers.
Cliff Beckwith
Cliff Beckwith was a retired educationalist living near Knoxville, Tennessee. He
was one of the founders of the Yahoo health groups information resource on
flaxseed oil: http://health.groups.yahoo.
Yahoo Groups membership).
Here he tells his own story.
‘In January 1991 I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Bone
scans and other tests indicated no spread so it was decided to operate. During
the operation it was discovered that the cancer had spread to the lymph glands
making it stage 4. The operation was not completed as that would not be the
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 21
answer. The only treatment used was Lupron (leuprolide) and Eulexin
(flutamide) to cancel the male hormones. I was told the male hormone does not
cause cancer, but if cancer is present, it is like throwing kerosene on a fire.
At the time of the attempted operation my PSA count was 75. It was six
months before I had the second PSA. When the call came from the doctor’s
office I was told ‘Mr. Beckwith! Your count is completely normal!’ It was 0.1
and 0.1 to 0.4 is normal.
The reason it was normal was because, in addition to the hormone drugs, I
had started taking flaxseed oil mixed with cottage cheese. I had read a number of
books recommending this approach, which was first formulated by Dr Johanna
Budwig and is commonly known as the Budwig protocol.
I quit Lupron after four years and seven months in October of 1995 as it
was no longer useful. I thought I was cured but not so. In roughly two years the
PSA was again rising. I began changing the amounts I took of flaxseed
oil/cottage cheese which led to a series of ups and downs with the PSA results.
I learned that there are 30 strains of prostate cancer. They are all different
and any man may have any combination of strains. This makes the problem
different from individual to individual. Mine is a medium aggressive cancer.
In January 2004 my PSA was 6.7 which is very close to normal for a man of
85. I thought I had it beaten. It had now been 13 years since diagnosis. Most
men with advanced prostate cancer do not live nearly that long. The doctor told
me after a couple of years that I was one of the lucky ones. Most men with the
condition I had did not make it six months.
In Jan 2004, I decided to try ellagic acid, which has proved effective in
many cases. However, my PSA went up instead of further down. Then I added
lycopene. I had been told that it needed to be used heavily to be effective; three
12 ounce glasses of tomato juice a day. I did that for four months.
Then I learned two things a couple of days apart. One was that Dr Budwig
had said in 1956 that if one is using flaxseed oil one must not use heavy amounts
of antioxidants, as it would neutralize the effect of the flaxseed oil. The other
was that both ellagic acid and lycopene are powerful antioxidants.
For over a year I was hurting the effect of the flaxseed oil/cottage cheese
and for four months I was cancelling it completely.
The result was that the cancer again began to develop and by the time I
woke up to this fact, the PSA had gone to 131.
I know that cancer in the prostate does not kill. What kills is the cancer in
the tissues to which it spreads. Flaxseed oil pretty much stops the spread. Until
I went the antioxidant route it hadn’t spread in 13 years. Now there are signs it
has spread to the bone.
So I immediately increased the flaxseed oil to six tablespoons a day and
am using my rebounder (small trampoline). The result appears to be beneficial.
I had been aware of an enlargement in the prostate gland and now it is getting
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 22
smaller and urination is easier. I do not believe I am in danger anymore.’
(February 2006)
Cliff Beckwith died from his cancer, aged 85, in late 2007.
Chris Wark
It was 2003. I was having some abdominal pain on and off for the better part of
the year, and being the typical male, I put it off. I was thinking it might be an
ulcer and that it would get better, but it didn’t. It was like Groundhog Day.
Every morning I would wake up feeling good, but several times a day I would
get these brief flashes of pain in the afternoon and evening. Sometimes in the
middle of the night. It wasn’t a constant pain and didn’t interfere with my life,
but I was concerned. The next morning I would wake up feeling good again.
Eventually the pain became so intense that I found myself balled up on the
couch every night after dinner. Time to see a doctor.
After a series of inconclusive tests, I was sent to a gastroenterologist for a
colonoscopy. Turns out there was a golf ball-sized tumour in my large intestine.
Great. They did a biopsy and told me I had colon cancer. It was two weeks
before Christmas and I was 26 years old.
I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was my life. How did I end up with
an old person’s disease? I felt weak and pathetic. I was embarrassed and I shut
down mentally and emotionally.
Three weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, I had surgery. They removed the
tumour and a third of my colon. More good news, the cancer had spread to my
lymph nodes. It was stage 3. They brought an oncologist into my room and he
informed me that I would need nine months of chemotherapy after I recovered
from surgery.
The first meal they served me in the hospital after removing a third of my
large intestine was a sloppy joe. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten in three days, but
I couldn’t get down more than a few bites. I was relatively clueless about
nutrition, but I knew that a sloppy joe was the last thing my body needed.
Before I checked out of the hospital I asked the surgeon, ‘Are there any
foods I need to avoid?’ He said, ‘Nah, just don’t lift anything heavier than a
beer.’ Not the advice I was expecting.
When we got home, my wife and I prayed and asked God that if there was
another way besides chemotherapy that He would reveal it to us. Two days
later, a book arrived on my doorstep, sent to me from a man in Alaska who I’d
never met. He was a business acquaintance of my father’s.
That book was called God’s Way to Ultimate Health by George Malkmus, and
it detailed how he beat colon cancer nearly 30 years earlier using natural methods
including the raw vegan diet and juicing, and without surgery or chemotherapy.
I knew it was an answer to prayer. I realized that my diet of processed food, fast
food, junk food, and factory farmed animal products was killing me.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 23
I started to do more research on the harmful nature of cancer therapies. I
discovered that chemotherapy destroyed your immune system and killed
healthy cells; that it could make me infertile. And that it caused secondary
cancers. That was when I decided against chemotherapy.
This decision was not well received by my wife and many family members.
After intense family pressure I agreed to meet with an oncologist to hear what
he had to say. He told me I had a 60 per cent chance of living five years with
conventional therapies. To me that wasn’t much better than a coin toss. I asked
him about alternative therapies. He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘There
are none. If you don’t do chemo, you are insane. And I’m not saying this because
I need your business.’ My wife and I left the clinic terrified. We sat in the car,
held hands, cried and prayed.
I knew I wasn’t taking care of myself and that there were massive changes
I could make to my diet and lifestyle. I decided to take control of my health, and
if that didn’t work, chemo would be my last resort. I radically changed my diet
to 100 per cent raw vegan, eating only fruits and vegetables, and drank eight
glasses of vegetable juice every day. I did every alternative holistic therapy I
could find including: fasting, vitamin C IVs, rebounding, natural immune
boosting and detox supplements, herbal teas, acupuncture, structural integration,
hydrotherapy, saunas, and more.
I found a local naturopath who was a tremendous ally and guided me along
my health journey, and I continued to research, reading all the information I
could find about natural cancer therapies. Within one year of my diagnosis I was
cancer free.
Now in 2011, eight years later, my wife and I have two beautiful daughters
aged 3 and 6, and I am still cancer free. As I write this I am reminded of how
good God is; how much He loves us and cares for us. I put my trust in Him, not
in modern medicine. He led me in the path of healing and He will lead you too
if you let Him.
Psalm 34.4: ‘I sought the Lord and He answered me, and delivered me
from all my fears.’
Chris Wark, Memphis, TN: www.chrisbeatcancer.com
Polly Noble
This is Polly’s story in her own words.
I was 24, living the ‘citygirl’ life in London working as a personal assistant
to the vice president of Sony Playstation. From the outside looking in, I appeared
to have a pretty good life. I had a good job, a lovely boyfriend, a nice house—
but it wasn’t enough, I still wasn’t happy. I always felt a bit lost and at that time
I was fed up and constantly felt that ‘there had to be more’ to life. I just felt like
something was missing. In the back of my mind, I hoped that one day I would
just wake up and know what I wanted to do and how I could make my life
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 24
meaningful. I had a very strong desire to know my real self and the difference I
could make in the world. I had no clue that my purpose would involve me
being diagnosed with cancer aged 24.
