Thank You
Mindfulness In Healing Sangha Celebrates 10 Years of Continuous Practice
We are extremely happy to announce the tenth anniversary of our Mindfulness In Healing sangha on Wednesday, June 19, 2019. The sangha was founded by Jerome Freedman, Ph. D. on the summer solstice in 2009 as a means to give back to his community after being in remission from bladder cancer which began in 1997 and flared up in 2003. After four or five more bouts of bladder cancer, he is now cancer free once again, thanks to immunotherapy.
The sangha has consistently met at the Pine Street Clinic in San Anselmo (Marin County, California) on Wednesday nights. We are totally grateful to Michael Broffman and the Pine Street Clinic for letting us use their facility for the past 10 years. The clinic is famous for their research on dogs sniffing ovarian and uterine cancers.
Soon after forming the sangha, Jerome invited Carolyn de Fay, LCSW to join as a co-facilitator so that we could hold sangha when one of us was indisposed. We have been facilitating together most of the time.
Our practice begins with inviting the bell followed by an invocation and thirty minutes of sitting meditation. This is followed by tea breaks and the evening program, which consists of dharma sharing, dharma discussions and / or dharma teachings by Jerome or Carolyn. We end with the dedication of merit.
Vivian Taube joined the sangha in 2014, as a regular member. She is grateful for a sangha, where she can discuss her healing from schizoaffective disorder openly, as the sangha’s original intent was to support people and care givers in their healing process. In 2017, she decided to aspire to the Order of Interbeing, and she chose Jerome and Carolyn as two of her OI mentors.
Healing Story #1: Micah Freedman
Could you be inspired by the story of a seven year old child who was stricken with a usually fatal kidney cancer (Wilm’s tumor) in 1976 and is still thriving today? If so, please view two episodes of In Search Of on YouTube, from 1976 and 1980:
This child is my son, Micah!
The same day that I found out that Micah had cancer, I started working with him using a form of mindfulness practice which was later dubbed, “Mind Stories”. I trained Micah at the age of seven to create mind stories about his cancer using guided imagery and creative visualization techniques. How I learned these is the subject of another article in this series (link to be provided).
After more than four weeks in the hospital, which followed a complete resection of the infected kidney, Micah was brought home. It was at that time we hired Dr. Sheldon Ruderman to be his therapist and continue working on mind stories.
You’ll be happy to know that beyond all expectations of the attending physicians, Micah is still alive today and thrives in Fairfax, California with a new born daughter. We see him often and every time I see him I recognize the miracle of his healing and the miracle of mindfulness.
Sign up for the amazing Anti-Cancer Revolution, June 17 – 23, 2019 and receive a copy of my best selling book, Stop Cancer in its Tracks as a PDF download.
My Room With a View
This year began with a cystoscopy on January 25, the 21st anniversary of the onset of bladder cancer. My kidney function showed some signs of stress but my doctor decided to ignore them.
Then in February, I began to lose interest in food. I remember two incidents, each occurring on a Friday night when we were out to dinner with friends. We were at a French restaurant and I couldn’t decide what to eat, even though there were plenty of items of interest on the menu. The month before, I wouldn’t have had a problem with what to eat, but on those nights, nothing appealed to me. Nothing! I managed to select something that I could tolerate, but they lacked taste.
Two weeks later I landed in the hospital with kidney failure. The only way to save my kidneys was to install nephroscopy tubes in each kidney to drain the accumulated liquid and allow the kidneys time to repair. It appears that the cancer in my bladder blocked the ureters and caused the kidneys to fail. Stents were placed in the ureters to help the flow of fluids to the bladder.
I unwittingly took the medications they gave me for kidney pain. They gave me tramadol, which is an addictive narcotic. This caused my whole gastric system to back up from my esophagus all the way down. I couldn’t fit any food in my stomach so I had to take very small meals frequently. The gastroenterologist put me on another medication that seemed to help the problem, but it took until July for the problem to ease off.
