Author: jerome

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La Boheme

March 7, 1997 – La Boheme

Today I have a busy schedule. I see Dr. Gullion in the morning, meet with co-workers in the early afternoon, and travel to Capitola for my son’s performance in La Boheme in the evening. We have planned to spend the night in Capitola. I have prepared a list of questions for Dr. Gullion.

Once again, Dr. Gullion showed up with a heart pin on his shirt pocket. I believe that he is quite open to what Andy Weil calls integrative medicine. We spoke about all the issues on the list and the thing that struck me the most was his willingness to allow guided imagery and massage along with chemotherapy. He said that this is what they were trying to do at the Marin Cancer Institute.

As far as Keith Block is concerned, Dr. Gullion thought that with Michael Broffman and all that I was doing, it amounts to the same thing. He said that he had always had difficulty getting Dr. Block to be specific about what he is doing, and that he had proprietary supplement preparations that no one else had. I felt confident that I was on the right path because of Michael Broffman, Marty Rossman, Van Vu, Elyse, and the combination of all the other things I am doing.

As far as the chemotherapy is concerned, he was no more worried about my response than Dr. Shipley. He had given cisplatin and 5FU together before, but not combined with radiation and not in the doses that I will be getting.

After our visit with Dr.Gullion, we headed down to Network General and then to Santa Cruz. We checked in to the Apple Lane Inn and took a nap before meeting M. and G. for dinner in Capitola before the opera. M. seemed quite relaxed in spite of having one of the leading roles in the production. I was feeling quite proud of him and also felt excited to be able to be there. You may recall that on my first visit to Dr. Neuwirth’s office when he described my illness, I wanted to be able to see La Boheme.

La Bohem, SF Opera

The performance was rather good for the first performance of a new opera company. Of course my son had the best male performance as Marcello, Rudolpho’s friend! The woman who played Mussetta was also excellent. But the orchestra and chorus left something to be desired. All in all, it was very enjoyable and I recommend it to anyone living near Santa Cruz.

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“I’m Amazed at How Well the Body Can Heal Itself”

March 6, 1997 – “I’m Amazed at How Well the Body Can Heal Itself”

Last night, I felt a little anxious as I went to bed. I felt that I hadn’t done enough for my treatment during the day and needed some more time to work on myself. I came downstairs to listen to a tape by Dr. Bernie Siegel called Meditations for Enhancing Your Immune System. After listening to the tape for 25 minutes or so, I found myself moved to tears. It was the first time I had really cried since the beginning of this episode. I couldn’t get a fix on what made me cry or why I was crying. The whole thing is just so emotional that you can’t help but be moved.

I attended another Cancerport group this morning, but I didn’t have much to say about my own situation. However, I did advise one young man to seek alternative therapies as a way of enhances his chances of recovery. I told another man about my son’s kidney cancer and he seemed hopeful. All in all, it was a good group and I felt at peace.

In the afternoon, I took a walk and stopped by to see D. S., who has been battling ovarian cancer since 1991. She told me about her treatments and had one major comment that we should all be aware of, “I am amazed at how well the body can heal itself!”

That night, we had a meeting of our evolutionary circle at T. W.’s house. R. and J. did not make it, but this did not detract from the value of the meeting. B. M. and T. W. both got to speak their truth and I spent a lot of time sharing what was has been happening with me. I described all of the healers I’ve been seeing and told them about some of my best experiences. T. W. had oral cancer, from which she is recovered, and she is also writing a book about her experiences, and how cancer changed her life. She read her preface, which was very helpful for me.

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Meditations for Enhancing Your Immune System by Siegel M.D., Bernie

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Another CT Scan

March 5, 1997 – Another CT Scan

Last night, I watched a series of programs on public television featuring Dr. Andrew Weil. I have transcribed my notes here as part of this web site. Please take a look if you are interested.

This morning, I had another CT scan for the purpose of setting up the radiation fields that I will be using next week. Alice, the radiation technologist made everything so easy. She was easy going, gentle, and caring. I felt fortunate that I was treated so nicely.

