CANCER STORY: Success & Hard Truth

The last chapter of this book:  My Patients, My Teachers

I have learnt many things from the hundreds of patients who come and see me. Each and every one of them will somehow bring me a lesson that I learn from – that is if I am willing enough to decipher the message. Therefore I always have to open my eyes and ears at all times. There are two levels of my learning. From the physical aspect, I learnt about the truth of the medical treatment of cancer. This truth is not commonly talked about or rarely documented – if at all, especially in medical journals. But come and sit with me every Friday and Sunday and hear what patients have got to say about their medical treatments. You will be shocked. Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, a medical doctor in New York, USA (in Knockout by Suzanne Somers) had put it very aptly when he said: It is hard for me to believe that an oncologist who has gone through four years of college, four years of medical school, three years of residency, and then three years of oncology post-residency training can’t connect the dots. You have to be an idiot not to be aware that for most of the cancers chemo isn’t doing anything. It’s all in the journals. It’s not like it’s a secret. The fact of the matter is that 95 percent of the patients who call my office haven been brutalized by the orthodox system … my staff just sits there dumbfounded by their stories, story after story, over and over again. Everyday.

You don’t need to be a doctor to know what the current medical treatments could do to patients. Try not to be blind and deaf and you may probably learn something. Anna D. Smith, a Broadway actress and playwright said: Cancer therapy is like beating the dog with a stick to get rid of his fleas.

I have learnt enough and have said enough about that physical aspect of cancer treatment, and I could go on a meaningless bashing spree. But this is not the purpose of this book. Let me remind you there is also a spiritual aspect of cancer. Pain, joy, and life have inner and deeper meaning. The lessons I learnt have indeed enriched and strengthened my belief in the Almighty Healer – call him God or whatever names you may wish. Things happen for a reason. The sooner we know the sooner we can find healing.

In the story of Ben (Chapter 3), I have learnt my first lesson about God’s way. Ben benefited from the herbs. His doctor said he only had two months to live. He did not die within the two months, instead he got better! For a raw, naïve, non-medical person – that was a great achievement – to be able to prove that the doctor was wrong. Ego gets into the head believing that now you are a hero! I ate my humble pie when Ben died a year and three months later. I wanted to give up CA Care – No use, I can’t cure Ben. It was then that I realized –Am I playing God? Life or death is not for man to decide. It is God’s prerogative. At best – however smart we may think we are, we can only postpone or defer death for only a while. When Ben was in the hospital, he told Cindy that there was no need for any more heroic act, he was ready to go. And he felt at peace. In retrospect and after much reflection, I believe that Ben was meant to be my first cancer teacher. I was raw and naïve and knew nothing about cancer. He was there to lead me. After he had finished his job, he left.

Cure and Magic Bullet

Many patients come to us – not wanting to see the left or right – they have only one aim, expecting and wanting us to cure their cancer. No, we cannot cure you! Don’t ever expect that after you have taken our herbs the cancer will go away the next day or a few weeks or months later. Such expectation is ridiculous. The situation becomes even more ridiculous when patients who come had already undergone all the medical treatments and failed. Yet when they come to us they expect a miracle – to be cured!  When I think of this – and it happens very often – I am flabbergasted. Simple common sense tells you that it is not possible and unreasonable.

Patients generally want to hear only what they want to hear. And they only want to find what they are looking for. We, at CA Care, spend hours talking to patients trying to help them – trying to make them see what has gone wrong and how to go about living again. But all too often it is just a waste of our time. After a week or two they write back and ask: Why is my CEA still high? Why has my tumour gone bigger? Why is my pain still there? Mind you, these are people who have failed in their medical treatments.

The next favourite question patients often asked is: What are the herbs doing for me? They would like to hear us say: The herbs are going to kill all the cancer cells, or The herbs are going to stop the cancer from spreading, etc., etc. Better still: The herbs are going to cure you of your cancer! These words are pleasing to their ears. But I know, right down in my heart, there is no truth in such claims. So, I would give patients this straight answer: I don’t know. I know they don’t like that answer but I am not going to sell my soul and tell them lies for the sake of being able to sell our herbs.

