As many of you know, my mom and our family have been fighting the challenges of a cancer diagnosis, and the reality of dealing with cancer since the beginning of 2013. We struggled through various stages, moving beyond the stages of denial and the ‘blame game’, and eventually settled on a strategy to cope-with and win the war.
Our partners included mom’s church community, a few faithful members of the Ras Tafari community, a holistic practitioner, and of course, a team of doctors from a very well established hospital in Baltimore County.
Although there were many small victories, the team was never cohesive. It was divided along the lines of faith and natural healing versus the arbitrary use of a scientific diagnosis and pharmaceuticals. On one hand was the family, church community, nurses, and holistic doctor seeing incremental progress in areas such as the reduction in light chains (used to measure the severity of the disease); the stable blood pressure, cardiograms, respiratory readings and even positive weight gains. On the other side were the ‘white jacketed’ professional doctors who only saw the need to push for pharmaceuticals, and lobbied for hospital confinement, and palliative care. When mom resisted any portion of their recommendations, they constantly preached a doomsday death message, “she’s dying, get her in to hospice, make her comfortable, she’s suffering…” A real death squad approach.
As if seeking to fulfill their own prophesies, a member of the ‘death squad team’ called us on August 27, requesting that I take mom to the hospital for immediate treatment. She stated, “Her calcium levels were elevated in the previous blood readings and we missed it …she needs treatment immediately.” I asked how long the treatment would be, to this they responded, “oh 4 – 5 hours.” Mom walked out of our home that morning, was taken to the hospital at 8:50, and instead of that simple 4-5 hours of treatment, she spent exactly 29 days in the hospital, being over medicated, misdiagnosed, and faced great clinical and verbal traumas from the physicians’ team. They continuously badgered the family and mom with a message of death and hopelessness, even when questioned about their own positive scientific data. They trumpeted the same message every day for over a week: “She is not recovering, she is going to die, make her comfortable, end her suffering.” Mom did not walk out of that facility!
On Wednesday October 2, 2013 the chief oncologist responsible for mom’s care offered her condolence to a member of our family who she saw at the hospital. “I’m so sorry" she said, "I heard she passed over the weekend; you know, I’m a trained scientist and I know what I am doing, we did our best for her.” My relative was angry, hurt, disappointed! In mom’s case, the approach by the scientist was to diagnose, overmedicate, and when challenged by the negative impact of their treatment protocol, they gave up. They insisted on, and predicted the worst possible outcome. Doomsday and DEATH was the only message from the leader and the death squad team!
Stay tuned for more on what happens next in this saga, but in the meantime, let us all practice preventative medical care; eat our medicines (raw fruits, vegetables, herbs and fresh juices), exercise and breathe. If we do not, we will surely meet a pharmacologically induced demise, perhaps, at the hands of a Dr. DEATH.
“Now you see the light…do good n do right!!
