Cancer: The Wisdom of Doing Nothing
About the book
I want to be upfront and honest. If you don’t fully believe in what we do, there is no need to try our therapy. It will not work for you.
A man and his wife walked into our centre. They came on behalf of their father who was down with lung cancer that had spread to his brain. The father was lying in the hospital bed unable to eat, move or open his eyes. The doctor did a biopsy and then treated him with five times of radiation which cost RM7,000. The man told me: I want my father to live! Was he implying that with his “never-give-up” fighting spirit he can save his father’s life? Or did he believe that the doctor can cure his father, with just five shots of radiation? My advice to him was: It is better that you bring your father home. It is very expensive to fly him home in a coffin. My advice seems crude, but I am just being pragmatic and truthful.
Dr. David Agus (in The End of Illness) said: If you come to me for help in treating advanced cancer detected late in the game, your game is likely to be over soon. I don’t say this ... to sound insensitive, I say it because it’s the truth.
Jonathan Chamberlain, the author of Cancer: The Complete Recovery Guide told me the sad story of his wife who was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Her doctors in Hong Kong said: You must make a decision now. Have an operation now. You are going to do chemotherapy next week. Chamberlain said: We were on a conveyor belt. We were in awe of the doctors. We were in awe of our own ignorance. I realised that that was the greatest mistake I could ever make. After surgery, radiation and chemotherapy his wife died exactly one year later. She died within a year because she did everything the doctor advised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k_g5OFln-Q
Dr. Ken Murray, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at University of Southern California, wrote a very popular article, How doctors die (http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/ideas/nexus/). Dr. Murray wrote about his mentor, Dr. Charlie, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After his diagnosis, Dr. Charlie went home. The next day he closed his practice, and never set foot in the hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment.
Dr. Murray explained: (Doctors) know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most — dying in pain. Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this ... at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery.
In this book, I have written the story of Karen, a four-month-old baby. She was diagnosed with metastatic neuroblastoma Stage 4. The doctor suggested that Baby Karen undergo chemotherapy, otherwise she only has three to six months to live. The mother refused chemo for her baby. The doctor scolded her. Some days later, I received a phone call from Karen’s mother asking for help. After looking at the MRI, I shook my head in despair. My first question to both the parents was: How do you want the baby to die? Let her die while undergoing chemo or die a natural death because we can do nothing. The mother’s replied: Let her die naturally. Okay, we started Baby Karen on the herbs. Exactly TEN YEARS later, Karen (now grown up) and her mother walked into our centre! What a blessed day that was for us.
Dr. James Le Fanu (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/11348908/Doctors-Diary-When-aggressive-therapies-do-more-harm-than-good.html) questioned the wisdom of treating advanced cancer. Aggressive therapies do more harm than good. Several studies have shown, those with a realistic appreciation of the odds are less likely to consent to aggressive treatment and will have as a result a better quality of life. Their relatives and friends benefit too — friends and relatives NOT being traumatised by the misery and suffering they witness but can do nothing to alleviate.
In an article, Chemo doesn’t help end-stage cancer patients (USA Today 23 July 2015) Liz Szabo reported: A new study finds that half of cancer patients received chemotherapy in their final months of life, even though the therapy .... had no chance of curing them ... There is a real potential for harm here and making quality of life worse ... Doctors should only prescribe chemo for these patients after talking to patients about their prognosis, goals, fears and acceptable trade-offs ... Many doctors never initiate these difficult conversations ... We as oncologists don’t want to give up on people, and patients don’t want to be given up on. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/22/chemo-terminal-cancer/30535513/)
There are many lessons we can learn from the above, if we care to learn:
1. Dr. David Agus is an oncologist. He is being honest to admit that if you have late stage cancer, there is really nothing much that can be done. Let’s not pretend to be a hero.
2. Jonathan’s wife had surgery, chemo and radiation for her cervical cancer and she died one year after her diagnosis. What is happening here? They lacked knowledge. To know the truth, you need to read.
3. After Dr. Charlie was told that he had pancreatic cancer, he just closed his practice and never set foot in the hospital again. He knew that all those treatments would not cure him, would rob him of quality time with his family besides making him miserable.
4. When Baby Karen’s parents came to seek our advice, I was just baffled how chemotherapy could benefit a four-month-old baby with a Stage 4 cancer. We need a wiser advice than that!
5. Research do support the idea that doing nothing could be a wise option for some cases. Treatment for the sake of wanting to do something for the patient could make things worse.
Dr. James Salzitz, is an oncologist. Listen to his advice:
· I believe, especially when a patient has an incurable disease, that one of the options is to do nothing; no chemo or radiation or surgeon’s knife. Just control symptoms, like pain, and live life, whatever remains. Do not try to treat the illness at all.
· Cancer treatments have serious side effects and can make life miserable. For some people, drugs and doctors are not worth the marginal gain from toxic treatment.
· We also must not forget that cancer treatment can be very expensive.
