Controversy – to speak or not to speak? And amazing photographic proof.

It is a difficult thing this. Six years ago, the accuracy of my cancer diagnosis was challenged by 2 oncologists. They put forward a hypothesis that the secondary cancer that created large lesions throughout my body, and from which I recovered, was not actually cancer at all – just tuberculosis (TB).

This is what they called TB – photos of my chest in 1976 showing extensive secondary bone cancer protruding from my sternum (the boney part in the middle of the chest). These lesions were solid bone - as hard as any bone in your body - the consequence of secondary bone cancer spreading.

The truth is that I did have both. I did develop secondary osteo-genic sarcoma first, and this was complicated later by a TB infection (in my left lung only) that most likely started after I had chemotherapy for the cancer, and that chemotherapy actually weakened my immune system.

Scientifically, the doctors were quite within their rights to put forward the TB only hypothesis. Not sure what their motive really was, but in the event, their challenge and the way it was reported in the Press appeared to attack not only my own credibility, but also that of the lifestyle based cancer support work I have been involved with for over 35 years.

The dilemma at the time was whether or not to respond in public to the hypothesis. 
My concern was that if it was not made completely clear that the hypothesis was wrong, then sections of the public might become confused and conclude that if the diagnosis was incorrect, then the work itself was in some way invalid.

This despite the fact that the work had been clearly shown to be helping so many people for over 30 years by the time this controversy unfolded. Clearly the validity of the work stands in its own right and is not dependent of my own personal medical history, but clearly also, the two are intertwined to some degree in the public view.

So I did respond in an attempt to prove the facts. Unfortunately, the press at the time seemed more intent on fueling controversy than establishing the truth.

Despite clear evidence the “TB only” hypothesis was incorrect, there has been no admition from the doctors concerned that they were wrong, and no clear statement in the scientific or popular Press they were incorrect and that I did in fact undoubtedly have secondary cancer.

Therefore, in some sections of the community, confusion was created and has lingered, some confidence has been lost, and some people in the ensuing years have stepped back from engaging with self-help programs – a very regrettable outcome.

Hence the difficulty. Given Google’s capacity to enable old material to remain prominent on the net for years, this uncertainty carries on in the minds of some. So do I just wear it as it were, or do I continue to respond?

Many suggest in these types of situations not to respond. There is good spiritual advice to simply accept personal criticism – good, sound advice. The PR spin doctors often recommend to keep quiet in the face of work criticism.
.
Yet six years after all this was first aired, there still seems to be some uncertainty amidst some sections of the community. It is of deep concern that it seems to be causing some people in need to be standing back and missing out on what could help them; maybe even missing out on what could make the difference for them between life and death. So what to do?

An invitation to speak
In the lead up to presenting a meditation retreat and then a specific residential program for people affected by cancer in New Zealand, I was invited recently to speak with Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand.

There was no prior indication of what type of interview she  had in mind.

Kim is a senior and well-respected journalist who has a reputation for being “rigorous”. She prepares thoroughly, is very well informed and can be confronting.

Kim has a huge following of people who love the way she interrogates some, dismantles others and basically exposes people for what they are. She can be quite daunting! Alternatively, she also has a great capacity to be light and witty.

Having been interviewed by Kim some years ago on TV, I found her interrogative style provided an excellent forum in which to answer the questions many would think about our work, but maybe not have the gumption to ask for themselves. So I agreed to this recent radio interview, strapped myself in and awaited what would happen…

Shall we say it was lively? Kim dived straight into all the controversies with some vigor! From the diagnosis to coffee enemas and on to the basic relevance of the self help approach in cancer medicine - and many parts in between.

The Radio New Zealand website has published a synopsis of the interview, and so I have quoted it directly here for you to read. Or you can link to the podcast and hear the whole interview :

CLICK HERE .
If the link does not work, put this into your search engine http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201821004

Thanks for the kind feedback and support that has been offered by many who have listened to it already; it seems many appreciated what they perceived to be the benefit of my meditation practice enabling a calm manner and voice to endure under tough questioning.

The proof of the secondary cancer diagnosis
What the synopsis has not included is the discussion around a key question asked during the interview – How can you be sure your diagnosis was accurate and the TB only hypothesis was false?

In another blog, 11 points have been recorded that clearly establish the truth of the secondary cancer diagnosis. The most incontrovertible of these in my opinion concerns the fact that I was treated with chemotherapy, and what the consequences of that treatment were.

The chemotherapy I received has no known activity against TB. This means it could not cause TB lesions to shrink. Also, as chemotherapy dampens the immune system, the world authority on TB – Dr Jonathan Streeton- who treated my TB was adamant that given how widespread my lesions were, if they had been TB, with no defences to resist it, the TB would have become rampant, and he was convinced I would have been overwhelmed with infection and died.

