Healing with Homeopathy

by Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, ND, MSW

Life Is Not

a

Dress Rehearsal: What I Learned

from

a

False-Positive Metastatic Cancer Diagnosis

It Started at a Buddhist Monastery

If you are expecting a column on homeopathy in this issue, you will be need to wait until next month. This is simply a story that wants to be told. I am moved to share the intense and dramatic experience of the past few weeks of my life.

The stage was set at a powerful Sufi retreat that we attended in late June, which took place at the lovely Mount Adams Zen Center in south-central Washington, near Portland, Oregon. The delightful monk Kozen, full-bellied, jolly, and possessed of the longest earlobes that I have ever seen (considered to be quite auspicious and Buddha-like) reminded us again and again, in his bellowing voice, “Remember, life is not a dress rehearsal.” In other words, recognize the preciousness of each moment and live to the fullest. Make each moment count.

That is precisely how Kozen had lived. Raised in a Quaker family, he was told at age 14 by the pastor of the Baptist church that his parents were attending in Guam that he could not attend church unless he wore a coat and a tie. The young Kozen remarked, “Then this isn’t the church for me.” A neighbor asked, “Well, what do you believe?” Hearing his spiritual philosophy, she advised, “You’re a Buddhist!” He promptly used his paper-route money to book a flight to Japan. Having flown with his family previously all around Asia, it wasn’t such a preposterous idea to him. Once there, he sought out a Zen monastery, where he was asked if his mother knew where he was, which she did not. They sent him back to his family, but his one-pointed Zen studies continued until age 18, when he became ordained as a monk. He has created a most inspiring and beautiful Zen monastery/Druid temple/alpaca refuge/retreat center with impeccable gardens, a Stonehenge-like meditation garden, and the happiest chickens that I have ever seen. They even have their own colorful play structures!

It was during the retreat that I had a flare-up of some leg pain that I had experienced for a couple of months. In the environment of open-heartedness and truth-telling, Bob expressed his concern quite emotionally that the pain might indicate a return of my previous breast cancer. I agreed, when we went to Chile a month later, to get a bone scan and an MRI, although my medical oncologist was not at all worried. High-quality medical care at modern Chilean hospitals costs a fraction of what it does in this country, so we try to get most of our diagnostic testing done there.

The MRI was unremarkable, showing only a hematoma in my knee resulting from a previous injury. The bone scan was progressing quite nicely, with a cheery nurse in nuclear medicine assuring me that everything looked fine. Then an eerie silence. I waited longer than expected for the results, which were provided by the nurse then, upon my request, the radiologist. I could see various dark spots on my ribs, which the radiologist told me, quietly, that, given my previous history, were likely bone metastases. Bob was doing phone consultations with patients that day, so I went with a friend, who just happening to have a long history, previously, in grief counseling. That was the beginning of the most soul-searching three weeks of my life.

What If I Only Had a Few Years to Live?

Stephen Levine wrote a best-selling book in 1998: A Year to Live: How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last. It was as if I saw my life, past, present, future, squarely in front of my eyes, more keenly than ever before. I have often commented that we never know how much time we have left and have advocated saying yes to life.. Having first experienced breast cancer at 50, and again at 62, and living at the bottom of a tree-filled bank in the Northwest and the foot of an active volcano in Chile, it’s not as if death had not crossed my mind. But it was not immediate. I had negative nodes during both cancers and never seriously thought that my days were numbered. Now the picture looked far less rosy. I tried to wrap my mind around bone metastases to the ribs. I was suddenly swimming in a black sea, along with all the others in the world with life-threatening cancer, hoping for a miracle. Bargaining for another healthy 10 years of life.

Doing What a Doctor Does Best

True to form, the first thing that we, or I should say Bob, did was go online to research the conventional medical options. I was too emotionally fragile to do it myself, and he is a quick and effective researcher. His less-than-optimistic response, as he intensely perused the literature, was obvious enough. Mostly references to the drugs used to minimize the often-excruciating bone pain. It is not to say that people are not cured of metastatic cancer, but it is exceptional and rarely occurs with conventional treatment.

Still in Chile for another 10 days, I e-mailed my medical oncologist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and sent her the electronic images of the bone scan. She consulted with a radiologist, who replied that the test was equivocal enough to require another scan in Seattle. This, we thought at the time, was primarily so that he would not be responsible for a Chilean doctor’s scan and interpretation. It did not seriously occur to either of us that the initial radiologic diagnosis might be wrong.

Then Bob investigated online the alternative therapies. Nothing jumped out immediately. Having written for the Townsend Letter for over 20 years, the Moss Report, which I routinely recommend to patients with cancer diagnoses, was at the top of my list. Quite generously, the report was sent to me as a gift. I made a mental note to schedule a telephone consultation with Dr. Moss as soon as I got all of my test results back in the States.

