A Cancer Survivor Story: Forgiving Yourself
When I design cancer/illness-healing strategies, my first intention is to discover what emotional issues may have led to manifesting the cancer or illness. In my work with cancer patients and survivors I have found that 95% of the time there are blockages with forgiving oneself or forgiving someone else. This was certainly the case in my journey. When the phone rang that day and I learned that I had cancer, it made perfect sense to me. I had been a dark place for a few years around resenting someone; someone who really didn’t deserve my resentment.
I have come far in the last four years with my understanding of healing cancer or any illness. I knew during the 4 year cancer journey that emotions played a big part in manifesting illness but nothing to the extent I now understand it.
I encourage you to approach this part of your healing with unbending determination. Get in there and figure out what the issues are and if you are a survivor and not the done the emotional work, GET IT DONE!! No one wants to be hooked up to another chemo bottle. All emotional work is a win-win, you can lose nothing by trying.
There are many strategies to bring forgiveness into your spirit. If what I suggest in following chapters doesn’t feel good then find one that does-just find one! Remember, there is nothing more powerful than intention. If you make a little effort, the Creator will come the rest of the way. I have seen this in my own life and client’s lives-over and over again. Just come a few steps, my friend!
After I was finished with treatment and started to get back on my feet, I went to see someone I trusted, a mentor and coach of mine (thank you, Janis) and said, “I have to be honest with you about something, I have been on this spiritual journey for 20 years but I just cannot connect the dots around forgiving myself”. She looked at me and chuckled! I said, “What are you laughing at?” “I had the same problem,” she said, “until a mentor of mine said, forgiving yourself is about for giving to God. The essence of that embodied in this little prayer: “God, I give over to you all these feeling of guilt (or whatever your own feeling is) and I ask for you take them for me right now, I am ready for you to receive them. Thank You. Amen.”
Like good soldier I tried this prayer right away and it was like hundreds of pounds lifted off of me. And it wasn’t only guilt that I gave to God but resentment and anger and many other feelings. It was a long list! It took me a while to understand this little prayer. It was like a Zen Koan! I believe the Creator likes nothing more than when we take responsibility for our own feelings. “I give over to you”, infers that we know we created these feelings. And the other part is that we are taking action to let go of these feelings by those words, we are not excepting God to do the work for us. If we take a few steps, God will come the rest of the way!
If you read The Journey by Brandon Bays, you will discover many stories how forgiveness healed cancer! Bottom line: you don’t want to be carrying around these feeling of anger or resentment or guilt or what ever it is, inside you one moment longer. All healing is multi-dimensional. This is one dimension that is integral to victory and I know you will settle for nothing less than complete and total VICTORY!
Gregory Drambour is the author of THE WOODSTOCK BRIDGE, the well-acclaimed book about Native American Spirituality. He is the owner of Sedona Sacred Journeys; a spiritual retreat business in Sedona,AZ. For more inspirational stories go to: http://sedona-spiritual-vacations.com
A Cancer Survivor Story: Moments Of Being Alone
There are going to come moments when you’re alone with the cancer or illness. They are inevitable. You wake up in pain and don’t want to bother anyone and you feel yourself wanting to give up: “It’s just too much, I’ve had enough, God.”
First and foremost, don’t’ be hard on yourself if these feelings arise. These feelings are truly natural. The first action that will help in this moment is to let go of judgment of your self. Maybe it was judgment of your self, which was one of the characteristics that led to the cancer. So guess what! Let’s stop judging yourself now!
Why are you judging yourself? Ponder this. Get out of piece a paper and do some detective work. I will give you a hint on the first place to start looking: your childhood! Were your father and mother hard on you? If this doesn’t feel immediately apparent, remember that delusion and denial are powerful forces and most of us forget parts our childhood. Be in a place of inquiry about your parent’s messages to you. You’ve opened a door, see what comes through.
It’s difficult to take a look at our childhood. You might say, “It’s over and what difference does it make?” That’s right, what difference does it make! So do it! Might as well do something! If we can approach every act if it is our last act and thus give it our all-this is the attitude of a warrior.
It is in these lonesome moments when we lose hope that prayer reaches out to us. I encourage you to take its gentle hand. Maybe this is one of the gifts for you in your journey with cancer: a closer relationship with your Creator. I also encourage you to believe the hundreds of stories you have heard about how faith and prayers came to the rescue when pain and hopelessness seemed to overwhelm people. Those stories are true and you can be one of them.
Remember it can be as simple as: “God, I give over to you all this pain, this hopelessness. I ask for you take it from me right now. I am ready for you to receive it. Thank you, amen.” And then believe with certainty that your heart-felt prayer will be answered. I want you to know that this moment will pass; I have experienced this many times myself.
You are in that moment of prayer modeling a way of being in your power and the healing energy inside you is listening. These moments alone can be gifts, chances for us to deepen our faith.
Every moment you are faced with adversary in your journey with cancer or illness is a chance to move forward. Take it! God never gives you more than you can handle. You are so much stronger than you think-let yourself believe it. I believe in you!
