Recovering and Adjusting

We got back to Fairfield just in time to pick up Eli and get him to bed on time. Jefren went to bed, too. Janet and I called our families, then we fell into bed, too.

In the morning, we woke up physically and emotionally exhausted.

Jefren’s leg hurt, so he took some pain killers. Then he went to the basement to watch TV. We had disconnected cable years ago, so he watched video-taped movies.

Janet got Eli off to school, then the two of us talked.

We didn’t know what to do. Mostly we talked about how we felt: not good. We were trying to come to grips with our son having cancer.

We were set to do the chemo(therapy). But we’d heard such bad reports about it we wanted to look into other options.

I made a list of people specializing in different fields. I thought we should cover every area, including ayur-veda, our chiropractor (who is very up on alternate medicines), jyotish,* yagyas,§ and several friends.

We also talked about who we were going to tell.

Janet and I are writers. We work at home and, because we go to bed early, don’t go out much. I guess we’re kind of hermits.

I decided to call one friend.

“Geesh,” he said, when I told him. “That’s a parent’s worst nightmare.” We talked for almost an hour (it seemed). Finally, he had to get back to work. He wished us luck.

Another friend called us.

Sandy Rozen, Jefren’s best friend’s mother, called us. “Randy said Jefren has a tumor?” she asked. We told her he did.

“Anything I can do to help,” she said, “let me know. Driving, watching Eli, errands, cooking, whatever you need.”

Sandy was an angel. Over the next several months, she took care of Eli after school when we got back late from the hospital. She let him stay overnight on Jefren’s surgery days. She drove me to and from the hospital in Iowa City. When our synagogue Sisterhood arranged for meals for us, she had them dropped off at her house so she could bring the food over to us. Several times, she brought a carload of kids to visit Jefren in the hospital— the only times friends ever visited.

When Jefren needed shots at home, she gave them to him (she’s a nurse). She offered moral and emotional support— she brought books to help Jefren cope, and even bought and gave us herbs she thought would help.

Sandy did one more thing which changed everything: she told a friend, whose daughter had cancer years before. She had gone through the whole UIHC scene, and Sandy had been the nurse for her daughter, too.

And, at seven o’clock that evening, Elizabeth Turner called.

The Phone Call

She spent over an hour on the phone with us, talking first to Janet at length, then to me.

She offered sympathy (briefly) then got right down to business.

“I went through the whole thing with Nancy,” she told us. “It’s do-able.”

She gave us references, people to talk to.

“Gail at the synagogue will want to do something, Sandy can help, Amy Stanwick can tell you why Jefren has cancer— she doesn’t charge very much. Elaine Marcus might be able to tell you when to stop the chemo, but with Nancy we just went ahead and finished it.”

She asked what was going on with Jefren, and we gave her the details: the tumor was in Jefren’s leg, they were talking a year of chemo, surgery and a cast for a year.

We also mentioned amputation.

“I don’t see Jefren losing his leg,” she said. We valued her intuition—intuition is deep knowledge we respect— and hoped she was right. After all, she had experience in this area.

“The doctors always give you the worst-case scenario,” she said. “I left half our meetings in tears. But most of it didn’t happen, so don’t take it to heart. The doctors don’t know everything.”

She gave us other practical advice:

“Don’t let them do anything without checking with you first, and don’t let them do anything you don’t feel right about. They don’t know your child as well as you do.”

She went on. “Listen to your intuition,” she said. “The only times Nancy had emergency surgery was when we let them do something we knew we shouldn’t.”

“If you don’t feel it will help Jefren, don’t do it.”

She told us we were the only ones who knew how Jefren would react, how he would respond, how he felt.

“The doctors don’t know your child,” she stated.

She told us about Nancy. “They took out one of her kidneys,” her mother said. “But she’ll do okay with just one.”

She told us Nancy had her chemo at home, and a local pediatrician we knew gave it to her. Then she told us about Nancy’s three surgeries.

She ended with more advice.

“Watch your fatigue levels,” she told us. “Don’t get tired. It’s easy to in the hospital,” she emphasized, “because it’s so draining. Make sure you get plenty of rest. Let the nurses do everything while he’s in the hospital, and get help at home, if you can.”

Then Elizabeth said it again. “Be sure you get enough rest.”

Our Response

Elizabeth Turner did not feel Jefren’s disease was life-threatening. Just that he would go through it and then be done.