The Highs and Lows of a Lifetime

There’s nothing like being given the news that you will likely die, with pain, in the not-too-distant future to bring you to your knees. My parents lived to 87 and 89 without even having led particularly healthful lifestyles. The likelihood of my life being cut short by 20-plus years was heartbreaking – to me and to those in whom I confided. The grief was beyond words and the tears flowed freely. My previous worries, concerns, irritations that had previously seemed so important suddenly seemed unimportant. Suddenly all that mattered was to live! Images presented themselves on the screen of my imagination … the sunrises and sunsets that I would miss, I would never get to see our fruit trees in Chile begin to bear, my golden retrievers might outlive me … above all, the moments of exquisite beauty that I would not be around to witness. I could envision my demise before my eyes. It was only when Bob snapped me out of my morbid thoughts and reminded me that I was still here, still happy, and that nothing had changed except for a lab test that I could return to momentary peace. I can truly say that I have never experienced such mood swings in my entire life. All packed into two and a half weeks.

Raw Vulnerability and Authenticity

Bob calls me a force of nature. I can usually remain strong in the face of adversity. But now I fell apart. Actually I alternated between inconsolable grief and firm strength and resolve. The first couple days, after the scan, we were still in Pucón, Chile, where we live half the year. Our neighbors and friends there were right there for me. I felt very loved and supported. Then we had planned another week at the top of the world, the high Atacama Desert in northern Chile, close to the Bolivian and Argentine borders. The tears poured out. And strangers were drawn to me, asking what was going on and offering consolation and compassion. We had scheduled ourselves for tours every day, which, fortunately, were a welcome distraction in one of the most spectacularly magnificent landscapes on the planet. But, once our day’s activities ended, we were back to the stark reality of things. The keenness of the vulnerability and the realness of human suffering was a treasure, even though at times painful. I found that being exquisitely open brought beautiful rewards of human kindness.

That Which Never Dies

Of all the realizations that were given, the most poignant and essential was that, ultimately, there is only Spirit. Everybody dies at some point, and I cannot say with any certainty what happens after death. Ideas, concepts, but nothing that I can say with assurance from personal experience or knowledge. But I have to say that the 42 years of practice of spiritual practice were, ultimately, my lifeline. It was plunging into the depths of what does survive, life after life, that ultimately provided me with sustenance. Reminding myself that there is a flow, a thread, that is universal … that transcends our concepts of space and time. A primordial, abiding stillness. Beyond the vicissitudes of mood and notions of whether I could find a miracle to save my body lay an imperturbable peace. Fortunately, I had brought with me my favorite inspirational book, Silence of the Heart by Robert Adams, who was fully and permanently enlightened at the age of 14. His wisdom is pure and simple without the trappings of religion or dogma. (You can read his amazing story of realization in our book, Mystics, Masters, Saints, and Sages: Stories of Enlightenment; Samuel Weiser Press; www.mysticsmasters.com.)

The day after I received my scan results, I contacted my Sufi spiritual guide, who provided me with a powerful vocal healing practice to engage every cell of my being in bringing light and healing to my being. Aware of the profound power of prayer, I asked that my name be placed on a number of healing and prayer lists, in order to multiply the healing efforts.

Simplicity

We often joke that, while many of our friends live remarkably simple lives (several of them were part of the original Your Money Or Your Life community of Joe Dominguez), we are the masters of complication. Managing a clinic, living on two continents, one of them Spanish-speaking, and actually taking our three golden retrievers with us, to many, borders on insanity. Now the intricacies of the details in which my life was mired seemed dead serious, no pun intended. I saw clearly, as would a third-party observer, my pattern of complicating things excessively in the name of keeping everything together and under control. From this new vantage point, the excessive complications were antithetical to healing myself. I promised to simplify wherever I could, and Bob agreed to point out to me whenever I swayed from this promise.

The result, even over this three-week period of time, has been remarkable. I am meditating more, literally smelling the flowers, taking time to sit and watch the sunrises and sunsets, am enjoying early morning beach walks rather than spending so much time pushing myself at the gym. I am just moving more slowly and enjoying my life far more. I remind myself that getting everything done is no longer what is important – that what needs to happen will, more through the natural rhythm of life than through my pushing the river. Up to the misdiagnosis, I went online to various news sites repeatedly throughout the day. I have not done that once since and do not miss it in the least. I had become obsessed with the news, which was, in fact, taking me away from my inner peace. My hope is to let more of the complexity of my life fall away through the natural course of life. What that means in my day-to-day life will reveal itself, but I feel certain that changes will occur as needed, not so much through planning as through a process of aligning myself to health and healing.