I had been feeling a bit run down, seemed to be sleeping from 8pm in the
evening straight through to 8am the following morning, was suffering with
some backache and had put on a few pounds. I put the weight gain down to
being out on the party circuit a little too much and it was only at a check up
with my gynaecologist that it became apparent that something wasn’t right. In
fact it was something quite scary and sinister. After more tests, I was told that I
had a 3cm tumour on my cervix which had spread to several infected malignant
lymph nodes in and around my pelvis. I had already mentally prepared myself
for the worst and my reaction to being told I had cancer was simply, ‘Okay,
what do we do now? Let’s get on and deal with it.’ Obviously on some level I
was upset but it felt natural for me to take a pragmatic approach and I refused
to throw myself a pity party. That’s just the kind of person I am—I was strong
for everyone else to make it easier for them to deal with. Falling apart at the
seams was going to be unhelpful for everyone. At the time I didn’t see the point
in getting upset about it, I was just keen to ‘get it dealt with’. So within a week
or two of my diagnosis I was rushed into hospital for keyhole surgery to remove
as many of the infected lymph nodes they could reach followed by six weeks of
simultaneous chemotherapy and radiotherapy, followed by what was at the
time, a pioneering treatment known as brachytherapy.
During chemo. and radiotherapy I had very little appetite and shrunk to an
unhealthy-looking size six, with sullen cheek bones and huge black circles under
my eyes. I was exhausted, weak and grew weary of the constant prodding and
poking from doctors plying me with drugs. The whole experience made me feel
very disempowered and consequently I spent the majority of my day either
asleep or bent over worshipping the porcelain god!
I wasn’t given any information on how I could help myself or what I could
do to lessen the side-effects I was experiencing so I began to conduct my own
research as to what I could do. I began juicing fruits and vegetables and began
eating more living foods in the form of salads. I grew up in a household where
a piece of fish or meat would hold centre stage with the vegetables making a
small token appearance, but gradually I began to educate myself of how I could
best support my body and boost my immune system to help keep me well. Up
until that point, I had never really made the connection between the foods I was
eating and my level of health. Of course I knew I needed to get my ‘five-a-day’
but I didn’t realise just how important they were or the detrimental effect some
of the other everyday foods I was eating like meat, bread, sugar, cheese and
alcohol were having on my body. I had always considered myself ‘healthy’ but
soon came to realise that my idea of healthy was very different from true health.
Soon after I finished my treatment, I developed lymphoedema in my right
leg making it swell to twice the size of my left leg which was unsightly, painful
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 25
and almost impossible to walk on. I was told there wasn’t much that I could do
and that I would have to ‘learn to live with it’. I told the lymphoedema nurse
that that was unacceptable and took it upon myself to heal it. (I’m sure she
thought I was a pompous Madam but I was 24 and I wanted a normal leg thank
you very much!)
I researched and did everything I could; I had manual lymphatic drainage
once a week, wore lymphoedema stockings, dry skin brushed, drank fresh
juices made from anti-inflammatory foods and visualised on a daily basis that
my leg had returned to its normal size. Approximately three months later, my
leg was back to normal and walking on it wasn’t a problem. The lymphoedema
nurse would always be surprised how much it had reduced each time she
measured it and would ask me what I had been doing!
On agreeing to subject my body to such harsh treatment in the form of
chemo. and radiotherapy, I was made aware that there was a possibility of
developing severe side-effects. Some were worse than others and thankfully it
would appear I have come away fairly unscathed in the grand scheme of things.
But I have suffered some nerve damage in my fingers and to this day still have
problems with them. When I get cold or when I touch something cold, even for
just a split second, the tips of my fingers go numb and they turn white.
Eventually, the blood comes flows back to them but it can be quite painful,
especially in winter. And then of course, having had such severe treatment I
was told that I have been left infertile. Despite still having my reproductive
organs, the treatment has had an extremely negative effect on my monthly cycle
which I am currently working on getting to function once again using
alternative methods.
I was also left with a compromised immune system, which left me
vulnerable to contracting severe pneumonia twice in as many years. During my
second stay in hospital for pneumonia in December 2009, I found a lump near
my collar bone which turned out to be the cervical cancer that had metastasized
to my lymph nodes around my neck. As the cancer was systemic throughout
my lymph system, I was told that the cancer was now deemed ‘incurable’.
I was offered surgery and radiotherapy which I was told may not make
any difference to helping to cure me and having experienced awful side effects
from it previously, decided it was now my opportunity to do it my way and so I
politely declined.
I had read a lot about health and healing in the years between my two
diagnoses, and had come to the conclusion that if the body had created
something then it should be able to ‘un-create’ it. I had tried the conventional
route and the cancer came back, so I decided now was my opportunity to
explore an alternative path to healing. I began researching how to support my
body and the things I could do to ‘switch on’ my body’s healing mechanism,
which has led to the most amazing journey of my life.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 26
I converted to a plant-based raw food diet overnight, with plenty of fresh
juices, meditation, visualisation and yoga making the foundations of my
healing plan. I made it my full-time job to create a sacred space to aid healing
on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level. This is my journey and it is
no coincidence that I feel happier and healthier than ever before.
Three months after embarking on my healing journey, a scan showed that
the cancer had reduced by 1mm although my oncologist was reticent to admit
this could be down to my approach, instead suggesting that the scan may have
been measured inaccurately. A scan four months later showed a little growth
and although I felt some disappointment realised that cancer has been in my
body for at least ten years and that it is going to take time to heal completely. I
don’t put a lot of emphasis on scans as I don’t believe that a lump is a clear
indication of my level of internal health. The lump is a mere manifestation of a
problem that I am working on resolving, but just because the lump is still there
doesn’t mean that healing isn’t already taking place on a cellular level.
I decided to take a break from having scans for a while seeing as they have
to inject glucose into my blood to measure the cancer in my body which in
effect promotes the cancer’s growth! It all just seemed a bit counter-productive.
So now, I have my blood tests and I am told they ‘look good’. I don’t take too
much notice of tests because I feel well and I know that I am doing everything I
can to aid my healing.
I certainly don’t intend to have cancer forever, but I do intend to live my
life with health and happiness. I commit every day to being an active
participant in my health and give my body the best possible environment in
which to create health by eating, drinking and thinking consciously.
We so often feel like a passenger on a runaway cancer train and I want to
use my journey to empower others to take back the reins on their health and
live consciously. Some foods will actually promote the cancer to grow, some
will promote the cancer cells to spontaneously commit suicide, and knowing
what these foods are and how to boost your immune system are crucial not
only to your health but to feeling empowered and in control of your own
experience.
I am passionate about helping others to help themselves get healthy and
prevent a ‘health crisis’ before it’s too late.
I now work as an holistic health coach and raw food coach, educating
others on how to adopt an anti-inflammatory, alkaline diet. I work with people
one-on-one, in groups, hold talks, workshops and retreats as well as provide
stacks of free health information via my website www.pollynoble.com. I am
also being filmed for a documentary due out in 2012 which is following my
healing journey.
I have co-authored a book called The Cancer Journey to help navigate
people through what can be an extremely frightening experience. It’s the go-to
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 27
handbook for anyone affected by cancer, and deals with everything from
diagnosis to diet to self-help techniques, to dealing with friends and family.
Ruth Heidrich
Known as the ‘other Dr Ruth’, Ruth Heidrich is a six-time Ironman Triathlon
finisher, has held age-group records in distances from 100-metre dashes to
ultramarathons, pentathlons, and triathlons. She has completed 67 marathons
including Boston, New York, Moscow, Honolulu, has held three world fitness
records at the famed Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Texas, named one of the ‘Ten
Fittest Women in North America.’ A graduate of UCLA, she holds a Master’s
degree in Psychology, and a doctorate in Health Education. She has also
lectured in this field at the University of Hawaii, Stanford University, and
Cornell University. Author of Senior Fitness, A Race For Life, The CHEF
Cook/Rawbook, she has an ‘Ask Dr Ruth’ column on her website,
www.ruthheidrich.com. Here is her story in her own words.
