Tag: hope recovery belief systems
Grace Gawler – The Australian – Comments on Spontaneous Remission
Visit www.gracegawler.com for more information about cancer solutions.
Adam Cresswell-Doctors attribute sudden cancer cures to biology, not God…And medical experts say the phenomenon, while little understood, is likely to have biological rather than spiritual explanations says an article in this weekend’s The Australian. CLICK HERE
Now this is a topic dear to my heart and one that has been topical in my own sphere of work; as outlined in the Australian – Friday 8 October 2010 in an article also authored by Adam Cresswell. CLICK HERE
These two stories are related whether we are examining cancer healing miracles of Mary McKillop by religious means or patients with advanced cancer who claim to have been cured by lifestyle and meditation, thus creating the link to a spiritual intervention causing the healing.
Here is where the waters muddy – Are miraculous acts of healing associated with innate, natural biological responses and can these be triggered at a point in time when faced with death? Intangibles such as faith, will to live, love, hope, inspiration may weave a complex partnership between biology and spirit reaching a place where the criteria for healing can come together – AKA The Spontaneous Remission.
The Australian quotes Sydney oncologist David Bell, co-wrote a book on so-called spontaneous remission. He said he knew of about 400 confirmed cases worldwide over the past 150 years.
For hundreds of years, the phenomenon of spontaneous remission has fascinated the greatest minds in cancer medicine. US researchers Caryle Hirshberg and Brendan O’Regan authored a classic which are a must have for anyone researching the subject: “Spontaneous Remission: An Annotated Bibliography“.
Continue reading “Grace Gawler – The Australian – Comments on Spontaneous Remission”
Tips From a Four-Time Cancer Survivor-Grace Gawler Reports
A regular visitor to my blog, Bob Ellal has a website and a true story worth reading. Bob’s remission was hard-earned – now 12 years after being diagnosed with stage four lymphoma in 1991 he was given six months to live. He read everything he could about people who had survived supposedly terminal illnesses. One common thread emerged— says Bob: “They utilized the mind/body connection as a complement to Western allopathic treatment. For the next six months, I was given double doses of CHOP chemotherapy to destroy the rampant disease that littered my pelvis—and that had fractured my hip.” Bob incorporated visualisation methods into his his cancer treatment program.
He adds: “At the end of six months, against all odds, I was cancer free. My oncologist was shocked. But over the following five years the lymphoma cancer would return three times.”
Few books and websites mention the challenge of dealing with setbacks and their psychological affect on patients. Bob’s shares the strategies that assisted him during these times and his spirit of survival shines through as he partners with allopathic medicine and CAM to achieve the best result possible – his survival! I recommend a visit to Bob’s website and his book for anyone going through cancer – particularly men. The book is insightful, inspiring, candid and oozes with honesty of someone who has walked the path, battled the adversities and not given in. Highly recommended! Visit Bob’s website for a great read about cancer survival. You can read sections of his book online for free as well as ordering online. the book is available for download on Smashwords for free. It’s also on Kindle for $2.99 or in hard copy.
http://www.bobellal.com
Grace Gawler – The Medical Journal of Australia article reported in the Australian by Adam Cresswell
Friday 8 October 2010 By Grace Gawler
Although a tad sensational with an image of quarreling wives – Adam Cresswell has written a courageous article that reflects the truth of Australia’s most famous cancer remission story.
To be 100% clear, this is not personal in any shape or form. What has happened over the years is a morphing and misreporting of Ian Gawler’s story so that it resembles virtually nothing of the truth of what actually occurred. The story is still amazing and it still offers hope – but there is a public responsibility to tell it accurately. I addressed these errors in the MJA 20 September 2010.
I believe that sound nutrition is important for cancer patients and I have always taught the balanced view both when I was at the Gawler Foundation and since. Many suffer gross malnutrition from bizarre diets; especially vegan diets. The more advanced the cancer – the sicker the patient can become. I also endorse the practice of relaxation therapies – but extending meditation into a curative form as proposed in the MJA 2008 version of the story is simply not responsible. Continue reading “Grace Gawler – The Medical Journal of Australia article reported in the Australian by Adam Cresswell”
Grace Gawler says ‘The Truth Shall Set Cancer Patients Free’ -at the Gawler Foundation
By Pip Cornall – Grace and Ian Gawler worked as a close knit team for three years to achieve his famous remission from bone cancer in 1978. This was remarkable in those days.