Hope

I fully believe that conventional, and even, alternative medicine, are barely scratching the surface of possibilities, despite the tremendous dedication and commitment evidenced in every Townsend Letter. Miracles do occur every day to those who embrace them and, sometimes, for those who do not. It was wonderful, during such a brief interlude, to hear such stories. One friend told me about a woman with metastatic breast cancer who had been cured by the Brazilian healer John of God. Another, himself a cancer survivor of 24 years, shared with us the story of the brother of a close friend of ours who was recently cured of liver cancer with the help of a local alternative physician. A patient of mine from Ohio, who introduced me two years ago to a substance called Protocel, told me about two long-term cancer survivors whom she knew personally, one previously a child with an advanced brain tumor

Following the thread of my intuition, we planned a trip in September to visit the Ecuadorian yachac (shaman) whom we wrote about four years ago. He is known to have the ability to alter reality, unlimited by our concepts of time, space, and matter. When I called him two weeks ago and asked if he could help, he responded that he could and that we should just come. Even though the dire diagnosis proved, thankfully, not to be the case, we are headed down to spend a couple of weeks with him. I have no idea exactly what will happen there, but I know it feels like the right thing to do, and that it could be, in some way, life changing. We also followed the procedure to have my picture presented to the entities at John of God and discussed going down there, from Chile, in the next few months. Whether or not we will still do that is not clear right now. Many a cancer patient dies from lack of hope. I did not want to be in that group.

Love and Wisdom

This experience reminded me, unquestionably, that I am loved. If only for that reminder, the experience served me quite positively. Loved, held, and sustained, ultimately, in a pervading peace. Bob seemed to bring forth much of his spiritual wisdom from decades, and I am sure, lifetimes. It just so happened that he has been doing some reading in A Course in Miracles these days. And so the message of forgiveness of myself, for any way in which I thought that I had caused this series of events, of anyone in my life who I thought had hurt or harmed me in the past, and of my body for believing in any way that it had let me down. He mirrored for me the importance of loving my body despite its imperfections, reconstructions, and alterations due to aging.

The ones near and dear to me offered messages of wisdom just when I most needed them. From one of our closest Chilean friends: “Focus all of your being on the expansion of Light within you. Rest in tremendous gratitude for each moment. Laugh, dance, love. Everything is sacred. Above all meditate to find that profound connection with Being … with the fountain from which we all came. Something will happen that is not as you think. There will be a solution.” And, when I told her three weeks later that there was no metastasis: “Marvelous. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been chanting for you every morning. Now, with humility and gratitude, let us return to our Mother Earth. And now, do not fall asleep again. Meditate and live each moment as if it were the last moment, because one day the moment will again come to leave the physical body. I celebrate with you. Hallelujah!”

Beauty

Many of my life choices, joy, passion comes from seeking the experience of the beauty of nature. It is beauty that drew me to the Pacific Northwest and that inspires me to travel around the world. It was the hypnotic view down Saratoga Passage from our home on Whidbey Island that led us to buy it within a few hours of stepping on the deck. It was a similar experience in Chile, climbing up a hill and being awestruck by the spectacularly panoramic view of the Villarrica volcano and lake, that led us to decide to build there within minutes, not even hours. So, it was not surprising to realize, when I thought my time might be limited, that my passion in this life is still to enjoy, create, and bathe in the beauty of Mother Earth. For whatever time I have. And how long that is will only be revealed by the Great Mystery at the proper time.

Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude

I hope that the education – all of it – which I received from this experience remains with me as a reminder to awaken. It is my wish not to fall back into complacency and forgetfulness. It is easy to do so in this life of material illusion. I continue to be in awe of the magic and beauty around me, as if I am seeing everything in Technicolor, 3-D.

Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman are licensed naturopathic physicians, board certified in homeopathy. Their books include A Drug-Free Approach to Asperger Syndrome and Autism, Ritalin-Free Kids, Rage-Free Kids, Prozac Free, Homeopathic Self-Care: The Quick and Easy Guide for the Whole Family, Whole Woman Homeopathy, The Patient’s Guide to Homeopathic Medicine, and Mystics, Masters, Saints and Sages: Stories of Enlightenment. They live on Whidbey Island, Washington, and in Pucón, Chile; have taught and lectured internationally; and practice at the Northwest Center for Homeopathic Medicine in Edmonds, Washington. They treat patients by phone and videoconference as well as in person, and can be reached at 425-774-5599, (fax) 425-670-0319, or www.healthyhomeopathy.com.