I was 47 years old and believed I was as healthy as I could possibly be!
Talk about being positive, I thought I had it all! My career was taking off, my
kids were successfully launched, and I loved all the travel that my job provided.
I’d studied nutrition in college and ate what I was told was a very healthy diet,
lots of chicken and fish and low-fat dairy. I was in the best physical shape of my
life except for a little arthritis which I was told everybody gets by the time
they’re 30. I’d starting daily running at the age of 33 and found I loved it! So, at
this time, I’d been a runner for 14 years and had even run a bunch of
marathons.
What I didn’t know was that my life was about to be dumped upside
down. While in the shower that morning, I found a lump in my breast. I got
right in to see a doctor, but he just remarked, ‘Oh, you’re too young for breast
cancer.’ He did, however, order a mammogram, ‘just to be sure’, he said. The
results were negative—a false negative as it turned out—because of my dense
breasts, it didn’t pick up any abnormality. I was told to come back for yearly
checks. The next year, the same result. The third year, however, the lump was
now golf-ball sized and very visible! The doctor looked shocked and ordered an
immediate biopsy. The diagnosis: infiltrating ductal cancer, an invasive cancer
that had already spread, indicated by ‘hot spots’ in my bones, a lung tumour,
and elevated liver enzymes!
I was so stunned and disbelieving that I got second, third and even fourth
opinions. Each doctor confirmed the findings, and as for my prognosis, none
could tell me whether I had three months, three years or what, just that it was
‘not good.’ They all recommended the standard chemo., radiation and
tamoxifen. I could not believe my body betrayed me in such a manner! I was
doing everything I was told were all the right things to be healthy.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 28
I was slated for chemotherapy but dreaded going down that path—but
terrified not to. I started searching for alternatives, any kind of help, anything—
I did not want to die! That was when I found a tiny three-line newspaper item,
‘Wanted, women with breast cancer to participate in cancer/diet research
study.’ I was sure that my ‘healthy’ diet (and I’d been told by the oncologist
that my diet had nothing to do with my breast cancer), so I thought this would
help prove it one way or the other. I ran to the phone and was put right through
to Dr John McDougall. I was so shocked to get him in person that I was
sputtering, trying to tell him that I’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer. He
said, ‘Get your medical records and come down to my office right away.’
After I got there, he was looking over my lab results. ‘Hmmm,’ he said.
‘What now?’ I was thinking. Another shock when he said, ‘You know, with
cholesterol of 236, you are at as high a risk of dying of a heart attack as you are
the cancer.’
I was literally stunned by the deception of my body and what was
happening—cancer, arthritis, and, now, heart disease? I was a marathoner, for
goodness sake! These things don’t happen to people like me! What is going on?
Dr McDougall said, ‘Don’t worry, all of this can be reversed and avoided.
Change your diet, and you’ll lower your cholesterol, lower your risk of heart
disease, and reverse the cancer. And, in order to show that it’s the diet that’s
responsible for these changes, you must not have any chemo. or radiation.’ Wait
a minute, I thought, undergo chemo. and radiation or change my diet? If Dr
McDougall is right, and I saw the research that supported his claim, I’d be crazy
not to go with the diet! ‘OK, what do I do?’ Dr McDougall said: ‘It’s very
simple—eliminate all animal foods and oils from your diet. Your diet will
consist of plant foods: fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.’
No ‘transitioning’ for me—in less than two hours, I was vegan! I found the
diet amazingly easy to follow. I already loved brown rice, whole grain breads
and oatmeal; I just had to replace the chicken, fish and dairy with vegetables
and fruit, and throw out all the oils.
My body responded immediately. The next morning I discovered I’d been
constipated all my life but never knew it. I now know what ‘normal’ is, thank
goodness!
When I returned to the oncologist, I told him what I was doing. He
responded by saying that diet had nothing to do with my getting breast cancer
and I couldn’t possibly get enough protein, calcium, and essential fatty acids. I
made a mental note to check that out with Dr McDougall. In addition to the hot
spots in my bones, I was having serious bone pain that medication could not
relieve. A month later, those hot spots had significantly receded, and within
three months, they were gone, as was the bone pain. The chest X-rays, however,
to this day, still show an encapsulated tumour in my left lung. It hasn’t grown
in 29 years, and my liver enzymes are now normal.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 29
The oncologist had no explanation for the findings and told me further
that my new diet couldn’t have any effect on the cancer, and that I was taking a
risk in continuing to refuse chemo., radiation, and tamoxifen. Back to Dr
McDougall I went! I was reassured when he again showed me the dismal
results of chemo. and radiation plus data indicating I’d get plenty of all the
needed nutrients.
It was during all this turmoil that I happened to see the Ironman Triathlon
on TV. I was awe-struck and thought, ‘I’ve got to do that!’ I saw the 2.4-mile
swim, the 112-mile bike, and then the 26-mile marathon. I knew I could handle
the marathon and thought just adding swimming and biking would be a piece
of cake! Then it hit me, I’ve got cancer and, besides, looking at all the young
bodies, at 47 I’m way too old to do this. I then realized what an opportunity I
was being given: diet does affect cancer and I can show people that you can do
one of the toughest races in the world on a vegan diet and, at a relatively
advanced age to boot! I got excited at the possibilities and joined two running
clubs, got a swim coach, took a bicycle repair course, and was obsessed with
training in all three sports. Training daily, I could see amazing progress in my
speed and endurance. What’s more, I was enjoying my workouts, gaining
confidence that I could attain one of the most ambitious goals I’d ever set for
myself—to be an ‘Ironman’!
I did have to dig deep, however, as I was challenged like I’d never been
before! Crossing that finish line of my first Ironman, I experienced indescribable
feelings—a mix of joy, empowerment, exhilaration, and total fatigue! I could
not have gone another step!
Since my diagnosis in 1982, I have completed the Ironman six times, run
67 marathons, have won nearly 1,000 gold medals including eight gold medals
in the Senior Olympics, won the title of ‘One of the Ten Fittest Women in North
America,’ and have a fitness age of 32, although chronologically, I am 76.
Because of the history of osteoporosis on both sides of my family, I tracked
my bone density and found significant increases with each test. I was obviously
getting enough calcium on this diet. I was also very pleasantly surprised to
discover that my arthritis disappeared and I could stop taking Naprosyn,
(Aleve, or naproxen), the drug prescribed for my arthritis that I was told I
would need to take the rest of my life. My joints today not only are not arthritic,
but I actually do my own little daily triathlon as part of my regular training!
How about that? A 76-year-old triathlete! I never thought my life could take
such a positive turn and am thankful that I found out, in time, the dramatic
impact diet has on our health!
Regarding the rationale for avoiding any kind of oil, the healthiest foods
are whole foods with little or no refinement or processing. Taking a whole food
like corn, olives, etc. and extracting and concentrating the natural oils from
them, represent the extreme in processing, leaving 100 per cent calories from fat
and is certainly not helping in the battle of epidemic obesity in this country. As
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 30
for the touted omega 3s in fish oils, it’s far better to get them from the source.
Fish do not make omega 3s; they get them from the sea greens, and we can do
the same, either from sea greens or any of the many other sources such as leafy
greens, walnuts, and flax seeds.
We also know that a low-fat (ten per cent calories from fat) diet lowers our
risk of heart disease, most cancers but especially breast cancer, stroke, diabetes,
and many other of the common Western afflictions. The substantiating citations
for all this is in my book, Senior Fitness. Here’s what I now eat.
Breakfast
Served in a large bowl, lots of greens for the base: mixed organic greens, 1
stalk kale, 10 or so sprigs of parsley or cilantro, half a mango, 1 large banana,
and half dozen large, seeded globe grapes. Top off with 1 rounded tablespoon
of B12-fortified nutritional yeast, and 1–2 tablespoons of blackstrap molasses.
Because I eat this after my daily workout, this is served late and I eat no
midday meal.