· Too many times patients are dragged away to receive therapy after therapy, until they are wasted, decrepit and dead. (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/09/treating-cancer-doing-nothing-is-also-a-choice.html)
I have learned that it is futile to mount a fight if we know that we cannot win. You may want to say: How do you know you cannot win if you don’t try. Very true indeed. But after years of experience helping cancer patients, I think patients are just ignorant and they believe too much of what their doctors tell them. By all means, try. Then see what the outcome will be. Always remember, we may be able to choose to undergo whatever treatments we want, and wherever we want. With money, there are always treatments for us. But unfortunately, we cannot choose the outcome, even if we have all the money in the world.
We all know that the standard protocol of cancer treatment is: surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and oral drugs. Most cancer patients would agree to surgery for most of their cancer but some patients would refuse to undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It appears to me that chemotherapy has earned itself a very bad reputation. Almost all patients suffered severe side effects while the unfortunate ones just died, while undergoing the treatment or soon after the completion of the treatment. While the Vested Interests of the Western world want to make us believe that chemo and radiation are scientifically proven methods of treatment, many patients know this is not what they want due to the severe side effects.
Professor Hardin Jones of the University of California, Berkeley said: My studies have proved conclusively that untreated cancer victims live up to four times longer than treated individuals. If one has cancer and opts to do nothing at all, he will live longer and feel better than if he undergoes radiation, chemotherapy or surgery — other than when used in immediate life-threatening situations.
Dr. Cynthia Foster (in Stop the Medicine) also shared similar experience. She wrote: There are plenty of statistics to show people die sooner if they follow the doctor’s advice and have all the cancer treatments than if they just do nothing. Doing nothing involves not bankrupting themselves with expensive treatments, not being subjected to medical mistakes and horrible complications ... not suffering from dangerous drug toxicity.
Dr. Guy Faguet was a cancer researcher. This is what he said (in The War on Cancer): An objective analysis of cancer chemotherapy outcomes over the last three decades reveals that the cell-killing paradigm has failed to achieve its objective — a model based on flawed premises with unattainable goal. Cytotoxic chemotherapy in its present form will neither eradicate cancer nor alleviate suffering.
Professor Devra Davis (in The Secret History of the War on Cancer) concluded: The war on cancer has been fighting ... the wrong battles with the wrong weapons and the wrong leaders.
Losing a war is bad enough. What about knowing that the weapons of destruction are actually the cause of the failure. Dr. Dainius Characiejust et. al. wrote an article in the Journal of European Association of Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine 1(3) 369-375. 2010: Current cancer treatment modalities may also have a cancer-promoting effect ... Surgery, irradiation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy can stimulate tumour growth / metastatic spread and decrease survival of patients.
The CA Care Therapy
In writing this book, The Wisdom of Doing Nothing, I am not implying that after being diagnosed with cancer, patients ought to just go home, sit under a coconut tree and wait to die like Dr. Charlie. My message to you is: Don’t panic and don’t be too quick and ever ready to jump into the “bottomless pit of medical treatment.” Hang on. You did not “catch” your cancer only yesterday. By the time you have been diagnosed with your cancer, the cancer was probably there in you for a few years already. So what’s the hurry? Take time to gather information and make an informed and wise decision.
We are indeed fortunate to be living in this part of the world where herbal and dietary therapies have been part and parcel of our heritage. So, while we do nothing in terms of undergoing invasive medical treatments, we can look towards the wisdom of the Oriental Healing in trying to heal our cancer.
Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Breast Cancer: No to chemo, radiation 11
Chapter 2: Synovial Sarcoma in the Lung 45
Chapter 3: Neuroblastoma: Four-month old baby 51
Chapter 4: Pancreatic Cancer: Refused surgery & chemo 61
Chapter 5: Metastatic Skin Cancer: Healing the incurable 69
Chapter 6: Prostate Cancer: Sharing our experiences 79
Chapter 7: Lung Cancer: Surprise, surprise. Four years 87
Chapter 8: Lung-Liver Cancer: Survived three and half years 96
Chapter 9: Cervical Cancer .105
Chapter 10: Cancer of the Nose 115
Chapter 11: Colon-Rectum Cancer: No to chemotherapy 121
Chapter 12: Kidney Mass and Cancer 130
Chapter 13: Anaplastic Cancer: Open and close surgery 144
Chapter 14: Operate Your Tongue 152
Chapter 15: Remove Your Healthy Uterus & Ovaries 159
Chapter 16: Treatment for the Elderly 164
Author
Chris K. H. Teo. Ph.D. was a former Professor of Botany. In May 1995, he and his wife Beng Im started CA Care. Our mission is to help the hopeless and helpless cancer patients find their healing. When you are told that you have no hope, we believe that there is still hope. To know more click these links:
https://cancercaremalaysia.com/ (English)
https://cancercareindonesia.com/ (Bahasa Indonesia)