In the meantime, I began immunotherapy with Keytruda (Pembrolizumab). This happens every three weeks at the infusion center at UCSF. The good news is that it seems to be working against the cancer.
Then another thing happened. Because of the tubes and the stents, I developed a vigorous bacteria in my urological system called pseudomonas. This caused me to be in the hospital three more time, twice in August and once in November because the bacteria could only be treated by strong intervenous antibiotics.
If this isn’t enough, I was talked into a flu shot a couple of weeks ago by my doctors and my wife and I had a very bad response to it. Supposedly, the immunotherapy energized my immune system to attack the vaccine and I was ill for about a week.
And there is more…
Now things are leveling out and I’m starting to feel better. My meditation practices, my Mindfulness In Healing meditation group, my walking instead of tennis, my family and friends have helped me be present for everything that has happened. I count the days when I’ve been really down on one pinky finger.
So you may be wondering, why I am writing this article. A few days ago, I had a lucid dream that I was to create a comprehensive cancer resource guide so I want to alert you to the fact that I am working on a cancer resource guide as part of this website. The guide will have information about books, recordings, health providers, alternative treatments, off-label or creative ideas and much more.
In my original site in 1997, I had the beginning of a cancer resource guide which I have reproduced with a small amount of additions as a starting point. It will be changed to a searchable database as I progress through this project. Your comments and questions are certainly welcome.
Protected: Guided Imagery
Stop Cancer Introduction
Lying still,
Breathing in, breathing out,
Healthy cells grow all by themselves.
I am free of cancer!
This Zen poem came to me during my guided imagery session on the day of the Vernal Equinox, 1997. It represents the theme of this category (Stop Cancer): Healthy Cells Grow All By Themselves. We have to be willing to allow our bodies to heal themselves by paying attention to our healing process, by paying attention to our breathing. We have to live moment by moment.
This category is devoted to cancer patients in general and bladder cancer patients in particular. It traces the symptoms and diagnosis of my bladder cancer from the onset of symptoms to Father’s Day, 1997 and beyond. It is given in frequent articles in diary format so that other sufferers of the disease or any other disease can make use of my experience in whatever way is beneficial to them. Hopefully, my readers will be inspired to take an active role in their own recovery and be willing to participate in their own healing, rather than being at the mercy of the surgeon’s knife. There is a considerable body of evidence that patients who have a positive mental attitude and engage in their own treatment have much better chance of long term survival.
Not everyone will want to do the amount of research I’ve done to find out about my disease, but if you do, the articles in Stop Cancer should give you a good idea of where to start and what resources are available to help you participate in your on healing. I have incorporated a lot of alternative medicine and spiritual practices in my recovery, and I hope to inspire you to do the same.
There are a few bits of background information that you should know in order to understand my motivation for doing this in the way that it is being done. First of all, I was a 57 year old male living in Marin County, California, one of the best places to live in the world, both from a pure aesthetic point of view, and because of its access to medical resources. The University of California at San Francisco Medical Center is just across the Golden Gate Bridge, and Stanford University Hospital is only fifty miles away. Furthermore, Marin General Hospital and its associated medical organizations are among the best in the country. So, right away, I feel that I am blessed to be living here.
Secondly, I am a person with a deep spiritual commitment. My orientation is Buddhist, and my interests lie in Interactive Guided Imagery1 (mind stories), the enneagram, and conscious evolution. Being diagnosed with bladder cancer was a shock to my system of values, but the supportive community I live in combined with my Buddhist outlook has made this period of my life reasonably tolerable.
Thirdly, you should know that cancer runs rampant in my family. My father died of bladder cancer at the age of 86 and my mother died of another form of cancer at the age of 71. In addition, my son, Micah, now 47, survived a stage four Wilm’s Tumor (kidney cancer) which he had in 1976. The key to his survival may have been the use of some of the supplementary medical care techniques described later in this blog, as the surgeon had given him up for dead. Even my surgeon said, “We weren’t saving many stage fours in those days.” My son’s story was told in two episodes of “In Search of…” with Leonard Nimoy in 1976 and 1980.