Supper
Lots more greens for the base: mixed organic greens, 3–4 broccoli florettes, 1
stalk of kale, 1 stalk of celery, a quarter head of green or red cabbage, 1 large
carrot, half a red (or orange, green, or yellow) bell pepper, half a large field
tomato, half a sliced yam or sweet potato, raw. On top of this, add to taste,
prepared salsa (mild, medium or hot), 1 tablespoon of regular mustard, 1
tablespoon of flax seed, freshly ground, a general sprinkle of curry powder,
and lots of freshly ground black pepper.
Dessert
A base of blueberries (fresh or frozen, depending on availability and
season)—usually 1 cup, plus about 8–9 prunes, topped with a handful of
walnuts, and a liberal sprinkle of ground cinnamon.
Snacks
For those times when the hunger pangs strike, I eat carrot or celery sticks,
grapes, dates, and in the evening, plain air-popped popcorn.
You’ll see that my diet consists mainly of raw foods. Raw is better than cooking
as cooking does reduce the vitamin content of the food but this is not absolutely
essential—the essential thing is to cut out the oils and to go to a plant based
diet. For me it is just more convenient to eat the foods raw—and actually I
prefer it.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 31
Ian Clements
I first met Ian when he contacted me having read my cancer books and
discovered that we lived in the same town. Here is his story in his own words.
My professional background: I am by profession an electronics engineer
and worked in Germany and Holland before training to be a college lecturer. I
have degrees in electronics, industrial design, and research to PhD level in
education, so I am very capable of reading and evaluating research papers. I
worked latterly as a lecturer in further and higher education, ending my
academic career as assistant principal in charge of technology. This is the story
of my ongoing battle with cancer. I don’t believe that you ever can say that you
have cured your cancer but I am currently, as best as I can tell, cancer-free.
I first became aware of general health issues in 1966 when I noticed that I
had the start of a pot belly. I started to take an interest in the subject and from
then on I became increasingly knowledgeable on health issues and
implemented them. One thing I have learnt over the years is that not everything
you read is true and, in a number of cases, things I once believed to be true
turned out later to be 180 degrees wrong, and I will admit that I have done
several reversals over the years. Being a scientist, I tend to follow reported
research—it is not possible to do all the research oneself.
Nevertheless, I seemed to be fit and healthy—jogging regularly, eating
mainly good nutrition, not drinking too much, and I stopped smoking more
than 30 years ago. I thus seemed on course to live at least to 100, and perhaps
more. In fact I was just about to sit down to write a book called—rather
hubristically—‘How to live to 150 years’, when I was diagnosed with cancer.
In October 2007, I had some tests which revealed I had cancer and this
quickly led to the surgical removal of a tumour from my bladder.
Unfortunately, further tests resulted and I was told that I had metastatic
terminal bladder cancer. I was informed by the urologist, and by the next two
oncologists that I consulted for second (and third!) opinions, that I had only
weeks to live, maybe a year at most (so my expected death-by-date was October
2008; it is now, as I write this, summer 2011).
I was told by these specialists that there was nothing orthodox medicine
could do—additional surgery was not possible; radiation was no use (as I was
metastatic); chemotherapy would only be palliative and make my life
miserable, and would not result in sufficient extra time to make it worthwhile.
This diagnosis traumatised me—I am terrified of death. Over the next few
weeks I would find myself curling up on the floor, crying, trembling, terrified. I
didn’t know it at the time, but my wife was similarly affected; and my eldest
son nearly quit his degree.
Luckily, I had recently been reading up on CAM approaches to cancer and
emailing one of the CAM experts (Dr Peskin, The Hidden Story of Cancer), who
then put me on to the nutritionist, Dr Bernado Majalca. Majalca was very
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 32
positive and gave me hope (where the orthodox medicos had given me none),
promising that he’d cure my cancer, no problem, if I did all he said—specific
diet, juicing, and specific supplements that he sent me monthly. I followed this
regime for a couple of months but it did not stop my tumour from re-growing.
His protocol (most of which I think is valid, but not all) did however strengthen
my immune system so that, or so I believe, when I did eventually do chemo. it
was both more effective than expected and I suffered less than I might have
done.
After about ten weeks on Majalca’s regime—during most of which time I
had been feeling quite well—my health suddenly plummeted. I had a severely
infected testicle and became feverish. The doctors told me I was entering the
last weeks of my life and that we should make preparations for that eventuality.
I was admitted to a hospice and the general expectation was that I would die
there.
However, shortly before this I had consulted with a fourth oncologist who
told me that while he agreed in the main with what I had been told previously
by the other oncologists, in his view there was a very slight chance that
chemotherapy might be curative. He said there was a five per cent chance. Since
I was dying anyway and the Majalca regime wasn’t working, I decided to give
it a go.
I started a regime of two chemo. drugs, cisplatin and gemcitabine. The
impact was not directly bad—I just sat in a chair whilst it was poured into me,
along with saline solutions. But an hour or so afterwards I was initially very
violently sick, several times. But eventually a correct anti-nausea dosage was
found that overcame that. But for about three months I was effectively bedridden.
I also had to take morphine for pain-relief and this caused panics,
constant drowsiness, constipation. I suppose one reason I was able to tolerate
all this was that I was feeling so bad anyway.
After about three weeks I was able to book myself out of the hospice and
go home. Although the hospice was very caring and supportive, the food was
completely wrong for my needs. They provided tasty comfort food—full of
sugar and sweet things—that was totally contrary to what a cancer patient
should be eating. Back at home I was able to resume my variation of Majalca’s
protocol, and start exercising again. And, amazingly, gradually, I started to get
better.
As soon as I could, I was back on the Internet, combing it for info; asking
questions on forums; buying books; getting supplements; exchanging info. I
gradually built up a huge amount of cancer-related information. From all this I
created my own anti-cancer programme—exercise, lots of fresh fruit (I
eventually realised berries were the best) and vegetables (especially broccoli
and Brussels sprouts), no sugar, little alcohol; and lots of curcumin and black
pepper, vitamin D3, and fish oil—were the major components. Luckily I had a
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 33
good juicer that I had bought some time before so I was juicing vegetables three
times a day to start with.
I also tried many ‘cures’. None of them worked for me, or at least that was
my conclusion in relation to myself. Maybe they work for other people.
Instead, I have myself evolved a programme that distils all I have learnt
over a lifetime, both as an engineer, scientist and cancer patient, and which I
think rests on solid scientific medical evidence too. I would like to share it with
you.
This programme is based on the well-known engineering rule ‘Knowledge
of results improves performance’. The first step is to measure your state of
health. The second is to analyse the results and the third step is to feed the body
whatever it is that will correct the situation if it appears that there are problems.
Then six or eight weeks later you repeat the cycle and see if anything has
changed.
In fact, I work on two separate cycles. The first is an assessment of my
cancerousness, the second is an assessment of my wellness. I make a distinction
between these two cycles and for both these cycles I have a number of tests.
To test for my state of cancerousness I do regular testing for specific cancer
markers—in my case I test for a specific urine marker for bladder cancer—the
NMP22 BladderChek Test that detects elevated levels of NMP22 protein. I
should warn you that the use of these blood markers is contentious. My first
oncologist claimed he didn’t know what cancer markers were! However, these
are well understood, if not well used, by the medical profession [Note: I have
discussed cancer markers in Book 2 in this series: Cancer: Diagnosis and
Conventional Treatments: The Pros and Cons of Cancer Tests, Surgery, Radiation and
Chemotherapy—J.C.] If your doctors won’t co-operate, then you will have to get
them done privately.
The second set of tests is those that, in my opinion, provide a good insight
into the state of overall wellness. I assess my wellness by measuring my levels
of vitamin D3, homocysteine, and essential fatty acids (EFAs). These are simple
tests that your doctor should be prepared to arrange. Vitamin D3 levels should
be high (not just normal)—above 200mmol/l; homocysteine levels should be
low and as for the essential fatty acids I am aiming for and AA/EPA ratio of 1.5.
You probably won’t understand that last bit so I will quote from one of the
doctors I currently use as a source of good quality information, Dr Al Sears:
‘There are only three fatty acids that can made into eicosanoids (the
hormones that control inflammation). These are arachidonic acid (AA),
dihomo gamma linolenic acid (DGLA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).
