Appreciation – Olivia Newton John – thank you for allowing me to use such apt and beautiful track for this video.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS1ZYnDGIRI]
Grace, Grit and Gratitude is a story of courage and survival through repeated and horrendous adversity, my own life-threatening condition that required 20 surgical procedures, the effects of separtion/divorce when ill then coping with a teenage family and facing the prospect of imminent demise. I have also recorded in the book an accurate account of my shared time with Ian Gawler – when I was his prime 24/7 caregiver at the age of 21.
At that time I had little awareness of how life would unfold and that I would become so intimately became involved in a very famous cancer recovery story.
Caregivers: It is rather unfortunate that Ian has played down the care-givers role in his recovery…A few years ago one Abc radio interviewer Melbourne 774 introduced Ian as the man who single-handedly conquered cancer. I had hoped Ian would correct the statement – but he did not. Little media time is given to caregivers…. honest acknowledgement of the efforts and unseen (and often unspoken challenges) that caregivers experience. We are often invisibilised – but our contributions to humanity and care are essential in a community. When Ian was very ill – at his most critical point – it was not diet or meditation or lifestyle that pulled him through his darkest night of the soul – but love, compassion, proactivity, faith, hope and belief of his caregiver.
In an article in Woman’s Day in the late 70’s Dr Ainslie Meares praised Grace Gawler for her part in helping her husband to live. He said, “The support he had from her first as his girlfriend and later as his wife, has been very remarkable. She is very sensitive to his needs and feelings and has spent hours and hours massaging him and helping him with his meditation.”
Ian Gawler backs that. “I had to battle against negativity a fair bit, especially early in the piece, when I was so sick. But there was never anything negative about Grace. She would always give me a good old kick in the pants and get me going again. I am very fortunate to have her.”
More than 3 decades have passed since Ian Gawler was told he was clear of cancer. We were together for 23 years – had 4 children during that time, co founded the Gawler Foundation and created the Yarra Valley Living Centre. In 1997 Ian left the family, we then divorced and he later married Dr Ruth Gawler – a GP who now works at the Gawler foundation and assists Ian with his private seminar and merchandising company. Ian retired this year.
Our story that led to Ian’s recovery was complex and once it had been made public we carried the extra responsibility of making sure that it was told accurately and truthfully. As Dr Linda Calbresi from The Australian Doctor magazine recently wrote: ‘ we had
Recently the Australian published an article based on a refute letter that I had written to the Medical Journal of Australia after belatedly coming across a rewrite of Ian’s story in that journal…a version that was full of clinical time-line errors, non factual material and some serious omissions. The MJA published this version December 11 2008 under the banner of “True Stories” and although the patient was not named in the article, it was clearly Ian. It was a former patient that alerted me to the story after she had seen it reproduced on the Gawler Foundation’s website…she was sure that some of the information was not correct especially the reference to Ian having strictly adhered to a vegan diet. As a recovered patient herself who had attended our earlier programs – she was surprised to read this because she Little did she know that this error was just the tip of the iceberg.
References:
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/189_11_011208/jel11032Cancer
Authors: Dr Ruth Gawler & Prof George Jelinek
Source:
http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/news/50/0c06d750.asp
In an article in Woman’s Day in the late 70’s
Ian Gawler backs that. “I had to battle against negativity a fair bit, especially early in the piece, when I was so sick. But there was never anything negative about Grace. She would always give me a good old kick in the pants and get me going again. I am very fortunate to have her.”