Helping women safely navigate the complex cancer maze
Having worked with people with cancer in a psychosocial support setting for 30 years, I applaud the implementation of the prevention principles outlined in “Beating the Big C” The Australian 9 July 2005.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so they say and it should be said that this is not new; naturopaths have been espousing the same principals for decades! Continue reading “COMMENTS ON BEATING THE BIG C – Grace Gawler”
In 2003, after my bionic surgery in Rotterdam, I was asked to give the Penny Brohn Memorial Lecture for the Bristol Cancer Help Centre. It was there I met Professor Karol Sikora and it was clear we had common aims in how an integrated system of medicine could better influence cancer patient outcomes.
Karol was the first professional whom I asked to make comment on my updated version of Women of Silence – the emotional healing of breast cancer. After reading the manuscript on the train he excitedly contacted me; writing the first accolade for the book.
This set a precedent soon to be followed by many other leading UK oncologists. Obligations to return to Australia, regrettably prevented me from accepting Karol’s invitation to be a part of his Harley Street practice.
We both hold the values of integrative medicine dear to our hearts. Interestingly, seven years on and continents away, we are both pioneering organisations that will train health care professionals in the delivery of both the art and science of medicine.
For more information see http://integratedhealthtrust.org/ and http://www.integratedmedicine.org.uk/index.php and my own site – read about the new Grace Gawler Trust – http://www.gracegawler.com/site/
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJQlJRTftVw&feature=player_embedded#!]
The following is an extract from a longer BBC article found at – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8609739.stm
It is worth including here because we see so many patients coming to Grace Gawler for cancer assistance who are in the ‘end stages’ of their illness. Many have lost valuable time because of the fear of the big ‘C’
Cancer battle is lost if patients fail to act – says Professor Nick Lemoine – Barts Cancer Centre and Institute
Up to 10,000 people a year in England die needlessly from cancer within five years of diagnosis.
Black women, on average, develop breast cancer earlier
In this week’s Scrubbing Up, leading cancer expert Professor Nick Lemoine says the battle against cancer will never be won unless patients are more proactive.
Encouraging patients to face their fears and see their doctor early is vital if figures are to improve, he says.
Our new Barts cancer centre benefits from some of the finest equipment and staff in the world.
We have an experimental cancer medicine centre offering treatments such as stem cell and gene therapies, not yet available elsewhere.
No matter how excellent our facilities, we are fighting a losing battle if people ignore their symptoms, either through ignorance or fear.
Up to 10,000 people a year in England die needlessly from cancer within five years of diagnosis.
A significant number of these deaths are due to patients not presenting earlier with symptoms.
Better diagnosis
Late diagnosis is a particular challenge for Barts and The London NHS Trust, which serves east London including Tower Hamlets, one of the most deprived communities in Britain.
We are working with our colleagues in primary care to change attitudes and encourage local people to come forward for screening and early diagnosis of cancer at a stage when it is treated more easily.
We are fighting a losing battle if people ignore their symptoms. To do this we have to dispel myths and preconceptions by showing that the diagnosis of cancer is not necessarily a death sentence.
The true picture is expressed in the following paragraph with thanks to Issels Cancer Centre in California.
“At the time of diagnosis, cells will have been detaching themselves from the primary tumour, entering the blood supply and seeking to establish a ‘new’ colony. This process may have been going on for years before the first tumour is evident.
Therefore time is of the essence along with an effective treatment plan. Cancer is a systemic disease from the onset and the tumour its late stage symptom. It usually takes years for cancer cells to settle down at the site of least resistance and grow into a tumour. This can only happen, if the surrounding tissues allow it (as recent research at UCSD and NCI has shown). Cancer cells can only thrive in a specific internal bodily environment with an impaired immune system and impaired mechanisms of regulation and repair.”
The paragraph indicates the folly of following a trial and error approach to cancer healing when time is critical. Many patients are placing faith in dietary regimes and experimenting while neglecting conventional therapies. Concepts such as the ‘raw foodism’ are gaining ground among the mainstream but most are new to the such ideas and have not ‘time tested’ them in their own bodies.
Precious time can be wasted while experimenting with extreme diets and harm may be done on numerous levles. In 35 years supporting cancer patients, Grace has never seen remissions due to natural diets alone, despite wanting it to be so. These observations have led her to advocate an integrative approach incorporating the best of all healing systems—like an each way bet.
Every cancer case is individual so healing programs must be carefully crafted to suit each person and that applies to dietary regimes. Acknowledging that diet is one way patients can be proactive, Grace nevertheless, usually advocates non-extreme diets such as healthy Mediterranean, because she has seen many cancer patients, including her ex husband, Ian Gawler, become emaciated from extreme diets which purported to ‘starve’ the cancer. In most cases their immune system was ravaged from, not only the disease, but from the dietary regime as well. Individual response to diet is varied and begs a rewrite of ‘you are what you eat’ with a more appropriate version being ’you are what you can assimilate.’
The latter is of relevance to cancer patients who may have varying capacities to assimilate certain foods. Raw food fundamentalists may not realise some people can’t digest and therefore assimilate certain raw foods. In fact, some cultures tend to do poorly on raw food regimes; Asia for one. What’s more, Asia acknowledges a spiritual and psychological component to food while their practice of wok cooking greens retains nutrient density and taste and thus may be more appropriate for cancer patients.
There will be more ideas in future articles, meanwhile our advice is to adopt a sensible, middle-path approach to complementary modalities to assist cancer recovery.
During the three years I worked with Grace Gawler and her cancer patients I’ve already seen too many good people making poor choices based on misinformation and misreporting of the Ian Gawler Cancer Healing story. Truth is crucial for people whose lives hang in the balance. They must be able to depend on accurate information. The least I can do is help Ian’s former wife Grace, tell it as she saw it – especially with regard to the role meditation and vegan diet played in his cure.