The facts of what did happen during the course of my chemotherapy are very clear. Firstly I did not get worse. Nor did I actually die! Secondly, the cancer actually did shrink in response to the chemo; not a great deal, but enough to be clear that it was having some effect on the cancer, not flaring up and aggravating TB.

This shrinkage was confirmed by photos taken at the time in a series once each month – and added below - along with a letter I have retained from the treating oncologist at the time who actually measured and recorded the size of the visible lesions on my chest at the start and the end of the course of chemotherapy.

What would you do?
So I must say I am curious… What do you think? Better to keep quiet? Or better to speak up? My sense is that this issue may well keep reappearing, at least for a while. I may be asked about it again in the future. What would you do?

The photographic proof
1. Photo of my chest taken at the start of 10 weeks of chemotherapy treatment - October 1976.

2. The date when the above photo was taken has been questioned by some, but it comes from the days when Kodak actually printed the dates of printing on the photo’s reverse, so just to be completely clear, here is the reverse with the date made clear.

3. Three groups of sequential photos taken monthly of my chest by my first wife from the start of chemotherapy - showing a clear response to that treatment that continued on until all the lesions had gone 18 months later. The dates were written at the time under each photo, but these dates  are not so clear when reproduced here.

4 Photo of my chest free of lesions taken on 25th April 1978 (printed May 1978)

5. Reverse of the photo above showing its date clearly confirmed.

Anyway, for today, here we go again – way Out on a Limb this time with the verbatim transcript copied directly from the Radio New Zealand website, but first



Thought for the day

Remembering that you are going to die 
Is the best way I know 

To avoid the trap of thinking 
You have something to lose.

You are already naked.

There is no reason not to follow your heart.


Steve Jobs



Dr Ian Gawler, who is in New Zealand with his wife Dr Ruth Gawler to run courses including a residential programme, talks with Kim Hill.

A synopsis from the interview put to air Saturday 22nd October 2016. 

And here is the link – CLICK HERE .
If the link does not work, put this into your search engine http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201821004

Dr Ian Gawler is one of Australia's most experienced authorities on mind-body medicine and meditation.

He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, or bone cancer, over 40 years ago. His right leg was amputated, and then he was told the cancer had metastasised into a lung, his pelvis and his spine. He was given only two weeks to live.

That diagnosis and Dr Gawler’s claim to be the only person in the world to survive secondary osteosarcoma have come under scrutiny in Australia. He has become the centre of an argument about the ethics of the promotion of the mind’s ability to cure cancer. 

Dr Gawler says that after his diagnosis with osteosarcoma in 1975, he got the best medical advice he could, as well as scouring medical libraries. He could find no evidence of anyone living more than six months with a condition such as he had.

“The diagnosis was well established and the prognosis was very grim.”

He then had chemotherapy, which he says was not meant to be curative.

“It was meant to be palliative and buy me some time. And I think that’s what it did – it bought me enough time to get the benefit of these other things and I’m here talking to you now.”

Yet Dr Gawler wants to make it clear he’s not anti-science or anti-medicine.
“That’s never been the case. I’ve always been interested in how you get the best out of both worlds."

Cancer treatment has three aspects, as he sees it – getting the best medical help you can, looking at natural and complementary therapies that might be useful and, most importantly, doing what you can do for yourself.

He believes that through lifestyle changes “applied fairly intensively” people can greatly contribute to their own recovery and wellbeing, alongside other treatments they may be getting.

He says he's troubled that even though one of the major potential causes of cancer is bad diet, many doctors still get virtually no training in nutrition. Coming from a veterinary background himself, therapeutic nutrition makes very obvious sense.

“You go to the vet with a pet and one of the first things you’ll always be asked is ‘What are you feeding your dog or your cat?’ Because it’s important.
"Most people would go to a GP repeatedly and never be asked that question because the GPs for some reason just aren’t trained in nutrition, they don’t value it.”

When you get heart disease, a doctor will tell you at the first appointment how lifestyle change can have a positive effect on your disease, he says.
The fact doctors don't often have such conversations at the time of cancer diagnosis is “an incredible error of omission,” Dr Gawler says.

“In cancer medicine most patients aren’t being advised by the doctors that what they do with their lifestyle can have a significant impact on the future of their condition.”

A diet that aids recovery from cancer is anti-inflammatory and regenerative, he says.

“Having a sensible approach to nutrition and recognising what you eat has a direct impact on your health and your wellbeing and specifically your capacity to heal – that should be normalised, that should be a given.”

“At the very least get on to a diet that’s not going to be provoking the cancer more.”

He guesses his own cancer was caused by a "very high-meat diet" and his "typical cancer prone personality" (also known as the C-type personality).

“I’ve had close connection with about 20,000 cancer patients over these past years. I would say of those at least 90 percent would recognise this cancer-prone personality.”

So what is this personality type?

“Their way of stress management is to try and please people, to be compliant. They tend to be people who have difficulty saying no to requests and they tend to internalise their emotions.

