Healed from Stage Four Cancer Twice

I am a medical herbalist of 16 years, originally inspired to study herbs by my own healing journey when I was 11 years old. That is when I was told I had plasma cell leukemia and sarcoma in my thigh muscle.

The tumor was removed, but my parents were told that there would be no cure for me - the best that we could hope for was that chemotherapy would prolong my life by a few months.

My parents made the brave decision to refuse conventional medicine on my behalf in favor of treatment from a naturopath called Mr. Eddie in Manchester, UK.

He immediately put me on the Gerson Therapy consisting of juices (half of them green, the other half made from carrots), coffee enemas, vitamins and herbs. A vegetable-based, salt-free, sugar-free, vegan diet completed the program.

In six weeks, my energy had returned and I felt like a completely different person. My dad recalls the profound change in me with happiness, as he witnessed his daughter literally coming back to life. He says my hair suddenly seemed to shine again. Nine months later, a very bemused consultant wrote "spontaneous recovery" on my notes.

The whole experience had a huge effect on me and when I was old enough, I went to Herbal Medicine College to pursue a four-year,  full-time training course which resulted in my becoming a medical herbalist.

Over the years, I have treated people with all kinds of diseases and developed a particular interest in treating digestive disorders. Even though I had healed my own cancer, I was still fearful of treating other people with the disease.

As a practitioner of alternative medicine, it is illegal for me to even say that I can help people heal their cancer, so whenever people with cancer consulted me, I always managed to refer them on to other practitioners.

That is until cancer came my way in a form I could not pass along to the next practitioner: This time the cancer was my own.

For 32 years, I had been healthy and now at the age of 42, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Or put more accurately, I diagnosed myself following a partially collapsed lung which resulted from fluid in the pleural space. Internet research led me to discover that a pleural effusion can be the result of ovarian cancer - so I went to my general practicioner and asked for an ultrasound scan and a blood test to measure CA125 (the tumor marker for ovarian cancer). I was completely shocked to discover that my CA125 was extremely high at 9,600 (should be below 35) and both ovaries had solid tumors indicative of cancer.

My oncologist told me I needed to have a full hysterectomy and have my appendix and omentum removed, and follow up with chemo and radiotherapy. He said that if I followed his recommendations  I had a 20 to  30 percent chance of being alive in five years and a 10 percent chance of being alive in 10 years" time.

Due to pressure on the country"s  National Health Service, however, I would have to wait a month. Thank goodness for our highly inefficient NHS! I had time to think about how I was going to save my life.

My healing journey had begun - I was terrified, but I tried my best to view it as an adventure.

First stop was to visit a shaman in Devon, UK.

Armed with my juicer and enough supplies to do my daily enemas, I spent two weeks with him and a wonderful group of people who helped me to release some blocked emotions. I began to understand how my unexpressed grief about my mum and sister dying of cancer was literally killing me. I also unlocked a lot of grief about a relationship which had ended 10 years ago and I realized that I had not opened up properly to love since then. I began to really allow myself to experience sadness and fear in a way that I had never done before.

I went back to my consultant, even though I had decided by then that I was going to refuse the treatment he wanted to give me. He was amazed to discover that my CA125 had decreased by 2000 to 7, 500. Also the fluid had gone from my lungs.

However, a more thorough blood test revealed another tumor marker was in my blood - CEA. It was very high - around 13,000 when it should be less than five thousand. I was told that the most likely scenario was that I had a primary tumor elsewhere - possibly the stomach, the pancreas or colon. They were not prepared to scan me as that was too expensive, but they wanted to remove an ovary to discover where the primary cancer site was.

The shaman had said to me that the best way to heal was to keep out of the way of medics because they would only fuel the fear and that it was fear that made tumors grow. It was hard to walk away from orthodox medicine - but I knew that was exactly what I had to do.

The GP agreed to monitor me with blood tests and, in fact, eventually agreed to let me have an MRI scan in November.

The result was shocking - it revealed a tumor on my cervix. I decided to go back to see the consultant at this point and I let him do the most incredibly painful and barbaric biopsy without anesthesia (he had told me it wouldn"t hurt - that it would feel a bit like period pains!).

So the mysterious primary tumor was no longer a mystery. My diagnosis? Cervix adenoma carcinoma, metastasized to the ovaries. A blood test showed that the CA125 had increased and,  worryingly, my belly began to swell up.  I was starting to look pregnant. Added to this, my lung had filled up with fluid again and I was having difficulty breathing.

I had to face that I was not getting on top of this with diet and attempts at positive thinking alone.

The time had come for me to do something drastic - I had bought a book by Bill Henderson called " a guide to gentle non-toxic healing". I read about Insulin Potentiated Chemotherapy which is done with full whole body hyperthermia. It goes like this: they give you a general anesthetic, heat you up to 41.6 C using heat lamps, put glucose in to your vein followed by insulin, the combination of which makes cancer cells very active - they start munching all of the glucose up, then into the vein goes the chemotherapy and the only cells that get it are the active ones (ie the cancer cells).