We told her about our jyotish readings, by highly trained Maharishi Jyotish* experts. Both Janet and I had readings in the spring. Even though we both specifically asked about Jefren, nothing was said about cancer or any life-threatening disease. Nor did any of the readings we had done just for him, one only a year ago.

We found that encouraging. Elizabeth Turner agreed: she just didn’t see him with any lasting damage.

“I don’t even see him having a limp,” she said.

She did one more thing: she offered to do holographic re-patterning* for Jefren, which would get rid of any blocks he had to getting well. She told us it would take an hour and a half but she could do it from home— she didn’t need to see Jefren. We said “okay.”

Then we thanked her for her call, her help, her advice.

We talked to many people during the next months. All of them were helpful, but none more all-encompassing than Elizabeth: she was kind, sympathetic, generous, wise. She spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with us, and when she was done, Janet and I were both completely changed. Before we were discouraged, overwhelmed.

Now we were ready.

We take control

In the morning, I called our chiropractor, Steve Samuels. He knew homeopathy, iridology, ayur-veda, and more. He had given us magnets to treat certain ailments, and knew about Tesla’s electric treatments (Telsa used electrical frequencies to cure certain diseases). Since he kept on top of the latest alternative medicines, I felt he might provide some options to chemotherapy.

He met with me that afternoon.

We get advice

Steve was wonderful, very grounded; I always liked going to see him. He was strong, knowledgeable, caring and giving. When I walked into his office, he was very matter-of-fact: “here’s what you can do,” offering specific help. He offered sympathy, too, but more quietly: he met me on his afternoon off and refused to take any money when I left.

“The truth be known,” he said, “everyone gets cancer, often many times. But your body just heals it before you even know. Jefren’s just got too much for his body to handle.”

He started rattling off all kinds of different options. I got the impression these were things we could do that would help, but not cure, Jefren’s disease. I think he was looking for a nibble, for me to say, “tell me more” about that one. But it’s funny: as he described each of them, it was like each remedy was on a table that dissolved under it while he was speaking. The remedy would fall into space— it had nothing to do with us.

After he went through several of those, he focused on the major options.

“Here’s a book* of alternative cancer treatments from all over the world,” he said. “You can take it home and look at it. But there are two options I would encourage you to look at very seriously.”

He showed me where they were bookmarked, and went on to describe them.

The first was Hoxey therapy in Mexico. Hoxey “discovered” the cure when he put several horses with tumors out to field, then left the area for a month. When he returned, none of the horses had tumors anymore. So he followed the horses around. It turned out they would eat some of one herb, then go to another, then another. Very specific herbs.

He collected them, and started using them on other horses (it was his business). They kept getting better. Eventually, it occurred to him the herbs might be useful treating people with tumors. It was.

Steve told me all this, and the story of one woman who dedicated her life to helping others with his treatment when it cured her mother after traditional doctors had given up.

That option was worth considering, I thought.

Steve told me all this, and the story of one woman who dedicated her life to helping others with his treatment when it cured her mother after traditional doctors had given up.

That option was worth considering, I thought.

Then Steve told me about a treatment available in Canada. He said this remedy that just missed approval as an official cure for cancer in the 1940’s by three votes and had a tremendous track record.

“Look through the book,” Steve told me, “but do consider these.

Janet and I talked about them that afternoon.

“They both sound interesting,” we agreed. But we couldn’t see ourselves flying off to Mexico. We had no way to pay for it—they didn’t take credit cards, according to the book. The treatment cost $3,000, plus travel and hotels. In addition, their strength was cancer of organs, not bones.

The Canada one was more interesting: we could drive there. (I learned a year later they will just mail you the remedy for you to administer at home.) Also, it did look like credit cards would work. But the treatment required at least three 21-day series of shots— probably more. We couldn’t see Jefren going for that many shots. (Why we thought chemotherapy was easier, I’ll never know.) Like Hoxey, bone cancer (which has a bone matrix—each cell is made from a bone cell) was not mentioned in the literature as a type of cancer it would cure.

Still, they were both possibilities.

Before I left Steve’s office, he mentioned one more option.

He hesitated, then said, “I would be remiss not mentioning this. Not so much as a cure for cancer, but as a way of strengthening the whole body.

“Urine,” he said, “contains all the organs in the body, in homeopathic form.” Then he explained that a lot of “good” stuff gets out before the body can use it.

He told me of a doctor in England who used it to cure several diseases.

“I have several books of the shelves,” he told me, pointing, “that report curing all kinds of diseases.”