BUT – from the moment the first incorrect telling of their story appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) followed by an article in the Adelaide Advertiser – THINGS went from bad to worse. The MJA article gave it credibility.
The victims were the myriads of cancer patients who tried to emulate the incorrect version – namely that meditation and vegan diet cured his bone cancer after all other conventional treatments failed. Grace was deeply concerned that the story she was intimately involved in had been so misreported.
Over the decades the volumes of cancer patients following the ‘myth’ grew because of massive media coverage. Grace tried to set the record straight but the media refused to tell her story.
NOW – 32 years later – The Australian, the nations primary newspaper, has run her corrected account of their cancer healing story – albeit as papers do – somewhat sensationalized – portrayed as a fight between wives.
Nevertheless – Grace is elated – the truth is finally told – it is not personal – it is a moral neccessity to tell the correct story. Because the story was incorrect from the outset oncologists and practitioners like Grace have to pick up the pieces when emaciated, immune compromised patients limp in to our practices after extreme diets and long meditations have failed – the time spent in ‘experimenting with such ‘alternative’ treatments is critical because all the while the cancer spreads – click here to read the article.
Chapters of Grace’s self published book – Grace Grit and Gratitude are available in past posts on this site – they detail what actually happened
For more information see www.gracegawler.com – press media kit
Grace Gawler says 'The Truth Shall Set Cancer Patients Free' -at the Gawler Foundation
By Pip Cornall – Grace and Ian Gawler worked as a close knit team for three years to achieve his famous remission from bone cancer in 1978. This was remarkable in those days.
BUT – from the moment the first incorrect telling of their story appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) followed by an article in the Adelaide Advertiser – THINGS went from bad to worse. The MJA article gave it credibility.
The victims were the myriads of cancer patients who tried to emulate the incorrect version – namely that meditation and vegan diet cured his bone cancer after all other conventional treatments failed. Grace was deeply concerned that the story she was intimately involved in had been so misreported.
Over the decades the volumes of cancer patients following the ‘myth’ grew because of massive media coverage. Grace tried to set the record straight but the media refused to tell her story.
NOW – 32 years later – The Australian, the nations primary newspaper, has run her corrected account of their cancer healing story – albeit as papers do – somewhat sensationalized – portrayed as a fight between wives.
Nevertheless – Grace is elated – the truth is finally told – it is not personal – it is a moral neccessity to tell the correct story. Because the story was incorrect from the outset oncologists and practitioners like Grace have to pick up the pieces when emaciated, immune compromised patients limp in to our practices after extreme diets and long meditations have failed – the time spent in ‘experimenting with such ‘alternative’ treatments is critical because all the while the cancer spreads – click here to read the article.
Chapters of Grace’s self published book – Grace Grit and Gratitude are available in past posts on this site – they detail what actually happened
For more information see www.gracegawler.com – press media kit
The Gawler Story – Why Correcting a Misreported Case of Cancer Remission is in the Public Interest
My recently published letter in The Medical Journal of Australia highlights the need for a makeover of the alternative and complementary cancer movements not only in Australia but worldwide. In recent years there has been a groundswell of cancer entrepreneurs – some who claim to have recovered from it by natural means and others that have never had cancer but espouse they know how to treat it. I believe that everyone who places themselves in the public area of cancer cures, must come under scrutiny regarding accuracy/legitimacy of their claims.
For those who know me – I am eternal optimist and possibility thinker and I am well aware of all the facets of the intangibles and unknown that can surround unexpected recoveries and remissions. However, where possible we must all do our due diligence on gathering as much information – medical and otherwise to support any claims. Why? Because people’s lives depend on it!
With our case being so unbelievably misreported in an article in the Medical Journal of Australia – It shows that as well as the CAM movement, that all systems of medicine should be on alert for people misreporting medical events.
“Patients at Risk from Inaccurate Clinical Reporting in a High-Profile Story: Comment and Corrections’ 20 September 2010 MJA Volume 193 Number 6 20 September 2010- pp 371-372
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/193_06_200910/letters_200910_fm-1.html
Furthermore, if you look at the sales figures for the myriad of cancer-cure books, CDs and products – we are looking at a billion dollar industry. Many of these people do not work at the coalface of cancer and do not see the results of misinformation. As I have matured in my self and work, and as my experience has increased – I now see the truth in what some oncologists, considered cynics at the time: were saying 20-30 years ago when the tsunami of CAM was on the rise.