"They’re not the type of people who get angry. They’re the type of people who like to keep the peace and they make a lot of effort to do that. They put other people ahead of themselves to the detriment of themselves.”

Dr Gawler recommends people diagnosed with a major illness start doing what they can to live as healthily and happily as possible. Being active in your own treatment can reverse some of the fear, he says, and even help people die peacefully.

“I’ve seen people who’ve had really advanced cancer, who’ve died of that cancer and who’ve died with virtually no symptoms – no pain, no difficulty – they’ve just died. They died well. They died without a lot of pain, they died in a good state of mind. They died knowing that they’d done all that they could.”

Again, here is the link – – CLICK HERE .
If the link does not work, put this into your search engine http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201821004

A COUPLE OF CLARIFICATIONS FROM THE INTERVIEW
1. I have never actually claimed to be the only person in the world to recover from secondary osteogenic sarcoma as is stated in the synopsis.

What I have said is that when diagnosed with secondary osteogenic sarcoma in 1975, I could find no records in the medical literature of that day of anyone surviving more than 6 months. This latter fact is reported in the synopsis.

2. It could be misleading that it is said in the synopsis that my cancer “was caused by a "very high-meat diet" and his "typical cancer prone personality””.

Cancer is a multifactorial, chronic degenerative disease. While i agree that the 2 issues listed were significant, to be clear, there were other issues as well, not just those two. If you are interested, in You Can Conquer Cancer there is a full chapter on what i regard as the main causes of cancer, including detail of the cancer prone personality.

RELATED BLOG
Ian Gawler's diagnosis - if it looks like a duck... Lists the 11 pieces of medical evidence that clearly establish my diagnosis of secondary osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and dismiss the TB only hypothesis.

A major milestone - what is there to learn?

Let us travel back in time together. 1981. September the 16th. Thirty people have gathered in a large suburban house in Riversdale Rd, Hawthorn, Melbourne. The mood is subdued, yet infused with a palpable trace of hope. Enough hope for there to be a sense of excitement in the air; as if something extra-ordinary – as in out of the ordinary – is about to commence.

For this is the first meeting of the Melbourne Cancer Support Group. A world’s first where the aim is not just to help those in attendance to cope better with all the challenges cancer is throwing at them, and not just to feel better – although either would be worthwhile in itself.

No, the sense of hope that is in the air is based on a premise that is radical for the early eighties. The premise is that by attending, people will learn how to improve their chances of survival. We will be talking of finding a pathway to a cure when mainstream medicine says there is none.

Radical for then; still radical for now. Patients, the families and friends helping themselves. Not in opposition to the medical mainstream; but not abandoning hope when none is offered from that direction. Instead, looking inwards and realizing the potential for self healing. Looking to gain what we can from our own healing efforts.

On that first day, one woman deliberately chooses the one available couch. She sinks into it and props herself in a corner. This is her way of maintaining her stability. She has advanced brain cancer, a prognosis of 1 to 2 months and is the sickest person in the room; very unsteady on her feet.

This is my first ever group too, and she is so sick, she scares me a little. Most of the others look well despite the fact pretty well all of them are here as a point of last resort – this is something new after all. But this lady actually looks as if she could die during the group session. She scares me a little.

But imagine this… That lady is still alive 35 years later. She, along with another woman in the group with a slightly less difficult version of brain cancer, are 2 of the first I meet to have remarkable recoveries and convince me this new work is worth persevering with.

35 years of lifestyle-based cancer self help groups
So this week, we go way Out on a Limb once more as we recall those two and more from that first ever group that has just passed its 35th anniversary.

Nostalgic for me; not a single photographic record from those early days, but so many good memories, so many amazing people and not the occasional tough challenge, but first

                Thought for the day

          Traveller, there is no path

          The path is made by walking.


          By walking you make a path

         And turning, you look back

         At a way you will never tread again.


         Traveller, there is no road 

         Only wakes in the sea.

                          Antonio Machado


Jan’s uneventful but spectacular recovery
Of the two ladies with brain tumours, the one with the lesser of the symptoms, let us call her Jan, makes a complete and uneventful recovery. She came with her partner, they both embraced the basic message and believed she could recover.

Together, they took up on the therapeutic nutrition with diligence, meditated intensively, took a positive approach to all they did and found new meaning and joy in life through the illness.

Jan made a spectacularly uneventful recovery without any medical treatment. She just got better every week until repeat scans showed she was cancer free.

By the way, Jan had been told by her well meaning and caring doctors that there was no effective treatment available to her, that there was nothing more they could do for her; nothing she could do except go home, get her affairs in order and seek Palliative Care when things got really bad.

Mary’s slow and labored recovery
By contrast the woman in the couch, lets call her Mary, had many ups and downs and nearly did die several times over the next 12 months. I saw more of Mary through necessity and came to know her well.

