Tag: Grit and Gratitude

The Grace Gawler Institute Launches the "Survive and Thrive Club"

The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions 

Hello and Welcome: – The Survive and Thrive Club has been launched as a part of the my new Australian Charity –  The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions – experts in survival strategies. Some already generous donors have helped with establishing the Grace Gawler Institute with the aim that we can create a truly charitable institution with low administration costs, small staff numbers & high service output utilising the lastest technology including a  “Cancer Cyber Center” that can provide low cost tools, information via eBooks, webinars, skype consultations , online courses and 2-3 day residential retreats. There are more exciting free broadcast plans in the pipeline.

It is the first step towards complementary and collaborative care that can be provided to needy. It has always been my belief that cancer patients should be able to receive exactly the same level of care – whether complementary or mainstream medicine, or a combination of both without the added burden of  being financially stressed as well as critically ill. Illness brings about tremendous suffering on all levels of existence and the ripple effect through family units is often a very sad consequence. I appreciate that when your life depends on finding cash in order to survive – it is a very stressful situation. The following recent publication short exerpt highlights the issues discussed on this blog

Financial Worries Top Psychosocial Concern of Cancer Patients – Elsevier Global Medical News. 2011 Feb 28, B Bates ANAHEIM, CALIF. (EGMN) – “Highlighting shifting priorities after the recession, nearly half of all recent psychosocial consultations with patients at a leading cancer center involved financial worries, rather than adjustment issues or other pressing mental health concerns…”

When I inspired and co founded the Gawler Foundation in the early 80’s, as a result of being Ian Gawler’s sole care-giver from 1974-1978; my vision was to raise funds from areas of society such as corporate Australia so that  continuity of services and longevity of the organisation could be assured while providing free services. If clients wish to pay for service or  make a donation towards services then it would automatically help others who were financially compromised and can’t pay for services. As organisations grow &  more people’s visions become involved- it becomes challenging  to hold to ideals. 

Grace Gawler
Me after life saving surgery 2000

However – although I resigned from the Gawler Foundation in 1996, I still hold to those ideals, in fact my passion has increased fuelled no doubt by my own experience. Since 1997 I have been through 20 surgical procedures myself over a 13 year period and having to relocate geographically 14 times including overseas for one year. My debt levels to survive were and are still enormous. With teenage children in my care for some of that time including a son with special needs. My situation is unfortunately far too common.

 I feel I have been at the coalface over cancer care as a care-giver, service provider to more than 13,000 patients during my career then a patient. It was not cancer in my case – but severe complications from a hysterectomy. Unable to use my bowels – the results were very similar to a cancer patient’s experience. My situation was life threatening many times and I am now minus 5 ft of large colon and 5 ft of small bowel due to nerve damage and impaction. 2002 – 2003 I had an experimental procedure for a bionic colon – it was a success and a world first procedure performed in Holland. I know a great deal about surviving and thriving and will share many of my tips via. Select the link below to join – its free – no obligation – cancel at at any time  The Survive and Thrive Club .

 The Survive and Thrive Club  offers cancer patients at all stages of their illness, the opportunity to source accurate, (real) evidence-based medicine and cancer information.

Its a Free Sign-up to receive regular newsletters with tips for:
Survival
Recovery strategies
Evidence-based research
Cancer nutrition & recipes
Notice of events, giveaways, competitions
And new Grace Gawler Products.

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCBqfFK5VIs]

Free sign up to
The Survive & Thrive Club

Gold Coast – Australia

The Grace Gawler Institute Launches the “Survive and Thrive Club”

The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions 

Hello and Welcome: – The Survive and Thrive Club has been launched as a part of the my new Australian Charity –  The Grace Gawler Institute for Integrated Cancer Solutions – experts in survival strategies. Some already generous donors have helped with establishing the Grace Gawler Institute with the aim that we can create a truly charitable institution with low administration costs, small staff numbers & high service output utilising the lastest technology including a  “Cancer Cyber Center” that can provide low cost tools, information via eBooks, webinars, skype consultations , online courses and 2-3 day residential retreats. There are more exciting free broadcast plans in the pipeline.