From AA comes all the pro-inflammatory eicosanoids that in excess
accelerate chronic disease. From DGLA come very powerful antiinflammatory
eicosanoids that accelerate cellular rejuvenation. Finally,
from EPA comes very neutral eicosanoids, but its presence can help inhibit
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 34
the formation of AA as well as dilute out its presence in the cell membrane
thus making it more difficult to make pro-inflammatory eicosanoids. The
balance of these three fatty acids in the blood will tell your future with
laser-like precision. What you are looking for are the following levels:
AA less than 9 per cent of the total fatty acids
DGLA greater than 3 per cent of the total fatty acids
EPA greater than 4 per cent of the total fatty acids
But it is the ratio of these fatty acids to each other that tells the full story.
The true marker of silent inflammation is the AA/EPA ratio. If it is greater
than 10 then you have it regardless of how good you look in a swimsuit. A
good ratio would be 3, and the ideal ratio is about 1.5. You might ask where
I get those numbers? If you ask who are the longest-lived people in the
world today, the answer is the Japanese. If you ask who are people with the
longest health span (longevity minus years of disability), the answer is
again the Japanese. If you ask who have the lowest levels of heart disease in
the world, the answer again is the Japanese. And you wouldn’t be too
surprised to find out that the Japanese have the lowest rates of depression
in the world today. When you look at the blood of the Japanese population,
the AA:EPA ratio ranges from 1.5 to 3. If you have your AA levels at 9 per
cent and your EPA levels at 4 per cent, then your AA:EPA would be 2.2
which is mid-range for controlling silent inflammation. For comparison the
average ‘healthy’ American has an AA:EPA ratio greater than 12. This
means Americans are not only the fattest people in the world today, but
also the most inflamed. If you have chronic disease, then it likely that your
AA:EPA ratio is greater than 20.’
In addition to these tests I also have a regular c-reactive protein (CRP) test.
This indicates in a non-specific way the level of inflammation in the body—and
cancer is about inflammation (as are arthritis, heart disease and pregnancy).
So that is my baseline for assessing what it is I need to do. I test my cancer
and wellness markers on a regular basis and I tinker with my diet and exercise
based on the results of these tests.
My current (July 2011) situation is this: my urologist has failed to find any
evidence of cancer, though suspects it is still lurking around. My cancer
markers are all down, though one or two are still above the normal threshold. I
am fit. I feel healthy. In short I am winning. I am still alive.
My present diet is as follows:
Breakfast
is generally a whey powder, soya milk shake, with walnuts, freshly milled
flaxseeds, and an apple; or porridge twice a week.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 35
Lunch
is a big salad—some tinned fish with mixed leaves, bell peppers (chopped),
mixed bean sprouts, spring onion, mushroom with fish; dressing of olive oil,
cider vinegar, chilli pepper, mustard seed powder, curcumin and black
pepper.
Dinner
is protein (fish, white meat, lamb), greens (some of: broccoli, string beans,
cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, peas, tomatoes). Followed by berries.
During the day
I drink white tea and herb tea. Little or no alcohol. No sugar. Little or no
dairy. Little or no carbohydrates.
I also take the following supplements: a high quality multi-vitamin and
multi-mineral (Uni-Vite), several tablespoons of pure fish oil, vitamin D3
(5,000IU), zinc, magnesium, folic acid, and TMG (tri-methyl-glycine—good for
reducing homocysteine levels).
I have prepared a paper on my full anti-cancer programme, which is
available on Jonathan’s website at www.cancerfighter.wordpress.
available only on the understanding that it is for information only and
represents my thinking at the time of writing. But I do tinker with this and if
anyone wants to get my latest version they can email me at
Nuro Weidemann
Here is Nuro’s story in her own words.
In January 2009 I noticed a tiny lump in my right breast. I went to my local
GP. She eventually transferred me to the breast clinic where a couple of fine
needle aspirations were made. I then had an ultrasound scan and a biopsy of
the lump. The result was an aggressive (meaning fast spreading) form of non-
Hodgkin’s lymphoma with a tumour in my right breast. I was devastated!
I had worked for almost 20 years in the field of complementary health. I
was of the opinion that I was of very robust health. I had quite a solid
understanding of nutrition, was never really ill, had hardly any colds, went
running regularly, did a very dynamic form of yoga and my busy work as a
remedial massage therapist provided the necessary muscle strength training.
Admittedly, my daily coffees and teas had become more regular and also
the occasional glass of wine had become more frequent. On top of my
physically demanding job, the commuting between Brighton and London was
stressful and every so often I wondered how much more my body could take
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 36
…. However, as I never really felt ill I had no real reason to worry, I thought.
So, I felt like I’d been hit by a hammer when the consultant told me. It was a
terrible shock, but in a way I could see it coming. I was pretty stressed and
running on adrenalin. Outside work I went running regularly and had a very
busy social life … which tired me out even more. I remember driving home
from London on the motorway one day and thinking ‘I wonder when my body
will crack?’
So getting a diagnosis of cancer completely threw me. I felt betrayed by
my body. I simply could not believe it, as I didn’t feel ill in the first place. For
days I was in shock and kind of numb. Lots of pictures of people with cancer
came up, I remembered my mum, who had died of cancer ten years previously.
I was in an awful state.
The consultant told me that the form of cancer that I had was aggressive
and would spread through the lymphatic system quickly. Chemotherapy was
essential and possibly radiotherapy later. When I heard this I knew I couldn’t
face the treatment. Your hair falls out, you go into immediate menopause, your
immune system is utterly shattered. I just couldn’t do it.
Through this emotional fog I remembered an old friend of mine who had
had cancer as a child. She overcame the illness by a purely natural approach
and then a second time around 30 years later when she had cancer again, she
also cured herself with alternative methods. I called her up and she encouraged
me to embark on a similar route.
All the things she suggested weren’t new to me. To apply them and
believe in them when doctors were of the opinion that the only answer to my
health problem was chemotherapy, was a huge challenge and a step I didn’t
know if I could make. On the other hand, I wanted to live! I didn’t want to get
poisoned. So I felt I didn’t have anything to lose really.
So despite all the fear of the possible consequences of not doing
chemotherapy, I wanted to give myself and my body a chance to heal itself.
I wanted, I needed, to try it out—at least for the next couple of weeks to
see how I would do on a very clean diet, eliminating all possible sources of
toxins, meditating, generally giving myself time and space to decide about my
route of healing from a place where I wasn’t terrified.
I gave up my job and with the help of my husband started some serious
research on the ’net. I realised that this was about rebalancing my whole
system—although there’s this tumour, the illness is really in the whole of the
body.
The first step I decided to take was to go on a diet to cut out acid-forming
foods. Cancer loves an acidic environment. Stress creates a lot of acid, but so do
some foods. So I cut out dairy, wheat, alcohol, meat, sugar and learnt about
juicing and raw food. I also took up daily dry brushing and weekly colonics
which became daily coffee enemas. I needed a way to eliminate the ‘die-off ‘ of
the cancer cells—it can be toxic enough to kill you. A coffee enema literally
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 37
squeezes the toxins out of the liver. I also listened to a meditation tape every
day, took hot and cold showers to stimulate the immune system, sunbathed for
vitamin D, and walked along the coast near where I live. To get to the beach
there is a 186-step cliff stairway. This was my way of gauging myself. How
could I be that ill with cancer if I managed to climb all those steps? I
surrounded myself with people who believed in me and read inspirational
books. That was the hardest part, sticking to my guns when many people
thought it was crazy.
But I could soon feel the whole-body approach was working. I began to
feel fantastic after a couple of months. I woke up every morning and said, ‘I
have cancer, but I feel good.’
Here is a more detailed description of what I did. I hope it will be helpful
to others who have the courage to treat their cancer using natural methods.
The first stage of my health regime looked something like this.