Mary was determined to recover as she had a young daughter to care for. Amazingly, each time she
fell in a hole, she seemed to find a way through – sometimes via something new she learnt from me, sometimes with help from others. For example, Mary was one of the first I observed who responded well at a critical time to intravenous Vitamin C.

But again, having been given the same story before she joined the group by her treating doctors, “there is nothing more we can do for you”, and having had no medical treatment, around 12 months later Mary was confirmed by scans to be cancer free.

What happened over the next few years to these two women was truly remarkable. One died in extraordinary circumstances and taught me perhaps more than anyone about the need to address a particular aspect of cancer recovery, while the other survived and is still alive despite having had to face the most extraordinary of circumstances.

So next week, Part 2 – What is involved in ongoing, long-term cancer survival.


COMING RETREATS AND TRAININGS

Meditation Retreats
Ruth and I, with the help of Liz Stillwell, will personally lead our next 7 day meditation retreat in New Zealand :  October 22 - 28.

Next Aussie one, April 2017 in the Yarra Valley.

In NZ, we will give attention to the major experiences of deeper meditation – stillness, clarity and bliss. We will explore these states experientially and examine their relevance in an ongoing and satisfying meditation practice.

This promises to be one of the very best retreats – well worth travelling from Australia to attend, or making the journey to the glorious Mana Retreat Centre from anywhere around New Zealand.

ALL DETAILS – CLICK HERE

Meditation Teacher Training 
The program - October 10 - 14 - may be fully booked already – check with the office.
Next year's dates will be available very soon...

ALL DETAILS – CLICK HERE

Specific cancer residential programs 

8 days In Wanaka New Zealand 
- November 3 - 10
This is a comprehensive program focusing on activating and targeting the immune system, accelerating healing, much more on a therapeutic lifestyle, along with a range of strategies for heightening emotional health and wellbeing.

Again we will have the incomparable help of Liz Stillwell and the amazing Stew Burt - the ideal starting point for everyone affected by cancer.

5 days in the Yarra Valley : November 14 - 18
More designed as a follow-up cancer program for those who have done a previous program with Ruth and myself, the Foundation, or one of its affiliates. Call the Foundation for details of eligibility.

ALL DETAILS – CLICK HERE

The 2 most important things I have learnt

Tomorrow, the 9th of January, is a major anniversary. It will be 40 years since my leg was amputated.

Bittersweet.

So much has changed for the better over the last 40 years and speaking personally, my whole perception of life, my whole experience of life has changed for the better. But quite a price.

On reflection, the two most important things I have learnt are

1. Life is incredibly precious

2. Life is incredibly fragile

How wonderful for those who while still in good health and without having to be provoked by such a major event like mine, recognise these two facts - how precious life is and how fragile it is - and as a consequence, use their life to full advantage.

Here, from the diary entries of those days as they appeared in my biography The Dragon’s Blessing, I share the letter I wrote to my leg and something of the times.

But first

Thought for the Day

Remembering that you are going to die 

Is the best way I know 
to avoid 

The trap of thinking you have something to lose.


You are already naked.


There is no reason not to follow your heart.


Steve Jobs 



Wednesday, January 8, 1975 — To my leg


How well you have served me for nearly twenty-five years. I remember long treks through the mountains of Gippsland and how you led the way to jump over six-feet-four. That soaring feeling you gave rise to as you swept up into the air, leading the rest of my body into flight. Just the joy of running was so dear. I was fortunate you were so strong and coordinated. 

I guess I shall never again feel my mobility to be normal.

You carry scars of days gone by. Below the knee is a small raised up thickening of skin that reminds me of a tip in Longueville, Sydney. How when a friend had his leg caught in the rubbish, you carried me running half a mile for help and only then let on that you were bleeding so badly. 

On the knee itself is a jagged, ill-defined, purplish scar. A reminder of that foul football match at Sebastopol [near Ballarat] the year before last. It took weeks to get all the gravel out. 

There are two other scars on the lower leg which are reminders of hockey days, flying sticks and pain that was not so easily subdued. More recently there is the bandaged biopsy site and its resultant swelling.

My mind wanders over the many happy times. There are no complaints as the only time you fell short of my expectations was when my pride and ambitions were too great.

That you are to be lost to me in a few hours leaves me feeling empty. I feel drained of feeling. I hope I still go forward with expectation. I am apprehensive and fear I may shrink before the challenge. So melancholy. I must lift my spirits.

Ian spent most of the rest of the day in quiet, melancholic but calm contemplation and redoubled his efforts to meditate in an effort to buoy himself up. Raised as an Anglican he remembered earlier times when repeating the Lord’s Prayer over and over as a twelve- year-old, he had entered the early stages of a meditative state—and it was this technique he returned to once more that day.

He also remembered the advice of Dr Raynor Johnson about meditation from a series of lectures he had given at veterinary school that had made a deep impression on Ian. Johnson had talked of using a mantra, notably the Lord’s Prayer, in repetition as a skillful way to focus the mind and keep it from wandering.

