Living Proof : A Medical Mutiny

Multiple Myeloma is cancer of the bone marrow (our factory of blood cells). Anybody who has this the system will go haywire. The person would be anemic, and minor infections might kill. Furthermore, this type of cancer cells eat away the bones, so the person can fracture his bones with only trivial trauma and also might fracture the vertebra (the bones that hold your spinal cord)--easily they end up paralyzed. Also the abnormal cancer cells will damage the person's kidneys leading to kidney failure.

In modern medicine, everybody agrees that there is no cure for Multiple Myeloma yet. Treated with harsh regime of chemotherapy and stem sell transplant,the median survival is 3 years.

Michael Gearin-Tosh was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in June 1994. He was a lecturer at Oxford University. He lived until 12 years later, wrote this book after the 8th year and managed to do all these without any chemotherapy, radiotherapy or stem cell transplant.

At diagnosis, he was 56 years old but his bones were of a 90 year-old. His haemoglobin was below 10g/dL (normal for man is 14-16g/dL). Instead of submitting himself to chemotherapy that would suppress his immune system, he opted for an alternative therapy that boost his immunity. His cancer markers normalize after 5 months of this alternative therapy.

How did he do it? 12 glasses of fresh juice per day, daily bowel enemas (bowel washout), acupuncture and an ancient Chinese breathing exercise. He also took massive amount of vitamins and minerals a day (tablets and injections) and also glutathione, co-enzyme Q-10, Maitake-D Fraction (a mushroom extract) and peppermint oil.

This book should be read by every physician, and see how he viewed his consultations with the doctors. How he said every consultant 'rushed him to treatment' and 'bullied him professionally'. Interestingly, he also noted this in the attitude of the alternative practitioners. (I think our community is familiar with this. A hospital doctor says don't go to the bomoh and the bomoh says don't go to the hospital. When can we compliment each other?).

He suggested that every consultation that has a major impact on a patient's life (eg a consultation to reveal a bad diagnosis) should be allowed to be recorded by the patient. Mind you, this is not for legal purposes, but simply because in such situation, the person receiving the news is in a denial state and might not be able to focus fully. They would need the recording a few hours later or the next day to understand the doctor's plan for them.

Also this book showed that, if you do not opt for chemotherapy, the alternative medicine required to fight a nasty disease is equally grueling to a chemotherapy regime (imagine 12 glasses of freshly made juice-that's almost a glass an hour when you are awake). It is probably safer (but there is no data on the safety of such regime), and offers you longer survival, but definitely it is not easier. Plus it is not covered by insurance companies. Either way, ikhtiar is the key word here.

His hospital consultants were open-minded enough to let him follow the alternative regime and allow him to come for follow ups at the hospital. This is important because even though other practitioners have other ways to heal, but only modern medicine has the knowledge of x-rays, scanning and checking blood parameters (although some traditional practitioners claim they can 'see' but nobody else has the ability to show back what they 'see' to the patient).

He did this in 1994. Now 16 years later, I can't believe such therapy is not accepted yet. I hope Malaysian dietitians and oncologists / haematologists do believe that nutraceuticals can really kill cancer cells, and they will advise the patients to triple their fruits and veges consumptions.

Oh yes..From this book also I was introduced to another 2 division of medicine- Psychoneuroimmunology and Orthomolecular Medicine.