Why doesn't anyone hear about these stories? We are in the information age after all. However, the majority of people have not heard these incredible remission stories. One reason that we do not hear these stories is because oncologists typically do not take note of spontaneous remissions because they do not fit into the normal trajectory that their patients follow or because their path for the remission is not from their conventional treatments of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. In the cases that are reported in medical journals, doctors list the biochemical changes of their "radical remission" patients, but not what might have led to their remission.
Fear will try to keep someone paralyzed and unable to act in positive directions towards their own healing. When we fear cancer or fear death, we can become stuck in a passive state of taking orders and directions from other people without finding our own voice and our own active participation in healing. Fear can cause us to make decisions without doing research, without trying to understand why we developed cancer in the first place, and can throw our body into fight or flight response where it is difficult to find a rhythm of healing.
Believe me, I know that it is difficult to not fear when you receive a diagnosis of any kind. However, it is something that we can overcome and step beyond so that we can become active participants in our own healing. When I was diagnosed with PCOS, I was afraid of the future, afraid that I wouldn't be able to have children, or that no one would want to marry me because I may not be able to have children. I had to move beyond the fears in order to heal. I had to understand my part in the healing process and how to become actively involved in the outcome instead of passively receiving a prognosis from a doctor.
We need to know what kind of questions to ask of ourselves and what questions to ask of our health care professionals. We also need to know that it has taken years for cancer to develop in the body and that there is no rush in deciding treatment options. Fear will push us and cause us to want to rush into action, to do something, to do anything!! However, this panicked type of decision-making can miss a lot of the details and necessary information to receive the best possible outcome.
In fact, fear triggers over 1,400 physical and chemical reactions in the body and activates 30 hormones and neurotransmitters. Fear throws our body into fight or flight response which includes elevated cortisol levels, increased blood pressure, suppressed digestion and immune response, destroys brain cells, impairs learning, and more horrible side effects. We need the ability to learn, to heal, and to boost our immune system, not to suppress it. Fear therefore becomes the enemy to healing.
Many times oncologists will share statistics that seem promising, but are not necessarily connected to overall survival outcomes. It sounds promising to hear that your tumor has a 50% chance of shrinking by 50% using chemotherapy. However, the amount a tumor shrinks is not in any way correlated to long-term survival statistics.
Here is one example of an amazing near death experience of Anita Moorjani which led to her radical remission of cancer. While Anita was in a coma, she became completely aware of why she had developed cancer, connected with her authentic identity, and knew that she would be completely healed of cancer once she entered back into her body. Listen to her incredible story here:
Be honest with yourself and take this opportunity to look at things that you have not addressed in your past and fears that you have not overcome. If you are afraid of death, ask and ponder the question of why you are afraid of dying? Everyone dies at some point; however, lacking an understanding or belief system that includes death or life after death is a very scary worldview to maintain. These are the questions that we all have growing up and either we find the answers in our family of origin, in our religious tradition of origin, or we gloss over the question and move on with our "lives" as if this question doesn't matter.
One of my clients who was diagnosed with breast cancer, hit a major turning point in her own healing when she connected the dots of how she developed cancer in the first place. When all the pieces came together of what caused the disease to develop in the first place, her confidence in her ability to heal increased dramatically and her fear surrounding not healing equally diminished.
Why does our culture and society as a whole reject radical remissions or spontaneous remissions? I am not sure. I wholeheartedly embrace radical remissions as not only possible, but as something to pursue. If one person in 60,000 to 100,000 experience spontaneous remission from cancer (which is underestimated because many times oncologists do not publish these cases and many times people who experience spontaneous remissions stop going in to see their oncologist, never fully reporting the remission). Typically, a spontaneous remission occurs after an infection around the tumor and a fever. The infection seems to be breaking up the tumor and the fever being an indication of the strong activity of the immune system during the healing.
My recent client diagnosed with colorectal cancer, experienced an infection around the site of the tumor for several weeks. We took this as a great sign that her body was healing and breaking up the tumor. When the body has what it needs from you, nutritionally, spiritually, and emotionally, it has an amazing ability to heal and find balance even in the most devastating of diagnosis's.
We cannot forget the importance of our mind in the process of healing. A client who I was helping with her diagnosis with breast cancer, told me candidly that during a stressful custody court case with her ex-husband, "I told myself that I am going to get cancer with all of this stress." Is this a coincidence? Or did my client tell her body to develop cancer? Scientifically, the mind sends neuropeptides to cell receptors in the immune system which gives them instructions on what to do. If your mind tells your body to "get cancer because of all this stress," you may find that cancer will be what your body produces. In cases of spontaneous remission, most people practice the art of visualizing the cancer disappearing in their body. And many times, their body listens.
What blocks us from receiving spontaneous remissions of any disease? Fear, passivity, lack of knowledge, lack of the pursuit of healing and lack of understanding of how the body is wired to heal. It is my great ambition that these stories of spontaneous remission from cancer are no longer hidden from view. We need to reject those that reject the possibility of spontaneous remission and embrace the great healing possibility of our bodies.