I am repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and with eyes closed, trying to fix my concentration between my eyes and to keep my mind clear. The only thing that has any certainty is the repetition of the Prayer. Most of the time thoughts come bursting in over the top of it, cascading ideas through my head. I am still full of resolve, but the more imperfections I see, the more awesome the task.

The prayer and his journal were his only anchors at a time when many might have dropped into bottomless depths of utter despair, or worse, succumbed to a blind and terrible panic.

Ian remained calm as he was wheeled to his appointment with the surgeons.

I went down to an anaesthetic room where I had to wait about 20 minutes. The delay was good as it gave me time to set my mind at rest and pray for strength. After being transferred from my bed onto a narrower table, a blanket was draped over my surgery gown and I was left to wait.

The room itself was quite narrow and cluttered. My head was at its entrance, my feet pointed towards the operating theatre. At my left stood the anaesthetic machine in all its pseudo complexity. On the walls beside this were benches stacked with intravenous fluids, same as the ones we use. 

Against the opposite wall was a stark bench and cupboard with who knows what in it. From the ceiling hung suspended a huge operating light on articulated beams. There were hinged swinging doors into the operating theatre and, periodically, as people came and went, I caught a glimpse of more lights all focused on the operating table.

Finally my anaesthetist arrived, appearing somewhat apprehensive. I still cannot decide if she was just unsure how to conduct herself with someone who was about to lose a leg or if she was concerned with the technical aspects of the coming procedure . . .

I was soon wheeled into the surgery and manhandled onto the operating table. Then there was much slapping of my left hand by the anaesthetist, presumably to get a vein up. This annoyed me, being quite unpleasant. Anyway, finally we were under way.

I tried to keep meditating and praying as I went under . . .

Mr John Doyle, assisted by Mr Kevin King, amputated Ian’s right leg at the hip. It was barely two weeks after Ian had first realised, on the Bacchus Marsh oval, that something might be seriously awry.

‘It was a very difficult and long operation,’ says Mr Doyle, now retired, reading from his notes from the operation. The surgery took almost three hours.

‘Most amputations are just below the knee or just above the knee,’ he says. ‘This was through the hip joint. I don’t think I’d ever done a disarticulation through the hip at that stage. These things are pretty uncommon. Kevin had done two, which is why we joined forces.’

RESOURCE 

The Dragon’s Blessing by Guy Allenby – the official biography

2015 CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Full details are on the website, click here

FIRST MEDITATION RETREAT
Meditation in the Forest        March 27th to April 2nd  2015

During this meditation retreat, we will be focusing upon the deeper stillness of meditation. We will explore the theory, but moreso, the actual practices that help us to go beyond the activity of the thinking mind into a more direct and profound experience of the still mind.

Deep, natural peace. A calm and clear mind. So many possibilities follow…..

FULL DETAILS Click here 

FIRST SPECIFIC CANCER PROGRAM

CANCER and BEYOND  May 2015   Monday 4th at 11am to Friday 8th at 2pm

Five Day Residential Follow-up Program at the Gawler Foundation in the Yarra Valley

This program is specifically designed for those with cancer along with their support people who have attended a previous Gawler Foundation program or equivalent such as with Sabina Rabold, CSWA, Cancer Care SA, CanLive NZ, or with the Gawlers

A unique opportunity to meet with like-minded people once again, to consolidate what you already know, to learn more from the combined knowledge, experience and wisdom of Ian and Ruth, to reaffirm your good intentions, and to go home refreshed and revitalised.

FULL DETAILS Click here

Ian Gawler on ABC TV; Compass - A Good Life

This week, unadulterated good news. ABC television with their presenter Geraldine Doogue and the Compass team made a series investigating the question “what makes for a good life?” They featured my story and reflections in one of three half hour programs.

In compiling this documentary, they managed to cover my history, work and beliefs. They have now granted permission (for a modest fee which we paid - it is free for you) making the program available for public viewing via my website.

This is probably the best representation of what I do, how I came to be doing it and the context in which it all sits. Some of you may have seen it when it first came out in 2009. If not, or if you care to re-view it or share it with someone interested in this work, please follow the link below.

Also this week more news of the 8 day cancer residential program Ruth and I have been invited to present in Auckland New Zealand - Aussies welcome!,  but first

Thought for the day

Conscience is the inner voice 
Which warns us that someone might be looking. 

The thing that feels bad 
When everything else feels good.
             
                          Unknown author








The Compass TV program, Ian Gawler – a Good Life was one of a three part series examining the question of what makes for a good life through the life stories of 3 Australians, yours truly included.

Compass obtained and reproduced some cool old archival footage including me in my veterinary days, some of the early cancer groups from 1983, the famous (or is that infamous) Couchman Show of 1989 where I was challenged by medical adversaries to present my 50 best cases for review (which I did but the review collapsed on the pretext that no funding was available, so I published those people’s stories in the book Inspiring People. It does seem remarkable that so many years down the track there is still the need to defend Lifestyle Medicine and the ability of people with cancer to learn how to help themselves).