Gregory Drambour is the author of THE WOODSTOCK BRIDGE, the well-acclaimed book about Native American Spirituality. He is the owner of Sedona Sacred Journeys; a spiritual retreat business in Sedona,AZ. For more inspirational stories go to: http://sedona-spiritual-vacations.com
Mesothelioma And Wrongful Death Lawsuits
A wrongful death lawsuit is one in which the plaintiff or claimant brings legal action in a civil court of law, on behalf of an individual who has died as a result of the negligence of action of another individual or party. This type of lawsuit can be coupled with mesothelioma litigation, due to the unfortunate fact that the result of many mesothelioma cases can in fact be the death of the victim. Therefore, anyone who believes they have occasion to file a mesothelioma lawsuit may need to consider the reality of filing a mesothelioma wrongful death lawsuit.
Why File A Mesothelioma Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
The death of a loved one as a result of any disease is always terrible for the family of the victim, however that pain can be made even more difficult to bear when the disease and death come as a result of the negligence or action of a third party. Fortunately, with the help of an experienced wrongful death lawyer, families of individuals who have died can seek compensation for the loss they have suffered, and the suffering that their loved one endured. In the case of mesothelioma, a particularly serious form of lung cancer that is nearly always associated with exposure to the dangerous environmental toxin asbestos, often in a workplace environment.
Because of the fact that mesothelioma is so serious a form of lung cancer, the ultimately outcome of the disease if often the death of the patient. Families of mesothelioma victims therefore should consider speaking with a qualified mesothelioma lawyer about the possibility of filing a mesothelioma wrongful death lawsuit, even in the case that the mesothelioma victim has not yet succumbed to this serious lung disease.
What Can You Expect from A Mesothelioma Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
Beginning in the twentieth century, there is a long history of mesothelioma litigation, with a lengthy precedence of the negligence and responsibility for those companies that manufactured asbestos or placed their employees in direct contact with it. Therefore, the family of any individual who has died as a result of mesothelioma cause by exposure to asbestos can expect some compensation in a mesothelioma wrongful death lawsuit. In order to properly understand what this compensation might entail, it can be in an individual’s best interest to contact an expert mesothelioma wrongful death lawyer to better understand how a mesothelioma wrongful death lawsuit could provide compensation for any loss that has been suffered.
LegalView.com, your source for everything legal on the Web, offers a legal database for users. By visiting http://www.legalview.com/, users can browse a collection of resources including help to find a mesothelioma attorney, and more. For more information visit, http://mesothelioma.legalview.com/.
Radiosurgery: Brain Surgery Without the Knife
Each year cancer research programs continue to grow: funding increases, new technologies make year-old discoveries obsolete, and more doctors and scientists contribute their ideas and methods to understanding and eradicating cancer. As these strides are made, more treatment options become available and fewer people are forced to endure painful and invasive treatments.
Radiosurgery is a non-invasive, non-surgical treatment of brain cancer that allows doctors to direct beams of radiation to precise locations in order to focus it directly over a brain tumor. This method can help treat and remove intracranial tumors that would otherwise not be accessible for open surgery.
Choosing radiosurgery as an option over more invasive routines is the method of choice for some patients, but is more likely to be a necessity for patients with certain types of tumors that are not easily accessed through open surgery — such as skull base tumors.
Radiosurgery often uses the Leksell Gamma Knife which concentrates gamma radiation to the targeted portion of the patient’s brain. The radiation is so concentrated that, while some residual radiation exists, the vast majority of it is focused onto a much smaller area, thus degenerating the affected area and leaving the rest of the brain unaffected.
The Leksell Gamma Knife form of radiotherapy has been known to work with only one treatment.
What to Expect When Entering Radiation Therapy
Although there are many different types of radiation treatments, radiosurgery focusing specifically on the treatment of head, neck, and brain cancers, the side effects of general radiotherapy and radiosurgery will be very similar.
With radiosurgery, because the radiation is focused around the head and brain area, the patient can often expect to lose hair as a result of the treatment. Other side effects may include a reddening if the skin around the treated area where the radiation beams are passed through, physical fatigue (patients may feel tired more often than normal and sleep longer hours), nausea, and decreased immune response requiring that patients avoid being in public as much as possible to minimize the possibility of catching a virus or other sickness.
When used to treat cancer, radiation therapy is often administered in conjunction with surgery and chemotherapy. In operable cases, surgery may be conducted to remove as much of the cancer as possible, then treatment is followed up by radiation therapy to kill any remaining cancer cells. The same is true of treatment in conjunction with chemotherapy.
In some cases, a combination of all three treatments will be used. In cases where the threat is not as immediate, radiation therapy alone may be the only treatment necessary.
Vantage Oncology (http://www.vantageoncology.com) offers comprehensive management solutions for oncology through a national network of radiation oncologists experienced in the latest radiosurgery treatments, and are committed to continuously raising the standard for cancer care.