"When the dog is chasing you, turn around and whistle for it."
Henry David Thoreau

Being a childhood cancer survivor, and then having two separate additional cancer diagnoses as an adult, I finally realized I had been living in fear of cancer and "running from it" my entire life. After my third cancer diagnosis, I not only turned around to fight but I turned around to embrace my cancer history. After doing this, I have finally released my fears of the future and achieved my "healing." Additionally, I now know that everything I accomplished before this last cancer was "in spite of" my cancer history, and everything I accomplish from this point forward will be "because of" my cancer history.

I encourage my patients to have faith in God, but not to expect God to do all the work"
Bernie Siegel, M.D., excerpted from Love, Medicine, and Miracles

To supplement my faith in God and conventional medical care, I was ready to work after my latest cancer diagnosis in order to find strategies that would complement my conventional cancer therapies and really maximize my chances for long-term survival. Through a lot of hard work, I have become an equal partner on my health care team, and I have achieved a real sense of healing after this third diagnosis that did not happen after my earlier cancer diagnoses.

Every journey has a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware.
Martin Buber

If someone had told me during the time I was on chemotherapy for my most recent cancer that I would be speaking in the future to my health care colleagues about the benefits of "alternative medicine," I would not have been able to find the energy to laugh!! I knew nothing about alternative medicine at that time. Yet, after I was done with my surgery and chemo, I intuitively knew I needed "something more" to truly heal and maximize my chances for long-term survival this time. That led me to very carefully start swimming through the uncharted waters of alternative medicine and cancer survival. I explored many facets of "alternative and complementary medicine" and have achieved some results that my oncologist thought were highly unlikely if not downright impossible to achieve.

Never could I have imagined three years ago that I would be considered an advocate for "complementary and alternative medicine" in the future. May your cancer journey also lead you to unexpected, but surprisingly wonderful, places and opportunities!

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