It is the first step towards complementary and collaborative care that can be provided to needy. It has always been my belief that cancer patients should be able to receive exactly the same level of care – whether complementary or mainstream medicine, or a combination of both without the added burden of  being financially stressed as well as critically ill. Illness brings about tremendous suffering on all levels of existence and the ripple effect through family units is often a very sad consequence. I appreciate that when your life depends on finding cash in order to survive – it is a very stressful situation. The following recent publication short exerpt highlights the issues discussed on this blog

Financial Worries Top Psychosocial Concern of Cancer Patients – Elsevier Global Medical News. 2011 Feb 28, B Bates ANAHEIM, CALIF. (EGMN) – “Highlighting shifting priorities after the recession, nearly half of all recent psychosocial consultations with patients at a leading cancer center involved financial worries, rather than adjustment issues or other pressing mental health concerns…”

When I inspired and co founded the Gawler Foundation in the early 80’s, as a result of being Ian Gawler’s sole care-giver from 1974-1978; my vision was to raise funds from areas of society such as corporate Australia so that  continuity of services and longevity of the organisation could be assured while providing free services. If clients wish to pay for service or  make a donation towards services then it would automatically help others who were financially compromised and can’t pay for services. As organisations grow &  more people’s visions become involved- it becomes challenging  to hold to ideals. 

Grace Gawler
Me after life saving surgery 2000

However – although I resigned from the Gawler Foundation in 1996, I still hold to those ideals, in fact my passion has increased fuelled no doubt by my own experience. Since 1997 I have been through 20 surgical procedures myself over a 13 year period and having to relocate geographically 14 times including overseas for one year. My debt levels to survive were and are still enormous. With teenage children in my care for some of that time including a son with special needs. My situation is unfortunately far too common.

 I feel I have been at the coalface over cancer care as a care-giver, service provider to more than 13,000 patients during my career then a patient. It was not cancer in my case – but severe complications from a hysterectomy. Unable to use my bowels – the results were very similar to a cancer patient’s experience. My situation was life threatening many times and I am now minus 5 ft of large colon and 5 ft of small bowel due to nerve damage and impaction. 2002 – 2003 I had an experimental procedure for a bionic colon – it was a success and a world first procedure performed in Holland. I know a great deal about surviving and thriving and will share many of my tips via. Select the link below to join – its free – no obligation – cancel at at any time  The Survive and Thrive Club .

 The Survive and Thrive Club  offers cancer patients at all stages of their illness, the opportunity to source accurate, (real) evidence-based medicine and cancer information.

Its a Free Sign-up to receive regular newsletters with tips for:
Survival
Recovery strategies
Evidence-based research
Cancer nutrition & recipes
Notice of events, giveaways, competitions
And new Grace Gawler Products.

  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCBqfFK5VIs]

Free sign up to
The Survive & Thrive Club

Gold Coast – Australia

Grace Gawler's Story – Grace, Grit and Gratitude – A Memoir

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.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/first-wife-disputes-cancer-guru-ian-gawlers-survival-story/story-e6frg8y6-1225935666765

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.”

Grace Gawler’s Story – Grace, Grit and Gratitude – A Memoir

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.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/first-wife-disputes-cancer-guru-ian-gawlers-survival-story/story-e6frg8y6-1225935666765

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.”

Bridging the Gaps in Cancer Treatment

ABC FM Radio Gold Coast Interview – Nicole Dyer interviews Grace Gawler about her new Integrated cancer Solutions Trust. – by Pip Cornall

For 35 years Grace has combined conventional and complementary medicine to give her cancer patients the best possible outcomes. In this ABC radio interview she speaks about her history, the new charitable trust and the formation of a new integrated cancer solutions centre on the Gold Coast. The need for an integrated approach is illustrated by the controversial and tragic death of Penelope Dingle in Perth, which is receiving much publicity.  (it will be featured in detail in my next blog).

click to listen to the 10 minute interview-    Bridging the gaps in cancer treatment

AUDIO INTERVIEW 10.33 MINUTES: