<no subject>

[Guest guest]

The son of an old friend of mine has fought an intermittent battle with

cancer which hasn't been going too well lately. He sent me the following

letter. The gist of it is that he's looking for effective alternatives to

mainstream medicine, preferably based on someone¹s direct experience. If you

have any suggestions for him, please email him directly. The reason I don¹t

consider this totally off topic is that your loving attention is a powerful

force, so even if he doesn¹t get concrete suggestions, I feel that something

good will come from posting this. Thanks.

 

------ Forwarded Message

David Adelson <david_adelson

Wed, 17 Sep 2003 18:10:28 -0400

rick

our son Jefren

 

Hi Rick,

I wanted to keep you all abreast of what was happening with our oldest

son Jefren, who's 20 now. You probably remember he had cancer when he

was 13. Last February he ended up in the hospital and was diagnosed

with terminal cancer. It was a surprise to us, since he'd been

cancer-free for six years. The prognosis was lousy -- with chemo the

doctor told us he had a 40% chance of extending his life for six months

to up to 10 years. Jefren opted not to do chemo and we agreed, since it

would cause so much discomfort and offered so little hope. We've been

trying different alternative health modalities that have, in others,

cured or contained cancer.

 

It's interesting to note that 6 weeks after Jefren left the hospital,

he was in better health than when he first went to the doctor. Whatever

he was doing had shrunk the tumor and cleared out the rest of his

chest. The doctor was so stunned, he had to look twice at the x-ray to

make sure it was Jefren's. Since then, he has been maintaining but

growing progressively worse.

 

It's now seven months later. Jefren just had his last check-up Friday,

and it was a good news/bad news thing. The bad news is that the mass in

his lung is larger and he hasn't been feeling well at all. The good

news: the doctor commented on how unusual the progress of the disease

has been. He had thought it would have moved much more quickly, instead

of the slow pace it's taken for the mass to enlarge. I finally asked

the question we hadn't wanted to before: Given where he was last

February, what would you have thought would have happened by now? The

doctor said, in tactful doctor-speak, that he thought the cancer would

have ripped through Jefren's system and that it would be everywhere, if

he was even still around.

 

So, we must be doing something right, since the cancer is contained and

growing only slowly for a very aggressive cancer. We are intensifying

his treatments in hopes of not only slowing down the progress of the

disease, but even reversing it.

 

If you have any concrete suggestions of things that have worked well

for others with cancer, please let us know. There are so many

alternatives out there -- we may or may not have already tried it. And

please, prayers and good wishes will be welcome. We're maintaining a

positive, upbeat outlook, and emotionally, Jefren is doing great. He's

growing into a remarkable being.

 

Could you please let as many people as you are comfortable with (and

who know us) about this? We hardly have any Movement e-mail addresses

anymore. Thanks so much.

 

Hope you are well and problem-free.

Thanks so much,

David