Phase 1
Diet
I went onto a mainly alkaline diet and cut out: dairy, meat, alcohol, sweets
(including fruits, honey, any form of sweetener), gluten, salt, no nightshade
vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines). Instead I upped my organic
vegetables, mainly raw as salads and juices, mostly made out of green
vegetables, which I had before breakfast and dinner, supplemented by wheat
grass juice. I also increased my daily water intake, trying to sip about one and a
half to two litres throughout the day. My daily diet then became:
Breakfast
gluten-free porridge with a few raisins (that was my only sweet treat!)
Lunch
salad, lettuce, cucumbers, sprouts, few carrots, few beetroots, zucchinis, olive
oil, lemon with a bit of quinoa or brown rice on the side and occasionally
tofu.
Supper
were much the same vegetables as for lunch but steamed or as a stew with
some added quinoa or brown rice.
I was on this diet for about eight weeks and it was roughly based on the
book: The pH Miracle by Dr Robert and Shelly Young. During this time I didn’t
take any supplements, as I wasn’t sure what would benefit me.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 38
Additional healing approaches
In addition to the change of my diet, I had weekly colonic hydrotherapy, did
daily meditations, visualisations (letting the tumour shrink and dealing with
the fear of the diagnosis) and tried to go out for one-hour walks as often as
possible. I also took MMS (Miracle Mineral Solution, an unfortunate name for a
very effective remedy). I took MMS for over a year as suggested, first orally and
for several months in combination with DMSO (dimethyl sulphoxide) topically.
On this diet I lost about 5kg over a span of two months. So did my
husband who supported me on the diet, a good indication for me that I hadn’t
lost weight because of the cancer but because of my change in diet. It was a
reassuring observation as advancing cancer is accompanied by weight loss.
Meanwhile, I tried to find a medical practitioner who would support me
in my endeavour to heal the cancer with natural methods. I found a former GP
who now works as an acupuncturist and nutritional therapist in Devon, UK.
It was clear from the start that he had many suggestions and insights
regarding my condition but he couldn’t take me on as a patient (law in the UK
[Cancer Act, 1939] forbids anybody from claiming to heal cancer by any other
means than chemotherapy, radiation or surgery). However I felt it was a step in
the right direction.
After seeing him I slightly altered my diet, started to take supplements,
dropped the regular colonics and introduced daily coffee enemas instead.
Phase 2
Diet
From my initial detoxifying diet I switched to a kind of building up or
strengthening diet. Essentially it was the same as before but I added a few of
the so called ‘super foods’ like bee pollen, goji berries, freshly ground-up flax
and hempseeds, flaxseed and hempseed oils in my breakfast porridge, and
augmented my usual lunches and suppers with fish, organic chicken or lamb’s
liver twice a week.
Supplements
As far as supplements went, I started to take iodine, krill oil, zinc, selenium,
magnesium, a multi-vitamin, I ate apricot kernels and drank Essiac tea.
Naturopathic approaches
I also added the following naturopathic techniques to my daily routine: coffee
enemas as mentioned earlier, castor oil packs over the liver, dry brushing, hot
and cold showers, occasional Epsom salt bath, continued with my one-hour
walks several times a week and tried to get into the sun without sun protection
for 20 minutes a day to top up on the spirit-raising sun’s health-bringing
vitamin D stimulus.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 39
Working with the mind
I carried on with my daily meditations and visualisations, as I understood the
importance of working with the mind. I needed to have each and every aspect
of my life supporting my longing for health. I listened to the ‘Teaching of
Abraham’ These are teachings channelled by Esther Hicks. I know it sounds
batty, but in fact they have been very important for me, as have lectures by the
writer Eckart Tolle.
Mental attitude
During all this time I tried to stay clear of talking about trying to ‘fight the
cancer’. Ultimately my body had created the illness and I saw it more as a
wake-up call that somewhere along the line I had gone against my own truth. I
wanted to be kind to my body. I felt that was my way forward in all areas of my
life. I wanted to learn again to go with the flow without compromising my own
truth. At the same time I wanted to stay open to learn new things and change
my approach along the way if needed. As long as it benefited my general health
and wellbeing.
Electromagnetic radiation
During this time I also came to realise how health damaging electromagnetic
radiation is. So we stopped using wireless broadband and went back to using
cables, exchanged our cordless phone for an old fashioned hand held phone
and I tried to use my mobile phone as little as possible (if I had to, I used an ear
piece).
Creativity
On my quest for health I also wanted dedicate time to pottery again. I had
started years before but had given it up when I got too busy with work. Now
seemed the perfect time to start. So I enrolled on a course again. Two years on
and I am still doing it. I really love to have my hands in wet clay and forming
objects out of it. Mostly I do objects I can use around the house. My pots are
getting better and looking less wonky, the glazes become more predictable, and
they crack less.
This year for the first time I will exhibit some of my ‘masterpieces’
together with other friend’s art in Cornwall. For me it is not so much about
making perfect pieces of art, it’s more about expressing an important part of
myself.
Toxicity in cosmetics and cleaning products
The other important area of possible toxin burden that needed to be addressed
was cleaning products, toiletries and cosmetics.
We basically switched them all to environmentally friendly products that
were free of petrolatum, mineral oils, sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, parabens,
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 40
lanolin, and that hadn’t been tested on animals, didn’t contain any animal byproducts
and were biodegradable.
High quality water
On top of all that we installed a reverse osmosis filter for our so-important daily
water consumption. This filters out the good and the bad, so we added extra
mineral drops to our drinking water. We also installed a filter in our shower
head that cleans out fluorides and other damaging ingredients.
Monitoring my progress
When I was first diagnosed and I wanted to go onto my alternative health
regime, one big issue for me was how to monitor my progress.
The oncologist couldn’t offer me any on-going tests other than invasive
PET scans that they normally do every six months. As I was considered opting
for ‘no treatment’ in the eyes of conventional medicine I wasn’t given this test.
However, as I mentioned before, these tests are taxing on the body and I
was rather looking for a test that was less invasive. We eventually came across
the ‘Navarro Test’, which quite few people do when approaching cancer in a
natural way.
Initially the test seemed to be very complicated to do and sounded a bit
‘cowboy’-like. However, we overcame all obstacles and I did the test every
three months. Besides feeling good in my body, the test became an important
indicator of how I was doing on a less obvious level. After doing the test a few
times it wasn’t all that complicated as it initially seemed.
Success
After 18 months on this regime the lump in my breast had dissolved. Where
there used to be a bulge that was as big as a chestnut, there was now nothing.
At this point I felt that my body was strong enough to do another PET scan.
A reluctant oncologist eventually agreed to do the test. It showed that I
had no cancer in my body anymore and I was declared as being ‘in complete
remission’. The oncologist was very surprised.
What now?
After the result of the PET scan, I had a big celebration with friends who had
supported me through my healing journey. Everybody asked me if I would go
on with my strict diet.
Well, there were a few things in my mind that I wanted to eat again. I tried
them out but I can’t really say that it was the big ‘wow’ experience that I was
expecting.
For one thing, I have now completely lost my appetite for alcohol. It
makes me feel strange and I don’t like it any longer. Croissants with butter,
strawberry jam and a coffee used to be my ultimate fantasy while I was on my
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 41
regime. Even that has lost its appeal. However, I still love my daily crunchy
organic veggie salads, the occasional bit of chicken and fish here and there.
My healthy diet has become a way of life. I still have the odd bits that I
regard as not that healthy but I easily find my way back.
One thing that I find important for me is not to become too obsessed with
food.????I still like to go out for a meal every so often and eat what feels right for
me without being too concerned, and then I go home and carry on with my
daily green juice, the salads and steamed veggies and plenty of good quality
water.
As a result of my healing journey I have enrolled in a nutritional healing
course. That course teaches more or less the approach that has helped me
immensely.
Over the last two years I feel as if I have done a crash course in healthy
living. The nutrition course gives me the time and the support to go over
everything I have done to get better and to come to a deeper understanding. I
hope that with my own experience and the help of this course I will be able to
inspire people to try out the gentle way of healing cancer.