This means that only 10 percent of the chemo drugs are necessary and that your immune system and hair follicles are saved from the devastating effects normally resultant from chemo.

Combining the IPC with hyperthermia makes for a deadly combination as far as tumors are concerned.

The following day, a very good friend called me up, "Had I heard of Insulin Potentiated Chemotherapy?," she asked me.

I believe that when life guides you, you get messages about what you need to do from more than one source. I felt I was being guided to go for the IPC.

Off I went to Dr. Dowes Clinic in Bad Aibling Bavaria - alone, sick and scared and ready for some radical healing.

I returned a week later for Christmas, then two weeks later off I went again for two more weeks. My hair did not fall out, but I still felt incredibly toxic. The first treatment had caused me to have a deep vein thrombosis and as a result I had been injecting myself with Heparin on a daily basis. When I was at the hospital for the second time, I had a brain hemorrhage due to the Heparin!, the symptom of which was vision problems. This lead me to have a brain scan and to the subsequent discovery of brain tumors - between five and seven of them!

I was supposed to return to Germany for more treatment, but, they told me that I needed to sort out the brain tumors before coming back. They suggested Gamma Knife (fine targeted radiation), available in London on a private basis.

It was a cold January in the UK and I had reached my lowest ebb at this point. Everything really felt too much - I felt like I was not getting anywhere with my healing, I was in despair.

I hated being ill - I am someone who likes to have a lot of fun, to dance a lot, laugh a lot, socialize a lot and here I was living alone with my dog, sick and not enjoying my life. I made a decision around that time - I was not going to be ill for a long time. Either I had to get better fast or die.

When I thought about dying though, I felt so sad about leaving my dog and my house and garden behind. I also felt it would be a real waste as I had learned so much in my life and knew that I would be a much better healer than I ever was before, if I could just sort myself out and get this cancer licked. I became very clear that healing was what I wanted, and I wanted it fast.

I was inspired a lot by Esther Hicks who channels Abraham.  I have been listening to her every day now for 18 months and I have learned so much about how we create our own reality from her. I realized that I needed to start imagining how it would feel to be healthy and that I could create health in my body myself by using my mind. I was also inspired by "The Secret" and "What the Bleep" (movies about how we create reality). I listened to Wayne Dyer, Gregg Braden and Louise Hay and Carolyn Myss.

I continued with The Gerson therapy, but made some changes to improve it. I started including more raw food and sprouts. I realized that the therapy had not moved on with science and that it was no longer the cutting-edge therapy that it had once been. Also I realized that I could be doing a lot more with herbs than I was doing.

Once I made the decision that I wanted to heal fast, things started moving quickly. I got hold of a powerful combination of tumor reducing herbs and got extremely creative with them.

I made poultices for my cervix using chaparral, goldenseal, red clover, slippery elm and Thuja. I started taking strong concoctions of anti-tumor herbs, and swallowing large amounts of curcumin - which helps to cut off the tumor"s blood supply.

I started doing implants with anti-tumor herbs in order to saturate the pelvic circulation. I also started juicing the wild garlic that had almost taken over my garden as it had suddenly occurred to me one day that my garden was doing its best to heal me.

Then in February, one of my best friends who lives in London asked me if I had heard of Psych-K, she said it was a way of reprogramming the mind so that you could change your life.

I had not heard of it and did not give it too much attention until the next day when another very good friend who lives in Bristol asked if I had heard of Psych-K. She had been to a talk by a Psych-K practitioner and felt that it could help me

Again it seemed like life was letting me know loud and clear that there was something I needed to do.  I went for a session and I was blown away. Using kinesiology (muscle testing) you establish what beliefs are in the unconscious - then you can replace them with beliefs more conducive to having the kind of life you want. Three weeks after my first session with Mary, I went for a brain scan - the brain tumors had gone.  HOORAY! I continued to have more Psych-K sessions and,  as soon as I could,  I underwent the training to become a Psych-K practitioner.

Each scan and blood test after that continued to show an improvement in my health. I decided that modern medicine really comes in to its own when measuring progress - I watched as my tumor markers continued to drop lower and lower.

The good news is that by June my cervix tumor had completely disappeared - this was nine months after it had been diagnosed. As for my ovaries, there is some scarring, but I no longer have any cancer in my body.

I have my energy and my lust for life back and I actually feel as good now as I did when I was in my twenties. People keep telling me how well I look and nobody can believe I am 43.

My visit to Hippocrates helped to consolidate my recovery and I am now enjoying a raw, sprout-filled vegan diet with green juicing and fasting one day a week.

I have lost my fear of treating people with cancer and instead I now feel really excited about how much I can help. I am also practicing again as a medical herbalist and Psych-K practitioner. And I have decided to specialize in female cancers.

Vol 29 Issue 1 page 38