Anyway, there are also scenes of my visit to shamanistic healers in the Philippines (where you get to see my body at its all time low weighing in at around 45Kgs) and to the Hindu mystic Sai Baba in India.

There is rare footage of Dr Ainslie Meares as he demonstrates and explains his meditation methods. Then the focus moves to more modern times with film from the Gawler Foundation’s Yarra Valley residential Living Centre including people at a cancer group there.

Woven through all this I am prompted by Geraldine Doogue’s skillful questioning to discuss the paradigm I work with and how the cancer programs particularly have developed over the years.

Being the Compass program, there is also a welcome investigation of spiritual values and meaning, and yes I do offer my thoughts very directly on what constitutes a good life.

So maybe this is something to view for those who really are interested in what I stand for, for those who may be in need of some inspiration, or those who just need a better idea of the range of options available to them.

Please do consider sharing this post and the link (it is very easy to view via the link on the homepage of my website: www.iangawler.com) and enjoy some good news!

DIRECT LINK to the Compass TV program, Ian Gawler – a Good Life 

RELATED BLOGS
Cancer survivors? Cancer thrivers

Cancer, transformation and meaning - Ilana’s story

RESOURCES
The Dragon’s Blessing – Guy Allenby : my biography – if you want the full story :)

CANCER, HEALING and WELLBEING :  16th  - 23rd  May 2014

Eight day residential program with Ruth and myself in Auckland - Aussies welcome!

Ruth and I are pleased to have been invited to new Zealand to present this 8 day cancer recovery program. The program is evidence based and will be highly experiential. We will cover the full range of Integrative Medicine options, with the emphasis on what people can do for themselves – therapeutic nutrition, exercise and meditation, emotional health, positive psychology, pain management, the search for meaning and so on.

I will personally present the majority of the content but along with Ruth, participants will have the additional support and experience of Liz Maluschnig and Stew Burt; two very experienced and committed New Zealanders.

For details on this and the other cancer related residential programs for 2014 CLICK HERE 

Less body - same person

On January 8th it will be 39 years since my right leg was amputated through the hip. For many years I noted the anniversary with a day of fasting and reflection but more recently just go about life as it unfolds.

However, this year it may be useful to go Out on a Limb in a more literal sense and share a profound insight that came courtesy of the surgery.

This is a personal experience I have not recounted so often, but it came into a conversation exploring the theme “Who am I really” during the recent meditation retreat Meditation Under the Long White Cloud in New Zealand. It seemed helpful at the time, so here it is, but first

Thought for the Day
Wherever a pain is, that is where the cure goes;
Wherever poverty is that is where provision goes.
Wherever a difficult question is that is where the answer goes;

Do not seek the water but increase your thirst,
So water may gush forth from above and below. 
                                                     Rumi

Every story has a prelude. This one begins in a room that had the unmistakable feeling of a basement. No windows. Dark. A sense of confinement. A difficult place to escape from.

It slowly became apparent that this room was the Intensive Care Unit of St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Melbourne. Amidst the wires and dials and flashing lights and the sounds of the machinery of survival; all simultaneously reassuring and disconcerting, there rose and fell the gentle sounds of life ebbing away from the man in the bed next to my own.


Severe pain does funny things to one’s thinking. As the sounds from the adjacent bed softened and ceased, the best I could do at the time was use it as motivation to survive myself. I never did find out what he died from.


But then amidst all this, the insight. It was so clear, so self evident. An insight born of an unmistakably direct, personal and undeniable experience.

I was coming back into consciousness in the ICU after being treated for an osteogenic sarcoma, a bone cancer in my mid thigh.

I had gone into the surgery being a 24 year-old veterinarian who loved working with horses and doing surgery on any animal that needed it.

I had gone into the surgery a very fit, active young man. In all probability I would have represented my State of Victoria again that year in my chosen athletic event of the decathlon.

As enough of the anaesthetic wore off from my surgery to enable me to recognise where I was and what had happened, I tentatively reached down with my right hand and felt.

Nothing. Just bandages. And pain.

But then, so quickly, the insight. It was as if in that first moment I knew how much my life had changed. No more horse work. No more decathlon. No more ease of movement as I had known it. Everything was different. Physically.

But not in its essence.

The insight?

I still felt like the same person.

Less body – same person.

It was transparently clear. I was not just my body. Sure I had identified with my body very strongly in the past. And already I sensed how I would need to come to identify with it in a different way in the days and weeks and years ahead. But unmistakably there was a part of me, the essence of who I really was and continued to be, that remained the same.

Less body – same person.

This insight helped me in so many ways as I began to construct a new life in a new body. It was clear the life I was leading was intricately tied with my body, just as everyone else’s is. But for me, it was now obvious that life had more to do with the bit that had stayed the same, rather than the bit that had changed.