Recently I had a another “cancer-cure-all” blurb arrive in my email inbox – now almost a daily event. The advertisement said Amazing Non-Toxic Liquid Kills Cancer Cells. Its cancer-killing ability was also confirmed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute. As I am prone to do with every “cure” promotion, I checked out the quotes and did the research, finding it to be very flaky indeed. The new wave or 2010 style of alternative cancer-cure promo is far more sophisticated than in the past and attempts to blind the recipient with psuedoscience disguised as science.
Next time something like this arrives on your email. Look at the quotes from reputable sources then use your internet to check it out. Another recent email blurb advertised ” Try this product – 90 day risk free”. Risk-free? Is it?
It is difficult because most people aren’t trained to disssect many of the articles & books that appear in the popular media. Yes we need free speech and free choice – but with cancer on the rise – we need some guildelines and criteria by which people can assess fact from fiction and myth from reality. I intend to develop such a book/ebook of guildelines and make it available at no cost. The great thing about having a health promotion charity again is that I will have access to resources that will enable me to work in the way that I originally thought when I pioneered this supportive care work in the early eighties.
In the meantime, my best advice based on 35+ years in the cancer healing arena, follows…. Think carefully, do your own research, be treated as an individual (not a one size fits all approach) and go by your gut feeling. Dont’ throw out mainstream medicine and use the best of complementary approaches – especially the safe tactile therapies eg massage, Reiki for example; methods that don’t cost the earth, bring relief and help to de-stress. Important in healing is the element of one-to-one human contact, listening, understanding and compassion are all therapeutic! Avoid buckets of costly supplements & fancy hi tech machines that diagnose & treat and take away the human element. More on this again soon.
Go Well…Grace
The Role of Meditation in a High Profile Cancer Remission
The following extracts from my memoirs Grace, Grit and Gratitude (self-published Oct 2008) aims to set right the long held concept that meditation and a vegan diet played a major role in Ian Gawler’s cancer cure.
For many years I have been trying somewhat unsuccessfully to correct published accounts of our story, however the true story as revealed, may hold many more possibilities, inspiration and research options for those going through the cancer experience.
To clarify, Ian first saw Ainslie Meares 12 December 1975 – when a bony metastasis was diagnosed in his right groin. Ian spent 6 weeks under Meares meditation directives – deteriorating significantly during that time; so much so that we abandoned his groups and his technique; choosing to explore other options. There has been much confusion about this point because in 1978 Meares erroneously reported Ian’s medical history, distorting the timeline and making it appear that Ian had attended his sessions when his cancer was widespread. Many may have seen the now famous pictures first published in You Can Conquer Cancer. These are not pictures taken when Ian first saw Meares (Dec 1975) but were taken July 1977 – 19 months after he first saw Meares. At that time Ian was quite well – but was carrying an enormous tumour load.
Meditation and diet had not impacted the cancer growth – but perhaps there was a silent healer within; unknown to us until Ian’s remission June 30 1978. More about that later.
In brief Meares’ error has provided the foundation for the volumes of misreporting of Ian Gawler’s remission.
February 1976:
Regarding Meditation-From my memoirs
“…..Ian and I knew how bad it was ‘24-7’, and that he would soon die meditating if we did not do something else, so that day marked the ending of our formal relationship with Ainslie Meares. I did not see him again, but Ian kept in touch with him from time-to-time.
While meditation is a wonderful tool that supports patients in many ways, it did not play the most significant role in Ian’s remission. How do I know? Simply because I was there, I was present before, during and after his cancer and believe my view to be accurate. During our darkest days when Ian’s prognosis was two to three weeks to live, an emaciated, pain riddled and rapidly deteriorating Ian kept hoping that Meares’ technique would be the turning point.
Our lives became a hellish continuum of sleepless nights, enemas and eventually morphine when the pain was beyond the pail. Weeks passed and as he tried and tried to meditate, day by day he became immobile, more ill and in greater pain such that I had to confront Meares on the ‘just keep meditating’ issue.
Ian had followed reluctantly but he knew that although meditation was helping him spiritually, it was not having the desired affects physically. He so much wanted to believe that meditation could cure; but the facts spoke for themselves; his condition was deteriorating at an alarming speed and had we not tried out other treatments at that time; he would certainly have died.
