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From Nowhere to NOW HERERecovering from cancer |
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I am a fifty year old woman living in a jungle paradise in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the island of Maui. Last August 2000 I was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and within two days went into surgery to have my ovaries, uterus and other affected areas removed from my body. The day I was diagnosed with cancer I experienced the biggest and most life altering shift of consciousness ever, in a timeless flash of awareness. It was like coming from nowhere to NOW HERE. My world came apart and got put back together. It was like being an instrument that was out of tune and suddenly tuned to resonate to a new tonal frequency. I could feel my mortality with a destiny, and it felt great. . . It felt great to realize that everything that was happening to me was in perfect order and all I had to do was accept, allow and let go to enable the healing of my body, mind and soul. I suppose the paradox of illness is that having a high magnitude of imbalance will actually bring you back into synch with yourself, or with those higher faculties that are cognizant of reality. As a licensed acupuncturist and professor of Oriental medicine, I had heard disturbing stories from patients who had had bad experiences with "Western" or allopathic medicine. I had become a strong advocate of merging Eastern and Western medicine together to bring balance to a healthcare industry that was deeply in need of change. While living in Washington D.C. I had the opportunity to speak with President Clinton about alternative healthcare and the problems of prescription drugs. More recently, I was enthused at the prospect of becoming a provider for Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii but couldn't make headway within its bureaucracy. When I realized that I was to undergo many of the experiences that I had heard such bad news about, I had to rise up to insure a positive outcome. Once I went into an allowing mode of thinking and feeling, I could relax and learn from the experience. I never felt fear or anxiety, though once I got pretty disturbed when I developed symptoms of pain because I couldn't identify the source. . . During chemotherapy, lots began to happen, lots of new feelings and physical symptoms. With the shift of awareness I had experienced immediately, I found that being present in the now here was the only thing that felt natural. I actually felt happier and more alive than at any other time of my life, with the exception of course of being in love. In both cases I experienced a kind of egoic death and total surrender to the beloved. To maintain one's focus in the moment without being distracted by the past or future, to surrender attachment is, I believe, why my life changed and why I am still living in this body with a completely new perspective. I don't believe that this change of awareness means that I've overcome all emotional static or annoying habits, but I do know that I no longer am fearful. It's just not a part of me now. I'll say a little something about how this all came about. I likely have a genetic code for the actual condition of ovarian cancer, a weak link, because my mother died of ovarian cancer at the same age I developed it. That was twenty years ago when I was thirty. A psychic had told me that she "would die unless she had a hysterectomy', but didn't say why or when. I was asked to tell my mother the bad news; when I did she said " bullshit, I'm not letting anyone cut into me," and all I could do was acknowledge and respect her feeling about it. Several months later she was dying a very painful death at a wheat grass and coffee enema clinic up in San Jose. She went very quickly. I was living in a spiritual community in Santa Barbara California at the time and had a lucid dream that she would die in the hospital I was dreaming about and that I would see this place but not be there when she actually passed over. I had an overwhelming sense of comfort and a sense that the event would unfold in a destined way. I woke the next morning with an intuitive sense of when I should drive up to be with her. When I did go, I hadn't called her but arrived the day before she needed to go to the hospital for an appointment. I drove her there the next day and asked the doctor to please help make her transition easier for her. He said, "You don't know when she is going to die", and I said "Yes I do, and it will be tomorrow." I said my goodbyes and left for home believing that it was important for me to let her go so that she too could release herself. The next morning she died. This August, after my surgery, She came to me in spirit and said, "Do what I was not able to do." In the 70s and 80s, cancer therapy was very unreliable, and stage four ovarian cancer was not considered curable. Chemotherapy was in its infancy, killing more patients than curing them. After what I have experienced first hand, I must say I am a convert and applaud the progress and research that has now, literally, cured me of cancer. The dosage and specific kinds of chemotherapy treatment for the many kinds of cancer there are has evolved to the level of a healing art. I came a long way to appreciating that and want to congratulate and offer my whole hearted thanks to those whose efforts led to my recovery. My care was so outstanding, it's literally changed my life…and returned, to me, my life. Not only was I genetically predisposed to getting cancer, I was also actually poisoned with a pesticide while living in Indonesia. All my life and while living in a spiritual community, I have eaten organically grown foods. Our community was the largest grower of organic produce and later hormone free beef in the country. We operated over five health food stores a restaurant, juice factory, and bakery in Santa Barbara during the 70's. But in 1994 I went to Indonesia to help organize an environmental conference that promoted bamboo as a replacement for wood. Today, I am executive director of the International Bamboo Foundation in Hawaii. While there, I was intentionally poisoned by a disgruntled employee whom I caused to "lose face" during a dispute. She had threatened to kill me (a common method of "justice" in Indonesia) and she began to systematically put malathion in my food. A few years later, I discovered the pesticide in every organ of my body. I found it by using the Vega test system of diagnostics from Germany which I had used for 10 years in my own practice. When I was told about the presence of this pesticide I realized why I had been stricken with symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis after returning from Bali in 1996. I knew from that discovery that I would get cancer at some point in the future and that I needed to get tested soon, even though it wasn't showing up yet. So, when I did go to the gynecologist to get the CA125 test for the specific cancer blood marker, I was not surprised but nevertheless very affected by the realization. My whole practice up to then had been focused upon environmental medicine and detoxification of pesticides, heavy metals and food additives. I am still amazed at this. All the events leading up to that moment led me to realize that there was "divine order" to the experience and that to resist would have caused me to fall into fear and oblivion. I knew that I needed above all, to develop my trust more deeply in the divine plan and destiny of life itself. I am learning to pay attention and follow my inner guidance more deeply, to feel the grace by allowing. By dwelling there I knew that I will "live", whether in this body or a lighter body. This became my basis for trust, and the greatest lesson gained through the experience. Following my surgery, I felt compelled to practice the healing arts I had used for so long and felt obligated to do so as a researcher and a teacher. I needed to use the many options that exist in "alternative" health care practices. I took a month after the surgery, much to the chagrin of my surgeon, and used every thing I knew that might help to overcome the cancer. I discovered much to my surprise that it had been like throwing gas on a bonfire. My blood markers soared from 280 after the surgery to 350 during my month of self-treatment. The normal range is zero to thirty five. I went immediately into chemotherapy. I know now that one shouldn't experiment with this particular kind of cancer at stage four. It is imperative that one take responsibility to become fully informed in order to make a decision to treat conventionally or to use any adjunctive therapies. Today after six months, I am about to do my sixth session of chemo and my marker is at 20. What I have learned is that all the herbs, mushroom extracts, and antioxidants I have taken in conjunction with the chemo has provided me with unprecedented strength and recovery from each chemotherapy session. I've eaten like a horse and actually gained weight, which I am not "that" happy about but it's a good sign of inner vitality. I have been told consistently that I don't look or act like I'm sick. I would like to close this with further acknowledgment and gratitude to my care givers, for their care, support and selfless service to me personally and to all those patients I shared this experience with . To you the reader, I would like to offer the following quotes for your contemplation. They were sent to me by an old friend following my description of what I was experiencing. It felt perfect. The first is from Lama Surya Das's - Awakening the Buddha Within. As we begin to be mindful, living in the "now" and directing our attention to the smallest fraction of The second is entitled Trust, from the Osho Zen Tarot Don't waste your life for that which is going to be taken away.
Melanie Arcudi has been a student and practitioner of the ancient healing arts of the Mayan, Tibetan, Chinese, and Indonesian cultures since 1974 traveling the world in search of the underlying mysteries of health and healing in ancient cultures. Visit her website at http://abarefootdoctor.com |