In the interest of truthful data so patients can make informed choices I offer the link to a discussion after Ian’s appearance on ABC TV- Compass _ A Good Life –
Pip Cornall
http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=87&m=8887&dm=1&pd=2&am=9137
During the three years I worked with Grace Gawler and her cancer patients I’ve already seen too many good people making poor choices based on misinformation and misreporting of the Ian Gawler Cancer Healing story. Truth is crucial for people whose lives hang in the balance. They must be able to depend on accurate information. The least I can do is help Ian’s former wife Grace, tell it as she saw it – especially with regard to the role meditation and vegan diet played in his cure.
In the interest of truthful data so patients can make informed choices I offer the link to a discussion after Ian’s appearance on ABC TV- Compass _ A Good Life –
Pip Cornall
http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=87&m=8887&dm=1&pd=2&am=9137
Gawler Foundation-Grace Gawler on Vegan Diet
Hello – I am Grace Gawler – co founder of the Gawler Foundation and the visionary/inspirer for the Yarra Valley Living Centre. I need to correct the idea that a part of Ian Gawler’s cure was a Vegan Diet. As Ian’s care-giver I took sole responsibilty for the preparation of his food and nutritional program from 1975 until November 1997 – approximately 22 years. It is important to be factually correct with our story because many people are inspired to emulate our healing journey.
Unfortunately, the Gawler Foundation has been incorrectly reporting Ian’s veganism for some time and an article written for the Medical Journal of Australia (December 2008) also reported this error as fact. There were many other errors in The MJA which are currently being rectified. The MJA stated: “The patient has followed a Vegan diet throughout his illness, recovery period and life.” Firstly – it is important to define the content of a vegan diet and the difference between vegetarian, lacto-ovo vegetarian and a a vegetable based diet that includes fish and small amounts of animal flesh.{Note: According to Wikipedia, “Veganism” is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans endeavor not to use or consume animal products of any kind.}
The MJA report then quotes the adoption of a Vegan diet and such a diet’s relationship to lifestyle change associated with gene expression and tumour reduction. MY CORRECTION: Not so; Ian had never followed a Vegan diet. In fact the patient’s diet during the Gerson regimen consisted of fresh fruit, vegetables, juices, yoghurt, cottage and ricotta cheese and juice made from fresh calf liver twice daily. After a 3 month period, that diet was altered to include regular meals of fish, dairy in many forms, shellfish and eggs.
This note hopefully will put many of the queries about the “real” Gawler diet at rest. Balance in ALL things is my best advice and find someone who can individualise your program for you…avoid lots of supplements, practise possibility thinking!. Often, there is a lot more to each individuals recovery than is written about. If you want to read what we actually did during those all important years of Ian’s recovery – please go to Google books online where relevant parts of Grace, Grit and Gratitude – my memoirs, can be read for free; scroll to page 107.
If anyone needs assistance or if you have questions I am more than happy to help.
Yours in truth and healing
Grace
I wrote to ABC Compass when I saw they were running a series on Ian Gawlerbecause the public deserves to be told the whole truth – lives of cancer patients depend on it
I am honoured to be the partner of Grace (formerly Gayle) Gawler – she is a gifted healer with extraordinary knowledge and skills. You cannot discuss Ian Gawler’s cancer healing journey without including Grace’s multi- year, 24/7 effort to achieve his cure.
Grace’s brilliance working with cancer patients or training therapists is legendary. Compass left out critical aspects of Ian’s healing and some of the chronology was incorrect. I had warned them prior to the show that it might be. There was a healer and a patient—no man could do this alone.
The TRUTH is there would be no Ian Gawler without Grace – period. For years she defied family, friends and medical authorities as they explored healing modalities
Compass has not only done the public a disservice but the implications that meditation and a vegan diet cured his cancer are inaccurate. The TRUTH – for the 22 years Grace was his care giver, he was never on a vegan diet! In Grace’s book, Grace tells how Ian deteriorated while attempting to meditate with Ainslie Meares. In the end he could not even sit up and they left the sessions after just six weeks with Ian close to death.
After their marriage Grace took Ian weighing just 40 kilos to the Philippines. He went there a man dying with cancer and returned out of pain, with weight back on his bones—a man living with cancer. What happened there bears investigation. Grace learned a technique there and gave Ian 3 hours of daily massage for many years. Even after his cure in 1978 he relied on these sessions because they energised him.
Grace’s book outlines a far more plausible hypothesis for Ian Gawler’s cure. Attributing his cure to intensive meditation, diet and positive thinking is an extrapolation of what is a very complex patient history. As a yoga and meditation teacher I value my inner quiet times but as Grace says, try to meditate a wrinkle or wart away first.
The immunological response that has in the past been attributed to intensive meditation may well have been caused by a course of BCG vaccine. It is notable that the patient had TB and cancer concurrently (as demonstrated by radiography at least over a 2 year period and reported by radiation oncologist Dr Alistair Robertson (Adelaide 1978).
Even the 1978 MJA abstract written by Ainslie Meares was seriously flawed in fact and chronology. Meares claims intensive meditation was associated with Ian’s cancer cure. A recent MJA report, (Dec 2008) written by Dr Ruth Gawler (Ian’s wife) and Professor Jalinek (Gawler Foundation employee) has many more errors. Both are currently being investigated with a view to refute. Doctors, oncologists and cancer patients rely on medical journal accuracy- misreporting of the Gawler healing story has already altered the way millions of cancer patients and their families plan their treatment strategies.
For 30 years Grace has been a lone voice trying to correct these errors. She is willing to debate this issue on TV or radio anytime and anywhere