It was the dawning of awareness.

RELATED BLOG
Why the Dalai Lama thinks you are so special

COMING EVENTS
Meditation in the Forest : April 11 – 17, 2014
The regular Pre-Easter retreat Ruth and I present is on in the Yarra Valley again. This year as well as providing the opportunity to learn more about relaxation, mindfulness and meditation, and to deepen your experience of same, the particular focus of the retreat will be on contemplation.
For details CLICK HERE


NEWS



Janette Murray-Wakelin and Alan Murray have completed 366 consecutive marathons!



Ruth and I were there amidst the crowd that welcomed them back into Melbourne’s Federation Square.

One of the all time great endurance feats – a world record for consecutive marathons and all on a raw food, vegan diet. Wow!

They were also raising money for 4 charities including the Gawler Foundation.

View Channel 10’s news report: CLICK HERE

Link to the Running Raw Facebook page: CLICK HERE

Ian Gawler Blog: A Good Life

They used to say a picture is worth a thousand words. What price then a movie? What does a good life look like? And what does the American Society of Integrative Oncology have to say about cancer treatment?

In 2009 the ABC program “Compass” put together a documentary on my life and work and gave it the imposing title of “A Good Life”. With that exceptional interviewer Geraldine Doogue at the helm, we ranged over the trials and tribulations, as well as the deeper issues and some of the successes – the some that adds up to make a good life.

It is a revealing program and anyone interested in what is on offer through the paradigm I represent (the way of thinking and how I teach) may find it helpful, so this week, an introduction and a link to the program.

Then some news from the New Zealand tour, but first




Thought for the day

If we know the Laws that govern Botany

We can take a diminutive acorn

And grow a massive oak tree

Amidst a beautiful garden

If we know the Laws that govern our mind

We can take a simple idea

And grow something meaningful 

Amidst a beautiful life 

PS - the garden features heavily in the Compass program



A Good Life – according to Ian Gawler - Here is the ABC’s introduction:
In this three-part series prominent Australians present their views and ideas on ‘a good life’. Each program features one guest whose argument is then examined in interview with Compass presenter Geraldine Doogue.

In Episode 1, Ian Gawler, cancer survivor and renowned healer, talks about his pioneering work in integrated ‘mind-body’ medicine and the therapeutic use of meditation and nutrition. He claims his prescription for healthy living is synonymous with a good life.
Story producer: Dina Volaric
To view the program, CLICK HERE

Integrative oncology in North America
The American based Society of Integrative Oncology (SIO) recently published guidelines for integrative medicine in lung cancer, which were developed in accordance with American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (Chest. 2013;143[5 Suppl]:e420S-e436S).

The SIO guidelines recommend, for example, mind–body therapies as part of a multidisciplinary approach to reduce anxiety, mood disturbance, sleep disturbance, and acute or chronic pain, and to improve quality of life.

Another suggestion is that acupuncture or related techniques can be used as an adjunct treatment option for nausea and vomiting related to chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and for cancer-related pain and peripheral neuropathy.

Clinical guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations for clinicians, explained Gary Deng, MD, PhD, from the integrative medicine service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. This is even more important for integrative medicine because clinicians might not be as familiar with it, he added.

"When patients ask them about therapies, they may not know what to say," said Dr. Deng, who spoke about the guidelines during a plenary session at the 10th International Conference of the SIO, and is first author on the guidelines. "This gives them something to fall back on, and makes them more comfortable making a recommendation."

In 2005, the ACCP asked the SIO for information on integrative medicine that could help physicians address questions from patients. Guidelines were published in 2007, and then updated with more current data. To date, the SIO has published 4 separate evidence-based clinical guidelines; the latest are for the diagnosis and management of lung cancer.

Current Guidelines
There were 2 main goals for these guidelines, said coauthor Heather Greenlee, ND, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City, and SIO president-elect.

"The first was to assess current evidence on the benefits and risks of complementary modalities as adjuncts to mainstream medicine to control symptoms associated with cancer and cancer treatment," she said. "The second was to form the evidence base from which specific recommendations can be made to guide clinical practice."

Dr. Greenlee noted that the goal was to be conservative, to look at where the evidence is right now, and to ask, "What can we say given the evidence to date?"

A systematic literature review was conducted, and a large number of randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses met the predetermined inclusion criteria, as did a number of prospective cohort studies.

The included trials addressed many issues faced by lung cancer patients, such as symptoms of anxiety, mood disturbance, pain, quality of life, and treatment-related events. Available data covered a wide variety of complementary interventions, including acupuncture, nutrition, mind–body therapies, exercise, and massage.

The authors conclude that the "the body of evidence supports a series of recommendations. An evidenced-based approach to modern cancer care should integrate complementary therapies with standard cancer therapies such as surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and best supportive care measures."

In the summary of recommendations, they note that "it is suggested that all lung cancer patients should be asked about their interest in and usage of complementary therapies. Counseling on the benefits and risks of those therapies should be provided."