Finally, my younger sister died of Leukemia in 1968 at the age of 27. With all of this happening, you might think that I was “predisposed” to get the curse.
PLEASE NOTE: This material is copyright(c) 1997-2016, by Dr. Jerome Freedman. All Rights Reserved.
This document is meant to be a description of the author’s experience and he in no way takes responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any medical knowledge. The author assumes no responsibility for choices made by any of the readers of this material.
The author is not a physician and makes no claims about the potential usefulness of the subject matter herein to have any medical benefit. Please check with your doctor if you find something interesting that you would like to try.
[1] Interactive Guided Imagerysm is a service mark of The Academy for Guided Imagery, Mill Valley, CA.
Healing Cancer with Meditation Seminar
Did you know that 14 million people are diagnosed globally with cancer each year? (source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
I am an 18+ year cancer survivor. My son is a 39 year cancer survivor. We experienced the Seven Principles of Mindfulness in Healing during our recovery. My new book, Healing with the Seven Principles of Mindfulness, How to Thrive and Succeed in a Complex Cancer System provides those with cancer healing methods that support integrative and traditional medicine.
When you buy the book in the next 36 HOURS, you will receive FREE access to the “Healing Cancer with Meditation Seminar,” which you can attend:
1) LIVE and IN-PERSON on September 24, 2015, 6-9pm in Santa Monica, CA.
or
2) LIVE STREAM from anywhere in the world. (This will be recorded so you can access anytime.)
To get access the “Healing Cancer with Meditation Seminar,” BUY THE BOOK NOW, and follow the instructions to receive access and redeem your bonus(es).
You’ll be glad you did!
Indiegogo Campaign Expires Soon – Please Help
Dear Friends:
The Indiegogo campaign to give away free copies of Healing with the Seven Principles of Mindfulness: How to Thrive and Succeed in a Complex Cancer System ends on September 18. The book is ready for publication and will be launched in Santa Monica on September 24.
The indications from my presentation at the Club at Harbor Point on August 20 and the following endorsement from Dr. Kelly Turner, PhD are that the book will be a great success.
“Dr. Freedman speaks from experience, both as a cancer survivor himself, and the father of a Radical Remission cancer survivor. His book, “Healing with 7 Principles of Mindfulness†gives readers a nurturing, helping hand throughout the entire cancer journey, especially with regard to developing a meditation practice.â€Â
-Kelly Turner, PhD, Author of the NYTimes Bestseller “Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Oddsâ€Â
Will you please take a moment to visit http://igg.me/at/7 and make a contribution? After that, please forward this email to your contacts who might be interested in a book about healing cancer.
Thanks,
-Jerome
Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.
3 Down… 3 To Go…
This long overdue email is about my current status with formerly muscle invasive bladder cancer.
Since my last posting, I have talked to Dr. Meng and he said, “You’ve made the right choice.â€Â
He also said that BCG treatments could easily deal with the remaining carcinoma in situ.
BCG is an attenuated tuberculosis vaccine that is instilled directly in the bladder with a catheter. It causes an immune response which gets rid of the BCG and the cancer J! I’ve had two previous BCG treatments in my 17 years of living with cancer and they both were effective.
So I started BCG on July 9 at Marin Specialty Care in Greenbrae with Dr. Neuwirth who had been following me for 17+ years.
The first treatment resulted in a bladder infection which required me to take antibiotics and lose a week, but all is well now.
After the second infusion on July 23, I had this wonderful experience of knowing that the BCG was going to work and work well.
That night, I felt some side effects of the treatment. I became extremely dizzy and had trouble sleeping. As with everything in this universe, this, too has passed.
Yesterday’s treatment went very fast and I was in and out in something like 15 minutes.
Last night, however, I had a slight fever and a mild headache. Today, I’m fine. 3 down… and 3 to go… I’ll be done with cancer on August 20.
I’ve been missing your calls and emails! I trust you are all doing well.
May you all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.