“When someone keeps getting colds, for months and months,” he said, “three drops under the tongue will take care of it.”

I had heard of drinking one’s own urine several years before. The woman who told me about it thought it was sick. But I thought it might be useful—after all, there is nothing wasteful in Nature. So I wasn’t all that shocked.

“You don’t use the head or the tail of the stream,” he told me, “and just a few drops under the tongue.”

Then he warned me: don’t do it once the chemo starts, because there will be too many toxins running around, “so then you’d have to use yours or Janet’s.” That didn’t make sense to me: Jefren body would produce what Jefren specifically needed, but neither Janet’s nor mine would.

He also pointed out that any homeopathic treatments would be killed or go to sleep once the heavy toxins from the chemo got in the system.

Lastly, he gave me the names of people in town who had been diagnosed with cancer, telling me what several of them did for treatments.

One woman went to a doctor in Pennsylvania and had surgery. Another family had a baby with problems in the brain. They were told she would die, but they spend fourteen months going through treatments and surgery (if I remember correctly) using every type of doctor and every method they could find, including healers. The child was now three years old. Despite some permanent damage, she was doing well.

Finally, it was time to go. Steve gave me the book, encouraged me and sent me on my way.

I didn’t see Steve much over the next several months. But at Christmas time, he drove out to our house and gave a video tape to Jefren for a present.

We thought that was especially sweet.

Regrouping

Tuesday, I had made a list of all the alternative remedies we knew: homeopathy, ayur-veda, acupuncture, jyotish, yagyas, thinking we should look into all of them. Steve had been my first appointment.

But after carrying the list with me for two days, I began to think it was too much. It seemed I was running around in every direction. I thought it should be simpler than that.

So I stopped calling everyone. Janet and I discussed it, and decided we should pick one method and put all our faith in that.

We decided that both the alternatives Steve mentioned sounded good, but not for us. Intuitively, neither felt “right,”—especially when one of the best doctors in the country was only an hour-and-a-half away.

We also didn’t have the money. While Janet’s father might have access to the money, we didn’t think he would be willing to try either one. Traditionally, he hasn’t been fond of alternative medicines we’ve used in the past. (Ironically, during the last month of Jefren’s treatment, he sent us a newspaper reprint about the treatments in Quebec: a friend had been diagnosed, took that treatment and was cured. It also turned out the remedy—Essiac—was available as a tea you could drink, rather that having to get shots. But by the time we found that out, Jefren was already better.)

We did decide to talk to Amy Stanwick, though, as Elizabeth Turner suggested. We called her and set up an appointment for Friday.

Amy

At 11:00 a.m. on Friday, Janet and I pulled up into Amy’s driveway, climbed the stairs, and walked into her mobile home. She introduced herself, seating us on her couch. Then she closed her eyes and began with a prayer asking “Beloved” for Guidance to give us the information we needed.

A moment later, when she opened her eyes, she said, “No Guilt. Write that down in capital letters.”

“There is nothing you did or didn’t do which caused Jefren’s cancer,” she said. “That’s why there’s no reason to feel guilty.”

Then she told us what we had was a wonderful opportunity within each other and as a family to function better.

Amy was interesting. It was obvious she spoke from deep intuition. Her insights were clear and concise, and from the first words she said, it never occurred to me to doubt her.

Talking to God

I took that as a sign. Over the years, I have “talked” to God a number of times. Often, I wrote letters to Him. Then, over the next several days (or sooner), certain words would pop out of a page I was reading in answer to my questions. Sometimes, a friend would say what I needed to hear. Or it was something on television. Somehow, I always got the answers I needed. And I always gave God the credit.

While talking to Amy, I made a decision: whatever she said about healing Jefren, I would trust that it came directly from God. I put God on notice to that: if He wanted us to do something, if it came from Amy, we would do it. Or, if it was something we should not do, if He told us through her, we didn’t do it, as long as it was about Jefren. Only about healing Jefren, though. So I never doubted anything she told us: whatever it was, in my eyes, it came from God.

I never told her that. It would have been uncomfortable-- she would have felt too much responsibility, and no one wants that much pressure. When we couldn’t reach Amy, I did the same thing with whoever was available: I would tell God what we wanted (Jefren’s health and comfort), then ask Her how to do achieve it. Whenever we were unsure what the next step was, we used this method.

What we learned

Amy told us that because it’s in the leg, and because it’s cancer, Jefren has just about no relationship to the planet. She said all of our family was like that. She even gave me a “golden light” exercise to do to get me grounded— “more present,” as she described it.

