Neville
My name is Neville, I am 70 years old and
currently the Treasurer of Hunter Valley CISS, having previously served as
President for several years. I joined CISS in late 2000 after being diagnosed
with prostate cancer following a routine PSA test and a biopsy. Before I went
for the biopsy my Urologist advised me to obtain a copy of a book by Dr.
Geoffrey Hirst and Sally Wilde called Your Prostate, Your Choices, and to read it before I returned to see
him for the result of the biopsy. This turned out to be the best advice that my
urologist gave me, as when I did return to see him for my biopsy results I had a
good idea of what MY
alternatives were. I had decided that if I was diagnosed with a low grade tumour
then I would just go for Watchful Waiting and avoid any radical treatment.
Despite
the diagnosis of a low-grade tumour this course of action was not advised by my
urologist who recommended a Radical Prostatectomy as the only way to ensure a 10
– 15 year survival, with radiotherapy as his second choice. Because my family
was concerned about my welfare and believed that I should be proactive about
treatment and also knowing that there was a significant delay in getting
radiotherapy I agreed to this second course of action. In the meantime I
consulted David Kirkness who was a neighbour of my daughter and whom I knew to
have assisted cancer patients in the past. With David’s help I started on a
regime well known to members of CISS and within 6 weeks my PSA had dropped
significantly and I cancelled my radiotherapy appointment. To this day I have
not had any orthodox treatment and consequently do not have any of the
debilitating side effects associated with orthodox treatments.
The regime that I undertook was basically a lifestyle or
behavioural change. Despite the fact that my wife has always prepared healthy
nutritious meals we changed to reduced red meat intake with more emphasis on raw
or lightly steamed vegetables and plenty of fresh fruit. Freshly prepared
vegetable juice with added vitamin C continues to be a daily routine together
with supplementation with Saw Palmetto, Multi B, Fish Oil, Selenium and
Magnesium and good aerobic exercise several times a week. Meditation is also a
very important aspect of the regime but I sometimes get a bit slack with this
and do not always make the time available when I am particularly busy. I do not
recommend being slack with meditation.
During my time working with CISS and helping counsel people I
have been intrigued by the fact that some people seem to respond to our
information and have remarkable recoveries whilst others who appear to be doing
all the right things and assure us that they are, do not. Lately I have become
more aware that despite all the support given by loving family members to a
person, the ones that seem to do best are those people that actually take
ownership of their regime such as preparing their own juice, selecting their own
regime components from all the information that is presented to them and really
believing, (not just hoping) that it will work. How you get this message across
to all, I haven’t yet worked out.
Another issue that intrigues me is the fact that out of all
the people diagnosed daily with cancer we only get to see an extremely small
percentage at CISS, despite the fact that we have been around since the early
1980s. I know that if I hadn’t known David Kirkness I would not have sought out
a support group, as my impression was that a support group consisted of a group
of people sitting around with long faces feeling sorry for each other. This was
not what I would have felt comfortable with and despite some support groups
being like this, I was pleasantly surprised to find that CISS was not. It
appears that the only support groups that most doctors and oncologists are
prepared to refer patients to are those that they have an interest in themselves
and are generally at hospitals and unfortunately are often of the type
previously mentioned.
It is frustrating to see the amount of misinformation and
biased information presented to the public and governments by vested interests
that result in adverse treatment for many patients and great cost to our
Medicare system and patients. Despite recent research out of Sydney University
confirming that 23 to 29% of women treated for breast cancer are treated
unnecessarily, it only received a relatively few lines in a small article on the
inner pages of a regional newspaper. Similarly, a recent program of Catalyst on
ABC television identified that a significant number of men are being
unnecessarily treated for prostate cancer when they were at little risk of dying
from it. These issues, together with other issues such as the forcing offshore
to Vanuatu of Dr Bill Cham for the manufacture of his Curaderm skin cancer
treatment cream, have resulted in a great deal of unnecessary pain, suffering
and expense for patients and have cost this country a great deal of money in
medical expenses and export earnings over many years.
I would like to take this opportunity to
congratulate Don Benjamin on setting up CISS in the first place and on the
quality of the information that he continues to present in the CISS Newsletter.
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