We went on to discover the pathways of acupuncture and alternative medicine with a qualified general practitioner, which thankfully brought the first small window of pain relief. Ian’s pain had clearly become his disease and while it continued, he deteriorated so that all other therapies apart from large doses of love had little benefit. His pain absorbed every ounce of energy he had so that there was nothing left to assist his healing.”
After Ian’s remission in 1978:
PP 218-219 Grace, Grit and Gratitude
“An article that appeared in the Medical Journal of Australia saw our lives take a dramatic turn when a wave of media mayhem began due to an article titled ‘Regression of Osteogenic Sarcoma Associated with Intensive Meditation’ that appeared in The Medical Journal of Australia. (October 21, 1978)
The report summarized our healing journey in a few paragraphs and came as a complete surprise to me—I had not known about the release and publication, and felt flabbergasted by its content. The article begins “The patient aged 25 underwent a mid thigh amputation for osteogenic sarcoma, 11 months before he first saw me 21/2 years ago. He had visible bony lumps of about 2 cm in diameter growing from ribs, sternum and the crest of the ileum, and was coughing up small quantities of blood in which he said he could feel small spicules of bone…. etc.”
The article caused a media sensation, proposing a link between intensive meditation and remission of Ian’s cancer. However, as I was an intimate part of Ian’s cancer journey from the beginning and his sole carer, I could not make any sense of Meares’ version of our story.
Throughout Ian’s journey, I had documented and kept photographic records. My memories as the person who carried the daily loads during Ian’s illness were vivid, and I have no doubt that Ian’s history would have turned out differently, had we not moved on and incorporated other therapies other than meditation. I believe, as did doctors at the time, that his obituary, rather than an abstract about his recovery would have followed, had we not visited the Philippines. The supportive care, faith and love in action that we found there, inspired Ian; reconnecting him with his will to live, no doubt an element that helped him to survive.
I felt a weighing disappointment inside my body as I read the published case report, as if someone had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. It was too late, our arduous healing journey now broadcast to the media, was an unacceptable misrepresentation that no doubt would be difficult to correct. I was angry that no one had consulted or informed me about the appearance of the abstract nor given the opportunity to review it before publication. I did not know what to do when our efforts were misreported and trivialised. Torn between acquiescence and accuracy, I had an ethical crisis. It was too late!
As predicted, the media soon ran the meditation cures cancer story while I became a voice lost in the wilderness. My concern was for the cancer population and their carers, a desperate group I had come to know well. I knew that patients and partners would try to replicate our story and I knew the unspoken hardships and pitfalls they would endure if they tried to assume our roles. Without our veterinary/medical knowledge, we could not have managed our situation—nor could we have made the crucial choices required when let down by therapy after therapy that failed us. More coming soon….
The Grace Gawler Story – by Pip Cornall
What happened to Grace Gawler?
I run this story again because after years of high profile pioneering work with cancer patients at the Gawler Foundation in the 80’s and 90’s, Grace Gawler was invisiblised when her marriage ended.
Many ex-cancer patients whom she helped and guided for years no longer knew how to contact her.
This is a remarkable story about a great woman – please pass it around – Pip Cornall
Early Years:
Grace’s name is recognised worldwide in connection with therapeutic supportive care approaches for people who are dealing with cancer or other life threatening illness. She won the respect of many when just 21; she stepped into the support- care role for her boyfriend who was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma – a highly malignant bone cancer that 30 years ago had little hope of cure; especially when secondary cancer appeared. He would later become Australia’s most recognised cancer survivor.
They had been working in a veterinary clinic together in the country town of Bacchus Marsh in Victoria when he was diagnosed in 1974 In 1975 he had a full leg amputation and both their lives were changed forever. Secondary cancer appeared eleven months later. Despite an intensive dietary approach (Gerson) and intensive meditation – his condition deteriorated. Continue reading “The Grace Gawler Story – by Pip Cornall”
Integrated Cancer Solutions?
What is Integrated Cancer Solutions? by Pip Cornall
NB: Before you go any further be sure to read 11 month old Baxter’s amazing story (see below)
What is Integrated Cancer Solutions?
The supportive care cancer medicine pioneering life work of Grace Gawler inspires the new institute at Hope Island, Qld.
What I find remarkable is Grace’s ability as a real team player/co-ordinator as she constantly liaises between patient, GPs, oncologists, pathology, family, care givers and anyone else involved in the successful outcome of her patients. Continue reading “Integrated Cancer Solutions?”