The Reflection in the Mirror: what cancer treatment is your choice

April 17, 2013

To who do we owe our allegiance, is it to ourselves or is it to others, the government, agencies or authority figures? Are our lives our own? Do we have a right to make choices on our behalf or do we surrender our rights and allow others to make life and death choices that we shall go dutifully along with?

We do not think of such questions or even pretend to answer them until we get sick. Suddenly we are faced with these questions and often we don’t even know we are facing them as we are moved through the health system like little products on a conveyor belt; being passed from one department to the next. Before we realize we are humming along being poked at, treated, passed on and used again and again until one day we find ourselves at the end of the conveyor belt with a reject notice; into the hospice pile we go. Is this what we wanted?

Some of us wake up from the dizzy ride and scream ‘I want off’; and we jump off and find ourselves stunned at what has happened without even noticing it was happening. You realize the choice was always made for you; the authority figure, the doctor, meaning well and doing it for your own good decided what was best for you and as sick as you were, that decision sounded good at the time. Dizzily you stand up from your jump and look at what the health system did to you in the name of treating your cancer; a surgical scar boldly stands out; and the burns from the radiation left your skin nasty red and burned; your stomach is still sick from the chemo, your full head hair is now wisps of brown locks. So where do you go from here?

Off the conveyor belt the world looks a bit different, in fact, you can think again. All around you people try to help you back onto the conveyor belt, all meaning well, encouraging you to give it a good fight, be the hero of the day. You stumble off, shaking your head, hero what hero did they want you to be, a dead hero? No, today you stop and begin asking questions about how to live, what to do about repairing your body. If you are lucky you stumble across a good Samaritan who tells you about a place where hope is alive, Jesicha’s Hope, and you will find this good news. The hope you will find puts you in a place where you find options unknown to you before and decisions that are made will be yours exclusively. Suddenly you are in control. Your condition may warrant a clinic visit where you are treated humanely and doctors ask you what you want to do; suggestions and recommendations are given to you and a question is posed to you that you have never been asked: ‘what do you want to do?’ There is no conveyor belt, only you standing there making choices.

Your life changes on the nontoxic approach, two months now have passed since you left the conveyor belt destine to the hospice pile; but today you are looking well and find your blood counts are looking near normal. The cancer is giving up. As you look in your mirror, your hair is filling in, a bit fuller than before you think; the burns from the radiation are healing and you are feeling much better since the chemo drugs are being excreted through detoxing; that appetite you were known for is back in full force. No longer are you eating junk food but whole organic food; you are enjoying life again. Your quality of life has gone from low to know high, life is looking good.

You get a call from the Cancer Center, you have missed coming in for the past two months and they are worried about you. They would like to see you and evaluate your condition. The conveyor belt is waiting for you to arrive and you are requested to report. So, what do you do? To whom do you owe your allegiance to? Have you realized your right of free choice is yours and will you stand up for yourself or will you surrender your life because you are afraid? The system puts fright and fear into others but there is no law or basis for it. The system is run by greed for profit; you bring the system millions, anything alternative drops their profit margin; it stands to reason why they encourage you to stay on the conveyor belt. The choice is yours you discover. You think of yourself two months ago and now see yourself as you are today. Yes, you know the choice. You know where your allegiance is; the reflection in the mirror tells you all you need to know.