Try Anything!

When you are in a life and death situation, you are willing to try anything that may nudge you toward life. Once I got over the initial shock of the diagnosis, I started looking around for anything that could cement the "right" outcome for me. I had called the naturopath I had heard about for years who had treated some friends' cancer with success. I began taking supplements he had recommended. I called my aunt who had beaten non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to see what she did. Among her first suggestions was to read "The Journey" by Brandon Bays, which I began to do immediately. I began reading Lance Armstrong's book about cancer, a must-read for anyone trying to overcome really bad odds. I made an appointment with an acupuncturist. I searched "I beat cancer" on google and read most things I could find. I began to pray and meditate at a set time everyday. I started doing visualization exercises, picturing the cancer cells being dispatched by my immune system cells and also imagining a white light enveloping my right chest area. I started doing coffee enemas. I asked everyone I knew to pray for me and to focus their thoughts on my right breast! I sat before a VIBE machine. I ordered book after book about beating cancer with nutrition. I began seeing a body worker, essentially a hypnotherapist who also works on your pressure points. I started juicing and drinking tons of veggie juice.

For every one person who swears by a method, there are hundreds (if not more) who swear it's nonsense. There's a website called Quackwatch that--it appears to me but I haven't examined it extremely closely--basically disputes the validity of anything that is not in the realm of traditional medical science. This seems a bit arrogant to me, but I also understand that people have different orientations and that some folks need a handful of double-blind studies before they will accept anything. I don't operate this way anymore (if I ever did) because I've seen and read about way too many intangible things that defy the odds, the studies and the official "findings." Also my experience during this whole ordeal was that quite often, if you believe it, it shall be. If you don't believe it, so it shall be. For example where side effects were concerned during my chemo treatments, if I had no idea about it, quite often it wouldn't happen. I started to make doctors and nurses tell potential side effects to my husband, girlfriend, or mother (who doesn't speak English that well and had no idea what they were saying) instead of me.

There were some practices that I never expected to work, but were clearly doing something. The first time I walked into a VIBE session, I had to work very hard not to bust out laughing. I sat in front of what looked like the warp drive from the Starship Enterprise. It went on and I pictured Mr. Spock fixing the broken warp drive in The Wrath of Khan and being overcome by radiation poisoning. I sat there for three minutes and tried to "set my intention" as I had been told by the VIBE folks before I walked in. When I left, I felt nothing but giggly about the absurdity of the whole experience. I reported all this back to my naturopath, who had suggested that I try it because it really seemed to help some of his cancer patients who were going through chemo. But Dr. Abdo, I said, I feel like I'm on the set of a science fiction movie! He laughed for a full minute and said: I understand. You should do it if you want to and it works for you. And don't worry about it if it doesn't. I said: Don't you feel like the whole thing is kind of "out there?" He said: Amanda, I've been out there for a very long time, and that's why I believe in the independent investigation of the truth. We don't take anyone's word for what works and what doesn't. We investigate for ourselves.

I dragged my good friend to the next few VIBE sessions and went with a healthy dose of humor. Each time I was allowed to increase my session by one minute and told to "set my intentions." Another friend, a breast cancer survivor, had told me by then that she had tried "vibing" but stopped when it did nothing for her. I was about to go the same way myself. Around the third or fourth session, I noticed that I was having several bowel movements after each vibe session and that I was sleeping incredibly well the evening after I vibed. I relayed this to my friend who was going with me. She looked surprised and told me this was her experience as well. Clearly something was happening and it was positive. I'm not sure about the larger promises that VIBE machine proponents make. They may well be true. But for me, it was doing something positive and I decided to continue it once a week. I go some weeks, and I miss other weeks. As long as I feel good about it, I will continue to do it, and this is how I approach each and every one of the treatments I've decided to undertake.

Each person must find his or her own path by independently investigating the truth.