The rest of the day was spent working, having teacher conferences, doing guided imagery, and catching up on things. I have also started reading Practical Intuition and doing all of the exercises.

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Notes on Dr. Andrew Weil’s TV Lectures

March 5, 1997 – Notes on Dr. Andrew Weil’s TV Lectures

Introduction

Dr. Andrew Weil appeard on
KQED – educational television for the Bay Area on March 4, 1994 from 7:30
P. M. until 11:00 P. M., often interrupted by KQED for its sponsor drive.
While sitting and watching the production, I hand wrote the following notes
and transcribed them to these pages. Any similarities to actual written
material by Dr. Weil are purley coincidental.

Spontaneous Healing

  • The body can heal itself.
  • Heal->whole->holy
  • Dr. Weil prescribes botanicals about 40 times more than medications.
  • The medical business aims at suppression (so many ant- medicines). Appropriate
    for crises.
  • Belief in treatment enhances cures
  • The breath is the master key to good health
  • Seven strategies of patients who recover:
    1. Don’t take no for an answer – these are “difficult patients”
    2. Actively seek out information
    3. Seek out other people who have been healed (from their disease)
    4. Formed constructive partnerships with medical professionals
    5. Did not hesitate to make radical changes to their lives, including eating
      habits and jobs
    6. Illness was seen as a gift – it became a great motivator for them change
    7. They cultivated an attitude of self-acceptance

Eight Week Program to Better Health

Andy’s Eight Week Program for Better Health asks you to make changes in
five areas:

  1. Projects to clean up your enviornment and learn about health
  2. Diet
  3. Supplements
  4. Exercise
  5. Mental/Emotional/Spiritual changes

Week 1

Project:

  1. Throw out all products containing polyunsaturated oils
  2. Keep saturated fats as low as possible in your diet
  3. Throw out artificailly hardened fats – get rid of trans-fatty acids
  4. The safest bet for fat is olive oil because it contains oleic acid,
    which is best for the body. Be sure to get extra virgin olive oil and keep
    it refrigerated. Watch out for immitations. The oil shoud be greenish.
    This should be your main cooking fat.
  5. As a distant second, consider organic, expeller pressed canola oil.
  6. Get rid of artificial sweetners
  7. Don’t eat food with artificial colors or dyes

Diet – eat this week:

  1. Brocolli – a cancer protective which contains sulforathane as its active
    ingredient
  2. Salmon (or sardines) for the omega 3 fatty acids, which protect the blood
    and help the auto-immune system. Wild salmon is better. You can grill,
    broil, or poach it to keep the fat intake down.
  3. If you don’t like or want salmon, get flax seeds as a good source of omega
    3 fatty acids. Grind it up and place 1 TBS/day on your salads or vegetables
    to get an adequate supply of omega 3 fatty acids.

Supplements:

    • Vitamin C – 1000 to 2000 mg at least twice a day. Try for a third. It is a powerful antioxident.

Exercise:

      • Walk for 10 minutes a day five days a week. This has great neurological
      benefit and should be done in addition to any other aerobic exercise that you do. Walking is a great exercise because

      1. you know how to do it
      2. it involves the least risk of major injury
      3. you can do it anywhere
      4. it can last your whole life
      5. it is fun
      6. it can take you to beautiful places

Mental/Spiritual:

    For 5 minutes a day, observer you breath with your mind in neutral.

Week 2

Project:

    • Find out about your drinking water. Get your water tested or get results
    • from your supplier. Bottled water isn’t always what they say it is, so

Diet:

  1. Eat fish once a week
  2. Investigate soy products. Soy has isoflavons, which block access
    to estrogen enhancers
  3. Dring Japanese green tea. It lowers cholesterol and reduces cancer risk

Supplements:

    Add carotenes – beta-carotene, likopene.

Exercise:

    15 minutes walking per day.