Let me quote what Dr. David Agus, an oncologist and professor of medicine and engineering at the University of South California (in The End of Illness) said: If you come to me for help in treating advanced cancer detected late … your game is likely to be over soon… I say it because it’s the truth … it’s a shame that the technology and innovation in medical research and treatment are so archaic, outdated, and, dare I say, in some cases barbaric.

Nobody has ever shown that most chemotherapy actually touches a cancer cell. It’s never been proven. Doctors such as myself arrive at solutions through plain old trial and error, and therefore we can’t always explain how things work. I can’t always tell you why a certain drug works or how it works other than to say I have seen results proving that it does. I also can’t always give you’re a straight answer as to which course of therapy might work for you. In fact, doctors – myself included – don’t actually know why these drugs kill cancer cells at all! There’s a lot of trial and error in my business.

Medical science and even an outstanding oncologist cannot answer with honesty this all important question that patients asked. And I am not going to give you half-baked answers to mislead you.

The reason why I say this goes back to spiritual integrity. I can get away by giving you cooked up answers that you want to hear, but is that right? I am reminded of the words of Harold Kushner, a Jewish rabbi: There is the morality of cleverness and wit, in which success means getting the better of the other person by means of a slick business deal or a clever answer. There is the morality of righteousness, in which the highest good is thoughtfulness toward others.

To me, cancer is not just about a tumour in your breast, lung or liver. It is about you, as a human being. There is a quotation: There is no incurable disease, only incurable people. I often tell patients: After talking to you for five minutes, I would probably know if I can help you or not. Many patients come with a lot of personal baggage – this has to be cleared off. Perhaps this personal luggage could be the source of the problem.

Healing on Your Own Terms

After helping thousands of patients over the years, I have learned that almost 70 percent of them are here to find a magic bullet or wanting to find cure on their own terms. Our therapy is not easy to follow. You need to heal yourself – and it is you and you alone who can heal you. Others can only help but you decide you own fate. No two persons taking the same path would end up at exactly the same destination. Cancer is about you as a person. If you are not able to change your mental attitude, your diet, your lifestyle, etc. no one else can help you. You are a goner if you come and tell me: If I cannot eat meat life is not worth living; I have no time to cook the herbs; The herbs taste awful, etc. There is another quotation: You can choose your ways but you can’t choose the result. No amount of money that you have can ensure that you get the result that you want when it comes to cancer.

Complacency

One frustrating lesson that I have learnt and seen happened over and over again is complacency. This problem arises because patients misunderstood or are misinformed that cancer can be cured. This misinformation is further compounded by the doctors’ pronouncement that everything is alright: I have taken off all the tumours; After five years you are cured, etc. There is no truth in such statements. Patients go home with false assurance and continue to live their previous lifestyle. Unfortunately, soon afterwards, they suffer a relapse i.e., the cancer comes back. One breast cancer patient asked her doctor: Why the recurrence? The doctor answered: Oh, it is just your luck.

We know of cases where cancer relapses even after ten to fifteen years of remission. This implies that there is no certainty of a complete cure for cancer. Perhaps cancer patients are not aware or have not been properly told of the disturbing fact that conventional medical treatments can only help, not cure. In her book, (The Activist Cancer Patient) Beverly Zakarian said: One of the few things known with certainty about (ovarian) cancer is that it is uncertain.

Do not be misled. If you think that you are done with cancer, cancer may not be done with you yet. So, do not be complacent. We take the view that patients need to consider the change to healthy lifestyle and diet as permanent. From our experience, we know that most patients would ask for their unhealthy and forbidden food the moment they feel well enough to talk and eat. This is indeed most regrettable and disappointing. It makes no sense to revert back to an old lifestyle or habits at the first sign of regained health. Also, patients may need to continue taking the herbs and cleanse the body for a long time yet. There are people who would reduce or totally stop taking the herbs after the initial signs of recovery. The risk of a relapse is too great to take any chances. We have numerous stories to tell you about cancer recurrence – and all too often being due to complacency.