She said Jefren was empathic, which makes it difficult to be on earth. She said he didn’t know he was— that he felt all the emotions and discomfort and bliss he felt were his feelings.

“The schoolroom is devastating to him,” she said. “He takes on the feelings of all the students, plus the teachers, plus the feelings of all their families and friends they carry around with them.”

She said Jefren didn’t know how to stop this. Amy said this was true for me, too.

She explained Jefren had a refined nervous system, and “you’ll want to monitor his progress” to make sure the doctors don’t overdo it.

““He’ll respond quickly’,” she said. “He’ll only need 1/3 of everything,” she explained, “and 1/3 less time (than the doctors projected).”

“It’s up to you to tell that to the doctors.”

She went on to tell us other things about Jefren— that he was very bright, but hasn’t used his intellect. He has trouble with focusing, and poor performance has shattered his self-esteem.

After a while, we asked her about the two alternatives (Hoxey and Canada) Steve had mentioned. She shook her head, “You don’t need to.”

That felt right, because that’s what we were thinking already.

When we mentioned the urine, she said she had done it, (it wasn’t so bad). But when we mentioned about toxicity once the chemo began, she said it would only work if it was Jefren’s.

When we started to scheme about how we could get Jefren to take it, Amy interrupted.

“He’d have to know about it,” she said. “You can’t trick him, you have to be completely up front with him.”

That ended that possibility.

Then she gave us an exercise to do at home.

A Take-Home Exercise

“First thing every morning— even before you meditate,” Amy told us, “Do this God/Self exercise.”

She gave us a little card with the instructions:

“Choose a personal, intimate name for God that resonates joy through your body.” Janet used “God,” I used “God, my Love.” Amy used “Beloved.” I’ve also used “Mother” and “Father.” You may think of something different.

“The important thing,” Amy told us, “is that it resonates love through your body.”

Then say, “[Name], Come and play. Show me how to serve you today; to be Your eyes, to be Your ears, to speak Your Will, not mine.”

“Do that first thing in the morning,” she said.

Then she said, “Every hour, or every time you get a drink, go to the bathroom, or start some new activity,— ask, “[Name], show me how to serve You in this situation.”

“Do that regularly throughout the day,” she told us. “And be open to the answer.”

In “tough” situation— ask:

“[Name], Show me what to do next to serve you.”

For interacting with other people, ask:

“[Name], Show me how to serve you in this person.”

She told us not to be attached to any particular outcome.

At the end of the day, she recommended we say:

“[Name], thank You. I surrender everything to You. Nothing is mine, everything is Yours.”

Then she told us...

Amy said every experience is an opportunity to create something more for— and of— yourself.

She told us to go for walks in the woods.

“While you do,” she said, “look at, see, and feel Nature.”

“Get outside often,” she added. She later told me that many people spend their day helping in the hospital, then go home and crash into bed. She said they would be better served to stop by the park on their way home for a few minutes, to balance themselves again.

She suggested Jefren and I each wear silver chains around our necks (to keep us present, I think, or maybe to reduce our empathy.)

Lastly, she told us people in the community will want to do “all kinds of things” for us.

“Let them,” she said. “Accept them all— it’s their way of giving their love to Jefren.”

Why did Jefren have cancer

One of the first things we asked Amy was why Jefren had cancer. She said she’d talk with him about it.

So the next day, we dropped Jefren off to visit with Amy.

Jefren met with Amy

Half an hour after I dropped him off, Jefren called to say he was ready to come home. I drove out to pick him up.

When I got there, Jefren and Amy and a friend of her’s were sitting on her front lawn.

Jefren showed me some abandoned kittens living under an empty trailer across the street. He told me they fed the kittens, (The next day, he asked to drive back to bring them some food, which we did.)

Later, after we’d been home for awhile, Jefren asked if I knew what Amy had told him.

“No,” I said.

“She told me I have cancer because I’m afraid of being on the planet.”

He never told me, but I think Amy also gave him some good reasons for staying.

Decisions

That was Saturday. Based on what Amy said, and our own feelings, we decided to go ahead with chemotherapy.

* Eastern (vedic) astrology.

§ ceremonies to reduce negative and strengthen positive influences from Nature. See More Help at end of book.

* See More Help at the end of the book.

* See More Help at the end of the book.

* John Fink’s Third Opinion lists alternative cancer treatments. It’s listed in More Help, in the back of the book.