Mental/Spiritual:

  1. One day news fast.
  2. Continue breath observation

Week 3

Projects:

  1. Find out were you can get organic produce. If you cannot get the organic
    versions of the following, do not eat them: strawberries, peaches, spinach,
    cherries, apricots, celery, grapes, apples, bell peppers, green beans,
    and wheat products.
  2. Avoid electromagnetic fields – electric blankets or heating pads, clock
    radios, hair dryers – these are dangerous

Diet:

  1. Eat more fruit and vegetables
  2. Eat fish two times per week
  3. Replace one meal a week of meat with soy

Supplements:

  1. Get natural vitamine E: 400 IU if less than 40 years old, 800 IU if greater
  2. Use selenium – 200 mcg

Exercise:

    Walk more – up to 20 minutes per day

Mental/Spiritual

  1. Think about the people you know who are positive and enjoyable. Plan to
    spend time with them.
  2. Continue breath observation for 5 minutes

Week 4

Projects:

    • Check out your bed and mattress and sleeping arrangements. Try to make them more comfortable.

(Note from Jerome Freedman: we have been using Airloom Vitagenic mattresses for sixteen years, as recommended by our former chiropractor. Our new chiropractor, Dr. Steven Katz, now sends people to us to by these mattresses. We sell them at wholesale plus $100. Please send me email if you are interested. I can email you information. I plan to put pictures and other information on this web site in the near future.)

Diet:

    Eat more garlic.

Exercise:

  1. Walk 25 minutes 5 days a week
  2. Begin using stretching exercises

Mental/Spiritual:

  1. Do a two day news fast
  2. Continue breath observation

Week 5

Projects:

    • Locate steam bath of sauna. Do one for 20 minutes. Be sure to replace your fluids.

Diet:

    • Add ginger to your diet. This is a good natural anti-inflamatory and good for the digestive system. You can use chrystalized ginger.

Exercise:

  1. 30 minute walks
  2. stretching

Mental/Spiritual:

  1. Go to a park or spend some time out in nature.
  2. Practice relaxation breathing – inhale for the count of 4, hold for the count of 7, exhale for the count of 8. Do this 8 times, two or three times a day.

Week 6

Project:

    • Bring the concept of healing more into your life. Remember your own experiences of healing and talk to your friends and acquaintances abouttheirs. Read about other healing experiences.

Diet:

    Do all of the previous weeks.

Exercise:

  1. 35 minute walks
  2. stretching

Mental/Spiritual:

  1. Visit an art museum
  2. Continue with breathing exercise
  3. Continue with breath observation

Week 7

Project:

  1. Find some kind of service or volunteer work that you would enjoy doing.
    Put other peoples’ interests ahead of your own.
  2. Continue steam baths or sauna

Diet:

    Continue fish, soy, fruits, vegetables, and organic whole grains.

Exercise:

    40 minutes walking every day with stretching.

Mental/Spiritual:

  1. Reach out to someone you’ve been estranged from and make a connection.
  2. Make time for flowers and music that you enjoy
  3. Do eight cycles of the relaxing breath

Week 8

Projects:

    • Review the changes you have made over the past weeks. Make realistic plans for how you will continue.

Diet:

    Think about the changes you’ve made and what you plan to keep doing.

Supplements:

  1. Keep up with your anti-oxident formula
  2. Try a tonic – mushrooms or ginseng

Exercise:

    Achieve your goal of 45 minute walks 7 days a week

Mental/Spiritual:

  1. Continue breathing exercises 8 cycles two times per day
  2. News fast for seven days
  3. Think about the actions of people who made you angry.
  4. Buy flowers for the end of your program
  5. Buy flowers for someone else
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“Humor Comes a Year Later”

March 4, 1997 – “Humor Comes a Year Later”

The above quote was Dr. Halberg’s comment as we left the radiation therapy simulation session. “You will laugh about everything that happened today in about a year!” she said. Everything that could have gone wrong did! In the first place I had to walk to Dr. Neuwirth’s office to have a catheter put in, since Dr. Halberg had difficulties on two attempts. I’m sure that my bladder was sensitive due to having the catheter in six days earlier, and she didn’t want to injure me. But, Harry had no problem! It must be his great experience at putting in catheters! However, he was willing to hurt me, but just a little. Secondly, the catheter tube did not match the syringe, so they had to send someone out to find a compatible syringe.

