My life in your hands

I have been bothered by this topic for some time. It concerned the well-meaning advice of people close to me and concerned about my health. I wanted them to be aware of the impact their advice had on me, and I also wanted them to think properly and do enough research before giving me such advice, and yet I fear that whatever I have to say may sound offensive , or may make me seemed rude and unappreciative of their concerns.

So, before I open up with my comments and opinions, I hope that if people feel offended by my comments, I must say that I am truly sorry, and please forgive me, but I have no intention of offending. My aim is to let people be more informed before they give such advice. I also want them to know how I, in my condition, feel about receiving such advice.

I have always been debating on whether I should open up or not. I felt I should and yet I am always overwhelmed by the fear of offending that I decided not to.

However, after learning about Shin's passing, I have decided to go ahead and do it.

After the mastectomy, when family and friends learnt that I had turned down all conventional treatments, fearing for my life, they persuaded me to re-consider my decision. I had mentioned that I was going for alternative and natural therapy but was bombarded with advice to go for chemo. I was facing pressure from my doctors and concerned family and friends that at one point I was so overwhelmed and stressed that I starting doubting myself.

As soon as I suspected that I had cancer, I started trawling the internet for information concerning cancer, alternative treatments, chemotherapy and the short and long term side-effects of chemotherapy. In short, I did my homework before coming to that decision.

Chemotherapy is not medicine. It is chemical therapy. Chemicals as in the chemicals that we handled in the science labs when we were in school. These chemicals are fed by iv into the patient's blood vessels. Too much of the chemicals will cause extensive damage to the immune system and the organs in the body. No idea of the damage it will cause? Then think of the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II, only on a very much reduced scale - not refering to the explosive effect but the toxic effect.

The only thing chemotherapy can do, if the oncologist is lucky and prescribed the right ones, is stopped the cancer in its track, fast, killing cancerous cells and good cells at the same time. It is capable of doing this because it is so toxic. So toxic that nurses preparing the prescriptions have to be in protective gear.

There are cases that I know of where the cancers did not respond to the chemo and the oncologists had to switch to other chemicals. In such cases, it is obvious that the chemicals were not only not destroying the cancer cells, but at the same time already doing harm to the body.

Please also do not just tell me that so and so had undergone chemotherapy and is now doing well. Give me the other details as well, like what stage, what drugs, number of doses, what else did the person take and how long ago that was. Often, when I asked for details, I would find that they are not very sure. The only thing obvious thing was that the person had chemo.

While I was going through chemo, I had mentioned that I had no wish of completing the prescribed 6 cycles since I was responding well and my cancer markers were already way below normal. I was utterly disappointed to hear people telling me that, 'since you are already halfway through, just go ahead and tke the rest'. Finish all 6? By 3rd dose, my marker was already below normal, I was feeling good, my lungs didn't feel so bad. But after the 4th dose, I was feeling lousy overall, I had water retention, the flooding in my lungs were back. Mind you, we were talking about poison and not some sweets or desserts.

Some had some strange ideas about curing cancer, and then there were those in multi-level marketing promoting different kinds of products - juices, detox, special diets, you name it, they have it.

By all means share your knowledge with me, but do not insist that I follow your advice. If I am interested, I will ask for more information. More often than not, I am already aware of most of these alternatives.

At the moment, I am satisfied with the progress that the ayurvedic herbal treatment and natural medicine have given me. So, unless something happens, then I am not in the mood for anything else.

I always wonder, do these well-meaning people realised what they are doing? Do they realised that if I followed their advice, I am putting my life in their hands and that they should be taking responsibility for my life?

Sometimes when I am asked what I am taking and I would always share the information. I would never insist that they follow what I do and I always cautioned that we must bear in mind that what works for me does not necessarily meant that it will work for everybody else.

I do have a request. Please respect my wishes. I am very well aware of all your concerns and worries and I appreciate that, but I am also sorry to be the cause of that. However, it is my life that we are talking about and in case something bad happens, I do not want you to be blamed for it. The onus is on me, alone.

Please bear in mind that by insisting that I take this or that, you are giving me undue stress, in that I have to come up with excuses to turn you down politely so that you will not be offended.

I would like to make one thing very clear here. The 5 doses of chemo did not cure me of cancer. In fact, the CT scan taken after the 5th dose showed that there were still lesions in my liver. Even, my oncologist commented that it would not be so fast. So, fact is that it then depended on my immune system and alternative medicine to treat my cancer.

The 5 doses of chemo stopped my cancer from spreading, but they also caused a lot of damage. I am still under treatment to repair my liver and my kidneys. My legs are very weak and my right arm is still swollen. I also had a damaged heart muscle which can never be healed.

To those who know me and who want to refer to me, please do not just tell others that I had advanced cancer and had undergone chemo and is now doing very fine. If you do that you may be doing someone more harm than good. This is also not accurate. Please remember that I was also taking ayurvedic medicine and natural medicine while undergoing chemo. Even then, I was practically floored by the chemo, and my recovery will take a long time. If they are interested, I do not mind sharing my experience with them.

If my cancer stays under control, I know for certain who and what is responsible and for that I am very, very grateful.

Again, I apologise if anyone is offended by what I have written here.