The Healing Circle. Dr. Robert MD Rutledge
his experience over the next few months clouded over his faith in a bright future. It took two long weeks for the doctors to process the specimen from Andrew’s brain. The diagnosis: anaplastic oligodendroglioma, a rare but aggressive tumor affecting about 1 in 10,000 people with a cancer diagnosis. Andrew was completely beside himself when told that without further treatment he had perhaps a year to live.
Fortunately, another test showed that the tumor had a special genetic change (1p19q) that meant Andrew could be offered a new chemotherapy. Andrew is extremely grateful to the medical professionals who provided this state-of-the-art treatment and he quickly agreed to take the chemotherapy every month for a full year. His physical healing had begun.
But, everything in Andrew’s life had changed. He could no longer work. His ability to concentrate and think clearly was compromised. Even filling out insurance forms, something that would have been a snap just two months earlier, left him gritting his teeth in frustration. He was on edge, no longer able to hold up the mask of the competent consultant.
As a result of the seizure, he lost his driver’s license and was forced to be a passenger, a role he had never played in his previous life. Still agitated from hearing that he might have only a year to live, when he saw his wife make a lane change too quickly, he swore uncontrollably. “For *!#$* sake, Velma, what are you doing?” Thankfully, Velma could see how the stress of the situation and the damage to his brain was at the source of his emotional ups and downs. She could easily forgive Andrew the outbursts, for he was also more open emotionally. Velma says she loves Andrew even more the way he is now.
Andrew felt overwhelmed by multiple stressors in his life including sorting out all the issues in his house, the fear of the unknown, his anger, dealing with death, and making medical decisions when given conflicting information. Andrew reflects back on this dark period and says, “Sure I was fine. I slept like a baby…I’d wake up every few hours and cry.” He can laugh now, but he acknowledges that it took time to heal from a profound grief.
For months Andrew felt like he was being tossed in waves of emotional turbulence, but at the same time had an overwhelming sense that something much bigger than himself was buoying him up. He was working to be both proactive and willing to surrender, to re-learn how to trust in the journey and to accept his struggles.
His personal mantra throughout his journey has been “Pray as if it is up to God, but act as if it’s up to me” and as the poet Anthony Mizzi said, “Every problem offers new possibilities for something wonderful to happen.” Andrew is too busy looking at the door opening in front of him to be concerned about the one that has been shut behind.
So while receiving the best that modern Western medicine can deliver, Andrew did everything else he could to maximize his chances of recovery. He attended many counselling sessions, something he would never have considered a year before. He used his ‘beginner’s mind’ to follow his intuitions about what Eastern and other complementary medical approaches could offer. He changed his diet, exercised more, lost weight, allowed himself more sleep, began a daily meditation practice, became a Reiki Master, practiced Qi Gong—whatever made sense and felt right. In some sense he was going with the flow, and listening to God as his mother-in-law had suggested.
Andrew was led to Dr. Alastair Cunningham, an immunologist-turned-psychologist, who himself had undergone a spiritual transformation just before being diagnosed with an aggressive colon cancer. Dr. Cunningham created and ran the Healing Journey program at a university hospital in Toronto since 1980.
A study of Dr. Cunningham’s pioneering work showed that people like Andrew, who have been given an incurable diagnosis and who take a proactive and positive approach, often live longer than those who are only mildly interested in integrative care. Some of the study participants who were highly involved in their own healing are alive with no evidence of cancer more than a decade after their physicians expected them to die.
The Healing Journey program introduced Andrew to the concept that cancer cells grow in the body chemistry or ‘soup’ created by the molecules in the bloodstream and that he could change the soup through his actions and his mind. Andrew wanted to change the ingredients in his life. Many of the things that fit into his old life did not fit his new life, and so he sold his house and car, gave away old furniture, closed his business, and retired. He and Velma moved to a new city where they felt they belonged and began life anew.
Another key teacher on Andrew’s journey towards wholeness was Adam, the Dreamhealer. At age sixteen, Adam first gained notoriety when he helped facilitate the miraculous healing of rock star Ronnie Hawkins. Apparently the distant healings and the visualizations Hawkins learned from Adam were critical to his complete recovery from a medically incurable pancreatic cancer.
Andrew had taught a corporate version of visualization to executives in his previous work, but his own healing visualizations were a much more intense experience. He would picture his tumor cells being zapped by lightning bolts and energy packets and then turned into a dusty substance that was expelled in a shower of light. Andrew learned the success of his visualizations depended on fully engaging his emotions in the process. He truly felt he was making changes to the cellular structure of his cells.
Remarkably, from being a highly controlled person who always lived in his head, Andrew feels the cancer diagnosis cracked his emotional shell wide open. A caring comment from a friend will bring tears to his eyes and a frog in his throat as he peers deeply into their eyes and heart.
He wants to dance at hearing happy music and cry with sad music. The aromas and odours that he smells are more distinct. He can smell carrots five feet away and flowers from thirty feet away. The pungent smell of a pig farm in the country is as wildly exciting as car fumes are painful. “Life is so vibrant that it is like when I fell in love with my wonderful wife.”
Andrew is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to experience the wholeness of life and is committed to serve others for whatever time he has left. He does not believe it is his time to die yet. He says, “There’s still more ‘stuff’ to do.”
How long he will remain on this earth is no longer a concern to Andrew. “I have surrendered with acceptance. It’s not my choice of when I come and go. As far as I know, I may have some input and I can do all I can while I’m here. But that final decision is not mine. There was a great relief when I started to accept that.”
An entry from his daily journal reads, “As long as the human spirit rises to the challenge of each new day, as long as we pursue worthwhile goals, as long as we strive, suffer, wrestle with our difficulties and endure, and find wonder in the world, we are living our dying with love.”
Now, more than three years after his original diagnosis, there appears to be no indication that his tumor will recur. He may ‘live his dying with love’ for years and years to come.
Chapter 6
Complete Cancer Care: Part I - Getting the Best Possible Medical Care
God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference
Serenity Prayer
Friday evening. Many of the people in the opening circle are living through the first few weeks and months of a cancer diagnosis and are looking for practical and effective advice about what they can do to maximize their chance of recovery. Drawing on his expertise as a cancer specialist, Rob outlines the approach of combining the best of western medicine with healthy lifestyle habits and wisdom-based complementary healing techniques. In the first part of this lecture, he provides advice on how to get the best care from the medical system by adopting a proactive and loving attitude towards yourself.
The marriage of scientifically-based treatments and wisdom-based healing practices is called ‘integrative medicine’. This integrated approach, also called ‘complete cancer care’, will give you the best chance of living well after a cancer diagnosis. By empowering yourself