The rest of the procedure went fairly smoothly including the Barium enema, setting up the x-ray device according to the Shipley protocol, tagging my body for future radiation sessions, taking the necessary x-rays, and finally removing the tubing.

I was exhausted from this hour and one half procedure that lasted almost four hours! I have nothing else to say at this time!

Oh, by the way, the treatment begins on Monday, March 10 with a dry run on the radiation equipment. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy begins on March 11.

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Healing the Body – Healing the Mind

March 3, 1997 – Healing the Body – Healing the Mind

The morning started out with a Feldenkrais class incorporating arm movements. I couldn’t believe how exhausted I was when returned home! I found it necessary to settle into another guided imagery tape after lunch to even have a chance of making my day.

Next came a very revealing guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport at Marin General. I began talking about my fears of the upcoming chemotherapy and radiation and traced the fears down many, many levels to my fears of abandonment and treatment with indifference that experienced as a child. While there wasn’t time for a complete resolution of the situation, I think that there is much more work to do in this area. I feel rather pressured to perform because I have expectations of completing the Shipley protocol with a complete response and not have remaining cancer at the end of April or the beginning of May when my next TURBT will be.

After this session, I took a thirty minute walk on the pathway near the hospital to absorb what I had learned from my meditation and to allow the images to integrate into my life. As I was walking back to my car, I had this wonderful feeling of making myself lovable, not only to myself, but to everyone I saw and came in contact with. I took this feeling into Anna Halprin’s group and it turned into one of the most healing events of my life. I was open to receiving and giving love and there was plenty to go around! We had a large discussion on alternative healing prior to our movement program.

The movement program focused on prayer, and I don’t know if Anna picked up this idea from me, or I got it several minutes before she said anything, but it was the exact word I would have chosen! This intuitive flash led to an immensely moving dance, which brought the whole group together in one circle, filled with healing energy and love.

I drew a picture of myself kneeling in the prayer position with my hands drawn together in the traditional prayer position. The hands were way out of proportion, but as the drawing developed, I began to realize that I was also drawing the healing space around my hand and the healing energy radiating from them. I wrote,

all hands
healing hands
kneeling hands
a Buddha is a rose is a giver of qi
a 1000 petal lotus

Something remarkable is taking place as I focus on healing my cancer. I find that I can’t but help heal my whole self. Without healing my whole self, there can be no healing of my cancer. They are strongly interconnected as all phenomena of the universe are. And, I believe, this is the essence of holistic health – healing the body and healing the mind. This is what I’m striving for and what I want to achieve.

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Qi Gong

March 2, 1997 – Qi Gong

My friend, Itzzy, came over today to teach me qi gong once again. He had taught me several years ago, but I wanted a new lesson because of Michael Broffman’s recommendation. Itzzy has been practicing and teaching tai chi and qi gong for almost twenty years. His teach is Fong Ha.

We started with sitting meditation. It turned out to be very closely related to the Vipassana meditation that I was already doing, except for the emphasis on the out breath. The posture is upright with the buttocks on the edge of the chair and the spine erect. The hands are either placed on the knees with the thumb and forefingers making a “U” and facing each other, or interlocked in front of the point between the navel and the pubic bone (the da tien point in qi gong or hara in Zen). The process is to watch the breath fill up a balloon in the lower abdomen and return to the breath whenever the mind wanders away.

The second form is standing meditation. Here, the breath and attention work the same from a standing position. The feet are parallel and shoulder width apart, and the hands are either at the side, or somewhere in an arc from the da tien point to the throat, where ever the optimum comfort and/or awareness lies. We tried various configurations, all of which seemed to work quite well.

The next thing we tried was walking meditation, which is similar to walking meditation in Vipassana, except the feet are swung in a slight semi-circle from one placement to another. Finally, we did some rocking meditation, which is very comforting when you feel that you have to move a little more.

I loved being with Itzzy and being shown these various postures. We walked a while and then had pizza at my house.