Summary
Initially I was trying to find the ‘right’ healing method. Everything I read felt
very overwhelming, confusing and at times was contradictory. Initially, when I
came across these contradictions they felt like a major obstacle and a big worry
on my journey. But now I feel much more relaxed about them. Gradually, all
the reading I did and the information I had accumulated fell into place. I
developed a sense of when to incorporate another healing method, and which
one I wanted to incorporate. I needed to stick to something that felt right to me
before I understood all other methods.
I am sure I could have done it in a different way, but the methods I chose
felt right to me at the time. What I want to express here is the fact that there is
not only one right method of healing. Finding my own inner voice and my own
intuition was pivotal.
Although initially it was a very scary situation, it eventually became a
very empowering process. I was, and I am, still amazed by the way my body
reacted to positive, loving, caring and gentle attention. It felt that there was this
part in me that wanted to be heard and acknowledged. Once I had tuned in, it
was delighted to support my healing process on every conceivable level. The
illness was a true blessing in disguise for me.
Having said all that, I don’t feel I have reached a place from where I can
simply go back to my life how it used to be. On a physical level my healing is
complete for now but emotionally I feel like a work in progress.
Nevertheless I felt that I had a story that might help others so I contacted
The Guardian newspaper Health Editor to offer her my story. This was the reply
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 42
I got back: ‘I’m sorry—it’s good to hear you are well, but we are a very sciencebased,
evidence-based newspaper and would not run stories based on one
person’s experience, which may well not be typical.’
If that’s their attitude, how is anyone going to learn that it is possible, as I
have proved for myself, that you can cure cancer by natural means?
If anyone wishes to know more I can be contacted at
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 43
Appendices
The rich can afford the very best medicine
When it comes to cancer, I feel sorry for the rich. They can afford the very best
treatments that money can buy. And they must be the best treatments—right?—
because they are the treatments proposed by the most eminent doctors to whom
only the very rich have access.
Often these treatments are the very latest, most cutting-edge. The more
you can pay, the more you are going to suffer. But since these oncologists don’t
have the cure for most cancers and are not going to have that cure for the
conceivable future—(read oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee’s best-selling book,
The Emperor of All Maladies, if you don’t believe me)—then all this money spent
on painful treatments is just buying the pain. The more money you have the
more pain you can afford.
But if we can’t put our hopes on these latest, cutting-edge treatments what
can we do? Well, there are so many options that I could suggest, that I don’t
know where to start. That’s why I wrote the Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide
(see www.fightingcancer.com). That’s where you will find the answers that suit
you.
But let’s return to the issue of wealth, fame and cancer. Recently we have
had two famous pancreatic cancers: Steve Jobs’ and Patrick Swayze’s and a long
time ago we had Steve McQueen’s mesothelioma. Both of these cancers—
pancreatic and mesothelioma—are considered to be pretty much untreatable
(by conventional means). But that doesn’t mean they won’t treat you anyway.
Doctors will often treat you just to stop you becoming so depressed that you’ll
do something crazy like go to the alternative treatments (I’m not joking. This is
policy in some quarters. They treat you until you’re so far along that there’s
little anyone can do for you).
Swayze and Jobs both went the conventional route. Although Jobs did also
follow an alternative regime to start with, and very possibly continued doing
some through his conventional treatments (certainly he survived much longer
than most people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer), Swayze was only
interested in following the conventional route. He died 18 months after
diagnosis. Felicity Corbin-Wheeler, whose story I tell in this book is today alive
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 44
and cancer free, having recovered from the same cancer using the much
derided alternative, Laetrile. If you get pancreatic cancer, which do you think is
the best model to follow?
And then there was Steve McQueen who famously, having exhausted his
conventional options, chose to work with the alternative cancer therapist,
William Kelley, then after a year with him allowed himself to be operated on—
and died on the operating table. Who gets the praise and who the blame?
Dr Nicholas Gonzalez, who has continued William Kelley’s work (for
details of Kelley’s approach see Book 3 in this series: Cancer Research and
Politics—Kelley, too, cured himself of terminal stage pancreatic cancer), has
complained about the way the media responds differently to conventional
doctors on the one hand and alternative therapists on the other:
‘You see, when a conventional oncologist loses a celebrity patient, they [the
media] portray him as a hero fighting this terrible disease against
enormous odds; working late into the night trying to keep the celebrity
alive. But when an alternative practitioner loses a patient, they consider
him a sleazy quack getting money from unsuspecting cancer victims.’
The Steve McQueen case has been used particularly to stigmatise
alternative approaches, but Gonzales has responded robustly to the suggestion
that Kelley killed McQueen:
‘He [Steve McQueen] was terminal when he came to Dr Kelley. He had
failed radiation, failed immunotherapy. He had been misdiagnosed for a
year. The reason he ended up with Stage 4 mesothelioma is because he was
misdiagnosed by his fancy conventional doctors in Southern California.
Then they gave him radiation—there's not a study in the history of the
world showing that radiation helps in mesothelioma; they gave it anyway.
Then they gave him immunotherapy. There’s not a study in the history of
the world saying that immunotherapy helps in mesothelioma. They did it
anyway. Then he was dying and he went to see Kelley. He died, and Kelley
got all the blame. Not the doctors who misdiagnosed him! In fact when you
read the newspaper articles, there are still articles about how Dr Kelley
killed McQueen. No! Cancer killed McQueen. You see, an oncologist at
Sloan-Kettering can do a bone marrow transplant on celebrity patients.
They die, and he’s written up like a hero …. Kelley tries to help after
conventional doctors failed miserably and misdiagnosed him, and
McQueen lived longer than he should. (He was a half-compliant patient—
he continued to smoke, drink, and eat ice cream.) …. About two or three
years ago, there was an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal attacking
unconventional cancer therapy. They talked about McQueen, and how
Kelley killed him. … Conventional oncologists lose patients every day, and
no-one says they’re murdering anybody. Instead they’re considered heroes
for trying so hard.’
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 45
So there it is. Two morals to this article. First, money may or may not buy
happiness but, when it comes to cancer, it doesn’t necessarily buy a longer,
healthier life. Second, don’t believe everything you read in the national press
when they criticise alternative medicine.
Letter to oncologists
For decades you have been seeking to cure cancer—first through surgery,
attempting, at first, to achieve your aims by increasingly disfiguring and lifethreatening
operations until sanity came to the rescue and you realised (I do
hope you have realised) that surgery only works at a very early stage of a
cancer’s growth, and therefore a lumpectomy is as much as needs be done—but
of course if the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, then even this is
useless—possibly even worse than useless, as the healing process may
incidentally provoke a more rapid growth of distant metastases.
Then came radiation, which is still with us, which has the same limitations
as surgery—and more besides. You realised eventually that only a systemic
approach could work. So you turned your focus on chemotherapy. But despite
repeated attempts to cure cancer with multiple, highly toxic, drug regimes, this
approach too has sadly failed. You now recognise it only works in about five to
six per cent of cancers (for the ‘benefit’ ultimately of maybe three per cent). This
benefit, sadly, comes with it an extraordinary range of qualifications—early
onset of new cancers, slowing down of brain functions, and so on. But you
know all this. Patients generally don’t, but you do. Oncologist Siddhartha
Mukherjee has admitted as much in his wide-ranging, best-selling book, The
Emperor of All Maladies, but this fact has been known for a very long time. The
problem is in persuading you oncologists to be straight with us on this. Now it
seems there is a move in this direction.
Currently, you are placing all your hopes on smart drugs that attack
proteins and enzymes specific to each of the 2,000 (or some say 20,000) different
cancer types you have discovered. But even this approach you understand will
not work. The closer you get to the bio-chemistry of these ‘evil’ cells the greater
their complexity. And of course, cancer changes genetically very fast and each
drug ceases to be effective equally rapidly. The cure for cancer has simply
disappeared over the horizon. But you have not told people that. You go along
with the press releases from drug companies that announce each supposed
advance. You allow the press to laud these developments. You remain satisfied
with the small incremental improvements in mortality measure, decade on
decade. But you know that the pain and failure of conventional cancer
treatments will go on and on—perhaps forever, because you cannot see any
alternative. And yet the alternative is there in plain sight. You even call it
‘alternative medicine’.
