Tonight I was in the gas station and I overheard two ladies talking about a serious subject, and one that I am intimately familiar with. One was saying that if she found out that she had cancer and was given 6 months to live she wouldn't go through the chemotherapy and radiation she would just let it take her. I apologized as I walked up to them, and I put my arms around one of them and gave her a hug. It happened to be the one who had said she wasn't going to go through with the treatments. As I put my arm around her, I said, I am sorry to interrupt but I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying and I want to tell you something. You just never know what is going to happen, you have to take what the doctors say with a grain of salt.
I went into my life story at that point, because I think it is important for everyone to know their options, you always have a choice and the one thing I needed to get across is that these doctor's don't always know what they are talking about. I was diagnosed in 1992, with stage 4 cancer, I had large cell lymphoma a very aggressive form of cancer and one that travels through the body using the lymphatic ducts and tubes that produce the bodies white blood cells. I was told that I had eighteen months to live and that nothing they could do would slow down the progression of the disease. Now for a kid of 23 that is life shattering and life altering, but here I am exactly 20 years later and I am still going. You see each of us has an allotted time on this earth whether you want to believe that or not, is up to you.
It is my personal experience that until your time is up you are here. Whether you wish otherwise or not, the old saying when your time is up it is up is exactly true. With all the advancement in medical science there is still no way for a doctor to know when your time is up. That is a personal discussion you will have with your maker and no one else. For all the good that going to school and learning the body has done for the doctor, there is still so much more that they don't understand and will probably never fully understand. The body is one of the most complex machines on the planet, and it central computer, which is the brain, can do the most amazing things. One of the reasons I think this is possible is because the body is mainly an energy body housed within a carbon unit. I believe that the theory of relativity is an important law that is immutable. Einstien theorized that energy can be manipulate and converted but could not be destroyed. I find this to be the essence of medicine. Medical science treats the physical body and the symptoms it displays, however to truly eradicate the illness the misaligned energy needs to be addressed and refocused. When our energy centers are out of alignment and irregular, the body gets sick and weakened. When those energy points are aligned and in tune the body functions at peak efficiency. Eastern Mysticism calls these energy nodes chakras, and there are many techniques that can be used to realign the energy field, such as acupressure, acupuncture and various types of meditation. Some metaphysical healers use crystals and semi-precious gemstones to place on top of the chakra points to realign and subtly adjust their energy flows.
My point is this, if we take everything to heart that we are told then we will truly live in constant fear. With the stigma and taboo that surrounds cancer, I can understand why the word itself invokes an almost instant intense sense of fear and doom when it is uttered. But the truth of the matter is no one can know beyond a shadow of a doubt when you are going to leave this life. No one knows for sure how your body is going to react to the treatments that you are given and if you are going to get better quickly or not. What they don't tell you when you go into this is that the drugs they are giving you killing the good tissue along with the bad, the idea is to kill the bad tissue first without totally killing you. That is the plain truth. But what you also don't know is how miraculous your body is and how you alone can cure yourself. As I said the mind is a very powerful computer that controls and animates and regulates all functions within the human body. Therefore if you maintain a positive outlook and have fun and try to work around the pain and difficulties you are experiencing you can live a very long time. No matter who you talk to experts all agree that maintain a positive attitude is key when battling cancer or any other type of terminal disease.
We need to be educated and learn about the things that affect us and we are experiencing. Learning about then takes away the fear and mysticism around such things. So for example if you are diagnosed with cancer, learn everything you can about the disease itself, how it travels and what other people have experienced, and keep an open mind as you approach this. One thing you are going to find out is how much you learn about your own body and the disease as you go along. Trust me when I tell you, I know my body better than anyone else, and I was able to tell the nurses and doctors that something was wrong with me on March 5th of this year before they could even find out what it was. I knew that the sensation I was feeling was wrong and as that sensation grew stronger and pain began to take its place, I knew that I needed to act with urgency in the matter. I expressed what I was feeling to my nurse who understood my sense of urgency and conveyed what I was saying immediately to the doctors, and before I knew it a catscan was performed and it was discovered that I had free air moving in my system which is deadly. Here my colon had ruptured in 2 places and waste was pouring in to my blood system and because of the ruptures air was filling up my stomach and I was feeling the discomfort. If I hadn't acted as quickly as I did and reported my discomfiture to the nurse appropriately I would have died. Even though I did act quickly, my blood pressure continued to drop and I needed 3 blood transfusion and I coded on the table twice. What all this means is even though I knew my body and I knew that something was wrong, I still died on that table twice and had to be revived. Now this is something that I am thankful for. It has given me the time to express and share some of what I have learned with you my readers.
What I want you all to know is that man is fallible, they make mistakes, they guess at things that aren't always clear to them. Only God knows when your are going to die, we aren't give a set warning or information that lets us know any of this ahead of time. So no matter what that doctor might tell you, know that the future is not set in stone and he doesn't have a crystal ball back there telling him the exact time and date of your demise. He is just giving his best educated guess on something that he has only the minutest control over. Something else to consider is that when you ask advice from someone take it as just that, and remember that they are pulling information from their own experiences and everyone reacts to situations differently, no people are ever going to act or react to a situation in exactly the same way.
So take what you are told process it and see where it fits in with your life and your feeling and if it seems like it is a good fit then try it out, everyone makes mistakes, advice is given out of someone else personal experience and none of us can ever be sure that our situation and experience is ever going to happen in the same exact way at the same exact instant that would render their advice 100 percent accurate. Like I said we are all human and we all make mistake and we all fall. No one can say for certainty that you are going to die, live, survive, thrive or excel in any given situation. All we can do is offer our opinion and our advice and hope that your situation is similar enough to ours to help you avoid the pitfalls and traps that we have gone through or are going through.
Take everything you are told and experience and weigh them, look at them closely and apply them where they fit, and if they don't discard them and move on. Nothing in this life is permanent and everything fades over time. Advice is freely given, even if it isn't requested, so take it with a grain of salt and use it as you will. It is all up to you. Living and surviving is up to you too. If you set your mind to something you can accomplish things you never thought were possible.
All I hope you take away from this entry is that No One Knows your Fate, No One can predict your Future and No One can tell you are going to Die! They don't really know, they can give you their unbiased opinion which is based on their own previous experiences, but that doesn't mean that it is going to fit your situation or circumstances like a glove. Don't give up because someone tells you that you aren't going to make it, that you only have so much time left, because they could be really wrong and their estimate could be so far off that you waste too much time worrying and not living and then when they are proven wrong you are full of regrets and have wasted so much time.
Be strong and keep a positive outlook, and keep smiling and remain steadfast, learn all you can about your illness, disability and yourself and your body, you will be glad you did and you will be that much stronger because of it. Don't surrender to despair and grief, keep your head up and take each day one step at a time and live one day at a time and you will muddle through, you will make it and you will succeed. Set your sights on the bigger picture and strive for the future and let today take care of itself, because it always does.
As always my hope and dreams are with you,
Uncle B
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