Be Grateful

At CA Care we do not set a lofty goal. I hope the picture below impart our message to all of you. You need to cultivate your own well-being or your healing. You need to have time for yourself. After you follow our CA Care Therapy, you may lead a life without pain. And if you can eat, sleep, move around and move your bowels and pass your urine, then I say to you – What else do you want? Be grateful for what you are and what you have. Be grateful for being able to wake up in the morning and have another day.

However, CA Care is a wrong place to come and seek help if you want to see your cancer cured and gone forever. We just don’t have that cure you are seeking for. Go elsewhere and find someone else. And if you can find one who can cure your cancer, please let us know so that we can send all our CA Care patients there too.

Accept Reality

We fully understand that cancer patients want to live as normal a life as possible. They don’t want to be treated as sick people everywhere they go. They want to do what everyone else does. But this is where, common sense comes into play. You have to accept the reality of your situation. If you have cancer, there are things that you can do and things that you cannot do; no matter how well you may feel.

I recall one educated, professional man with pancreatic cancer. He came to see me after his surgery and said: I did the surgery in Singapore. My surgeon said he had removed all the cancer. He came home very confident after such reassuring words from his doctor. However, his medical report indicated that the head of the pancreas and gallbladder had been removed in addition to a part of his stomach, duodenum and proximal jejunum. This is indeed a serious case. Anyway, I did not want to say much, neither did I want to deflate his hope even though I knew that pancreatic cancer is one of the worst anyone could ever have. There is no cure for this. I was very aware that his man was in a denial mode.

I prescribed him herbs. He took the herbs and followed our diet. I must say he was fortunate to have a loving wife and family who cared for him and his food. And he lived in a lovely home.

His blood results for the first six months after taking herbs had been most encouraging. In these six months his CA 19.9 was around 1.0 and all his liver function enzymes were within normal range. However, on 2 November 2003, this patient, his wife and sister-in-law came and presented the results of his blood test and wanted to know why everything suddenly had become bad. Can anybody explain that? In the period from June to November, his CA 19.9 shot up to 417, and all his liver function enzymes were elevated. I told him: I am not god and I do not know everything. Worse still, I cannot fix everything when things go wrong! You have to pay the penalty for whatever wrong you have done! And I asked him point blank: Honestly, tell me what did you do differently in July, August, September and October? I did not know what you did, so I cannot guess. Tell me honestly what happened in those months. Then I drew a chart of his CA 19.9. From June to November, the value had shot up to 417. Why? How could this happen? I told him – You are an educated man and a professional. We all can agree that this graph does not tell a lie.

Reluctantly, he told me that in August 2003, he moved his job position from Penang to Kuala Lumpur because he had won a project. In January to July he lived in his home in Penang with his family. His wife took care of

him and kept an eye on his diet. In August he had to live in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur and needless to say, he was living on hotel food. Although he did not tell me, I came to know that he also traveled to some countries in Europe on business trips. All this happened after August 2003. And in November – barely three months after that, we could see the damage done.

As much as we would like to help, there was nothing much that we could do for him. The last time I saw him was on 2 November 2003 and he died in March 2004.

I often faced such situations – patients coming to me asking why their condition had deteriorated. My standard question is: What “sin” have you committed? Go back and think about what you have done – what you ate and what you did that you were not supposed to do – the answer is there. There is no need to pretend or try to play innocent.

This pancreatic cancer patient tried to justify his move to Kuala Lumpur by saying that he had to work to enable him to support his children’s university education. Granted, we all understand our obligations. But the sad truth, I learnt after his death, was that he was not a poor man. He left millions in his bank account! His only problem was he had NOT learnt life’s lesson – Enough is enough! I also learnt that greed often drives people to disaster.

I said this again and again, we at CA Care can only help you. Your healing is yours to seek and achieve. To those who truly need our help, we say this: Live and don’t give up hope. There is an option. There is hope. But if you want healing on your own terms and refuse to learn and change, then there is nothing much anyone can do to help you. 

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