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 46
For the most part you have given up on the hope of cure and are now
moving to a philosophy of palliative medicine. It is your hope that if you cannot
cure cancer you can at least help cancer patients live longer. It is here that the
horizons of the alternative movement converge on your own sphere.
If you allowed yourself to embrace alternative medicine—and why should
you not? There is no research to show that a regime of diet, supplements, herbs
and other health supporting does not also substantially extend life, and quality
of life. And as the stories in this book demonstrate clearly, some people cure
themselves of cancers that conventional doctors have given up on. Yes ‘cure’ is
the word we can use when someone remains free of cancer for 30 years, as
Beata Bishop has done.
So here is a suggestion, one first suggested to me by Ian Clements whose
recovery story is truly remarkable—a recovery that suggests a potential benefit
of chemotherapy—to reduce the size of a tumour, if it is a tumour that obstructs
a vital organ, until the longer-term strategy of diet and supplements can
become effective. The suggestion is this. All cancer patients should be seen
long-term on an outpatient basis. They should be given regular blood tests to
determine not only the progress of various cancer markers but also to monitor
other key indicators of overall health. Then they should be encouraged to
follow whatever therapies and treatments they may deem to be appropriate—
alternative as well as conventional—all the time maintaining a beady eye on
changes to these markers for cancer and health. Offer everyone this series of
books so that they can see the full range of the options that may be beneficial.
And of course keep testing, keep evaluating the results, keep being prepared to
fiddle with the regime.
I can assure you, you will be amazed. Suddenly, people you expected to
die will recover. Perhaps not everyone but certainly more than do so currently.
Others—the vast majority, I suspect, of those who take the job of getting well
again seriously—will go on living far longer than predicted.
It is really that simple. So the question I put to you now is this: Why have
you not already done this?
You see, cancer is not just a problem for doctors, it is—more pressingly—a
problem for the patients, the people with the cancer. Cancer patients need to
learn to begin to take responsibility for their own cancers (and their own health
overall) and doctors need to help them. Indeed, more and more patients are
seeing for themselves the benefits of complementary and alternative treatments.
People are already moving towards CAM treatments for their cancer—and they
are not telling their doctors because of the weight of disapproval. It’s a secret
move away from orthodox medicine, and this movement is getting bigger and
bigger all the time. (Ask yourself this: if people believed doctors had a good
cure for cancer there wouldn’t be a need for alternative therapies. So if more
and more people are using CAM: complementary and alternative medicine—
what does that indicate?)
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 47
Here’s what University of Toronto cancer researcher Heather Boon
discovered in 2005: ‘… more than 80 per cent of all women with breast cancer
report using CAM (41 per cent in a specific attempt to manage their breast
cancer), CAM use can no longer be regarded as an “alternative” or unusual approach
to managing breast cancer.’ (my emphasis). According to her, younger, more
educated women, in particular, are more likely to have a high commitment to
CAM therapies.
Cristiane Spadacio, another cancer researcher, says: ‘… there has been an
exponential growth in interest in—and use of—complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM), especially in developed western countries …. Studies show that
the number of patients who use some form of alternative therapy after the diagnosis of
cancer is high … [and they experience] high levels of satisfaction with alternative
therapies.’ (my emphasis).
At present, the situation is this: if patients decline to undergo surgery,
radiation or chemotherapy—or any of the other treatments on the conventional
menu—then you oncologists wash your hands of them. ‘We offered them
treatment and they refused, what can we do?’ You tell yourselves.
Well, what you can do is this: continue to see them on an outpatient basis,
offering your access to blood tests, scans and so on, so that these patients can
monitor their own bodies. That’s what you can do, and indeed should be doing.
Otherwise you are monopolising certain services to the detriment of the health
of people who wish to work out their own solutions to their cancers—and they
have every right to do this because it is they, ultimately, who are going to suffer
the consequences.
So, please, please, can you set aside your prejudices and help them.
Jonathan Chamberlain
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 48
Summing up
Taken individually, each of these stories can be, and generally has been,
dismissed by doctors as inexplicable. In each case the doctor might say that the
recovery was unexpected but ‘it is unlikely that alternative therapies have had
any real impact’. However, taken collectively, the case they make for the
potential of a wide variety of alternative therapies from diet, herbs,
supplements and so on becomes increasingly hard to reject.
Many doctors will claim that they know of sad cases where ill-advised
patients have taken to the alternative route and died shortly thereafter, But they
don’t mention the cases where patients have undergone painful and damaging
conventional treatments and who have, like my wife did, died shortly after.
Of the dead we cannot speak. Undoubtedly, many people going the
alternative route do die—perhaps because they have not done enough of the
right things or they have stuck to one thing, or who knows what other reason
(but undoubtedly they will have saved themselves a great deal of pain and very
likely will have lived longer than expected). But what these stories do tell us, is
that many people following alternative approaches have cured their cancers, or
are continuing their battle against cancer, never allowing themselves to think
they have defeated it but that, for the time being, they are winning. And let us
remind ourselves of the extraordinary range of cancers represented by these
stories—breast cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma, sarcoma, cancers of the
colon, kidney, bladder, pancreas and anus, brain tumours, lymphoma and
myeloma. Whatever is working is working across the whole spectrum of cancer.
How many times do you need to press a light switch to know—with 100
per cent certainty—that there is a causal relationship between pressing the
switch and the light coming on. Two? Three times at most. How many cases do
you need to read of people recovering from cancer using alternative means
before you can accept that maybe there is something to the alternative
approaches to cancer?
It is my hope that you will see that the promise of freedom from cancer by
means of health-enhancing (not health-damaging) therapies is real. As one
contributor to my blog said recently: ‘It was very early on in my journey that I
began to question the conventional methods of treatment. I was sitting in the
break room at work one morning, and I posed a question to a co-worker: ‘Why
Cancer Survivors’ Stories
2011 © Jonathan Chamberlain 49
would God want to use radioactive poison to heal me? Why would He want to
kill all that is right and good to kill that which is not?’ The ‘logic’ in that has
never computed in my mind and is something I cannot get around. The answer
that came to me was that He wouldn’t. That question became the driving force
behind my decision to find a natural remedy for my cancer.’
It is by asking these simple innocent questions that we discover the
nakedness of the Emperor of Conventional Medicine. Cancer comes from
nature—the answer too must be available in nature.
Respect for me is a word that has enormous power. If we respected each
other, if we respected our environment, if we respected ourselves more fully,
then the world would be a very different place. But we don’t respect this planet
we are all travelling on enough. We don’t respect other people—people who are
different from us—enough. And we don’t respect our bodies enough. If we did,
we wouldn’t allow them to be attacked with such toxic chemicals or with such
toxic and damaging radiation (see Book 2 in this series: Cancer: Diagnosis and
Conventional Treatments: The Pros and Cons of Cancer Tests, Surgery, Radiation and
Chemotherapy for a full discussion of this topic).
It is my hope that this book will be helpful to you in extending the length
and the quality of your life, the lives of your family members, and the lives of
your friends, neighbours, colleagues and even casual acquaintances.
Tell others
Tell others
If you have found this book (in pdf format) useful then send it to all your family
and friends. Cancer is part of all our lives—either the cancers we are harbouring
in our own bodies, or the cancers that are affecting the lives of loved ones,
friends, neighbours, colleagues and so on. If you do not have the pdf version
then please go to www.fightingcancer.com
The better we are prepared, the better our outcome is likely to be. If we
build into our lives strategies that can ‘cure’ cancer, then by adopting them in
advance we will be doing a great deal to prevent that cancer in the first place.
As a cancer patient wrote after reading my book Cancer: The Complete
Recovery Guide: ‘I wish I'd read this book before I was diagnosed. My doctor
and the cancer charities didn't tell me any of this.’
Help your family and friends avoid the pain and suffering that goes along
with cancer. You could save someone's life.