After Itzzy left, I listened to another guided imagery tape and later started Practical Intuition by Laura Day. I was lucky to have met Laura at Eselan when I was invited there by Helen Palmer for an organizational meeting of the Center for Investigation and Training of the Intuition in 1988. Her book is a marvelous training guide and I plan to utilize it as much as possible in my healing.

Practical Intuition

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A Day with Friends and Family

March 1, 1997 – A Day with Friends and Family

Today was spent almost entirely with friends and family. In the morning, we were visited by Dr. John Anderson and family, who had spent the previous night. They are from Nashville, TN, but love to drop in on us in Sausalito. We had a nice leisurely walk by the bay and talked of many things. Later, my cousins came over from Oakland.

All of this made me fairly exhausted, so I listened to a guided imagery tape preparing me for chemotherapy. I found the tape to be confusing because the speaker offered too many choices. I find that following specific directions is much more useful than something like, “Pick a relaxing spot – maybe a beach, or a meadow, or a mountain top, or…” I seem to pick all of the places as they are mentioned and wind up picking none. However, once I adjusted to the changing scenery, I relaxed quite nicely and utilized the tape to develop a sense of what good the chemotherapy would do for me.

At night, we visited our friends who had been on a trip to Africa and viewed their collection of slides. I was impressed with the quality of their photographs and their caring support. Besides, the food was great.

All in all, it was a pleasant day almost entirely removed from thoughts of my illness. Sometimes it’s good to allow your illness to float to the background and have a normal life. This gives you a hint of what life will be like when the disease goes into remission.

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The Papilla Tree in the Forest

February 28, 1997 – The Papilla Tree in the Forest

Early this morning, I received a call back from Dr. Shipley, and I asked him about the side effects of the chemotherapy and radiation. He said that I should have a positive attitude and perhaps I’d feel a little tired, but I shouldn’t worry! I guess he knows! This set me up for a fine day!

I next attended Leslie Davenports cancer group at Marin General Hospital. During the guided imagery, I was taken by two images that were very healing. The first was an emotionally open heart that reminded me of Ram Dass’ song:

Listen, listen, listen to my heart’s song…
I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.
Listen, listen, listen to my heart’s song…
I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.

The second image was even more powerful. There I was, sitting under the papilla tree with Siddhartha Gautama, and I realized that he was sitting there for me. It was now up to me to sit under the tree for those that follow me. It was a powerful image that connected me directly to the Buddha and his teachings of emptiness and the path with a heart. On completion of the guided imagery, I drew a picture, on which I wrote,

The Buddha sat under the papaya tree for me…
I must sit under it for those that follow me.

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Cancerport

February 27, 1997 – Cancerport

Cancer Port is a support group that meets on Thursdays from 11:30 A. M. until 1:00 P. M. in Greenbrae. The purpose of the group is the emotional support of its members, which varies from time to time. On this particular occasion, there were approximately twenty-five men and women with various types of cancer, including several support people and three group facilitators. There were no other people with bladder cancer in the group.

When it became my turn to talk, I explained how I was diagnosed and what sort of treatment I was about to undergo. I talked about my fears of still having cancer eight weeks after the start of chemotherapy. Seeing what other people suffered with made me feel compassionate for their situations and increased my desire to share the research I had been doing since my diagnosis.

I left the meeting with two important things to do based on what people said. One of them was to contact Dr. Shipley to find out what the side effects of the cisplatin and 5-FU were, and how to counteract them. The other was to make an appointment with Dr. Van Vu for next Sunday. I felt under a lot of stress until these could be accomplished. Instead of breathing into the experience of tension, I drove home, had lunch and only after I made the phone calls did I feel any better.

Later in the afternoon I had an appointment with Dr. Barbara Rose Billings, a special healer who provides “Integration Therapy” which is a “multi-faceted and individualized to help give you what you need to unleash the healing power within you. Its strength lies in its ability to produce profound results by integrating your essence into the healing process.” I had an extremely healing experience with her, in recognizing what I want to do, tuning into my “belly breath”, and being recognized for my own healing abilities.

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Copyright © 2004-2018, Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.