CANCER: A SUCCESS STORY

My friend Les Sinclair has just published a book about his battle with cancer.  It's called How I Cured My Cancer for Just Pennies a Day, and it's available on Kindle.  In his promotional material for the book he writes of the onset: 

While experiencing excruciating intestinal pain, he [Les] admitted himself to a local E.R. After a laparoscopy surgery to remove the blockage - a tumor, he learned that he had a Large B Cell Lymphoma. He didn’t like the sound of LARGE nor LYMPHOMA.

His oncologist recommended chemotherapy. He had already experienced the CUT (surgery), he made a choice not to undergo the BURN (radiation) and POISON (chemotherapy). Besides, at 73 years of age, he still has a full head of hair and vainly wanted to keep it that way.

That's the spirit he brings to the whole enterprise.  Les is an Aussie ("Dingo") and is, in a word, irrepressible.  I have known him for twenty years, and am one of the great army of admirers who have benefited from his insights, his integrity, his generosity, his love.  Originally a dancer--and hence quick on his feet!--he has devoted the better part of his life to healing work with emotionally and psychically wounded men.  In this short book, he brings his wisdom and his strength to bear on himself and the illness that threatens, literally, his life.  It's no surprise to me, or to anyone who knows him, that he emerges victorious.

Les had the courage to choose alternative practices of medicine, chiefly diet, to attack the cancer.  There are many of us today, myself included, who are skeptical of Western medicine and distrustful of hospitals.  That Les succeeded in beating off the cancer without them must bring good hope and cheer to advocates of natural approaches.  There is no doubt, in my mind, that such approaches to health can prove more beneficial in some cases than such toxic treatments as radiation and chemotherapy.

The story Les tells with both passion and humor in this little book is truly inspiring.  It's a great read.  And, believe me, you don't have to have cancer to learn from it.  You learn a lot, too, about courage and the human spirit, about the power of humor and persistence.  You learn a lot, as Les was constrained to do, about the human body and its needs and processes.  You learn that you, too, can choose the path of courage--whichever way that leads you...

Because it's still necessary to add a salutary note of caution here: what worked for Les many not be right for everyone.  We had another good, old friend who chose a similar path without the same success.  She died.  But, of course, whichever path she chose might have led to the same outcome.  Close by, too, in our own family, we have a relative who--wisely, in my view--chose the Western approach. There was simply too much at stake for her to risk another way, too much informed advice for her to ignore.  Her choice--for radiation therapy--was not one bit less courageous than Les's; and her outcome has mercifully proved equally successful.

So the challenge is to know what's right for each of us, in our own circumstance.  I am fortunate never to have been faced with the kind of critical choice that my friend Les faced, nor do I wish to be in that predicament.  I have no way of knowing what choice I would make, but I would want it to be made with wisdom and forethought, in view of not only of medical advice but also of the wisdom of my own mind and heart.  In any event, should that time come, I know that this small book will prove a cheery and helpful friend at a time of need.