The next set of guidelines from SIO will be on breast cancer, specifically integrative therapies for related adverse effects and quality of life.

RELATED BLOGS
The Cancer Council's Australian Guidelines on CAM

NOTICEBOARD
Ruth and I are currently presenting a range of public talks, workshops and retreats around New Zealand

There are a range of events still to come in Auckland, Christchurch and Nelson.

We are delighted to be including our first meditation retreat in New Zealand (which quite a few Aussies have also booked for already!) - December 2 -8.

Please do let anyone you may know in NZ about the visit -  all the details are on my new public Facebook page: Dr Ian Gawler,    or the website.

NEWS
The events in Auckland (evening public lecture) and day in Rotorua have been well received. In Auckland, I had conversations with 8 long term cancer survivors who had used the approach I advocate and were there many years after their initial prognosis had run out. It was good to ask them what had been most helpful, and to hear them say it was everything, the diet, especially the meditation, and the hope they received in the first place to think it was possible to defy the odds and to recover.

The Rotorua organisers, the Aratika Trust are doing an exceptional job. Having first benefited from attending the Foundation’s programs, they have now trained there, bring Foundation staff over to run local programs and provide excellent support to their local community. Ruth and I received a formal Maori welcome – very moving – and were made most welcome.

Ian Gawler blog: The Wellness Warrior does it again!

Ruth and I are leading Meditation in the Forest this week and I planned a week off from the blog. But I just cannot resist sharing this – short and sweet.

Jess Aiscough is the Wellness Warrior and if you have not visited her website as yet, do yourself a favour. Full of vitality, freshness, optimism, down to earth common good sense, and the occasional (or is that regular?!) good recipe.

This post Jess shares her account of speaking at the recent Surviving Cancer evening and has links to the very inspiring speakers who shared their recovery stories that night. Well worth taking the time to listen. Link here

Next week I will share some reflections from the retreat; it is a true delight to be a part of such a meeting.

Thought for the Day

"Dance, my heart! dance today with joy.

The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, 

and the world is listening to its melodies.

Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music. 

The hills and the sea and the earth dance. 

The world of man dances in laughter and tears.

Why put on the robe of the monk, 

and live aloof from the world in lonely pride?

Behold! 

My heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts; 

and the Creator is well pleased."

                                                                     Kabir

Ian Gawler Blog: Twenty years and what has changed?

What if you were to read something, thought it to be from current time, and then found out it was 20 years old? I have to confess with being a little down-hearted with the place of the “patient” in current cancer management. And the slow pace of progress.

I had occasion to re-read a piece I wrote for the Australian Doctor (the main newsletter of GPs in Australia) 20 years ago - in 1993. As far as I can tell, there is only one significantly different detail after all these years. See if you can spot it!

But first

Thought for the Day
“Science progresses not because scientists change their minds,
but rather because scientists attached to erroneous views die,
and are replaced”
                                Dr. Otto Warburg, Nobel Prize winner in medicine in 1931,
                                    quoting from Dr. Max Planck, originator of quantum theory, 1858~1947

Cancer patients find strength in self-help approach. Ian Gawler

Quoted from the Australian Doctor, 3rd September, 1993.

How can doctors best help people affected by cancer? How much can cancer patients do to help themselves? What should they avoid and what reasonable options are open to them? What should you recommend?

If a new anti-cancer drug was shown to double the lifespan of women with advanced breast cancer, would it be negligent not to recommend it?

The Lancet in 1989 reported Spiegel’s (1) well designed, widely acclaimed study that proved that attending a support group once a week for a year doubled such women’s survival time, so how can it be ignored?

People affected by cancer can be helped to learn how to become long-term survivors. Many are missing out on this opportunity.

As a veterinarian and a recovered cancer patient I have spent the past 12 years conducting cancer support groups. During this time more than 10,000 people have attended the weekly and residential programs that my wife Grace and I founded and continue to develop at the Gawler Foundation in rural Victoria.

We never say we can cure cancer. Our self-help program’s stated intention has been to help cancer affected people improve their quality of life and contribute wherever possible to their own survival. People learn to live well and to die well.

The self-help approach augments conventional therapies and, at the very least, plays a vital role in meeting the human needs of patients.

There is a widespread feeling that doctors need to attend better to the psychological and spiritual needs of their patients(2). We have a system that has been doing this effectively for more than 12 years and happily share it.

When we began our work in 1981, this whole area was unexplored. Now support groups are coming into most cancer hospitals and patients are seeking the self-help options.

Our approach is to encourage cooperation and communication between doctors and patients. Best results are obtained when doctors work with patients and their families in partnership.

The patient has the right to remain at the head of this partnership. They also have the right to give away this authority away if they choose. A doctor does not have the right to assume this authority without the patient’s conscious permission.

Similarly, people affected by cancer have the right to informed debate and choice. We do not recommend unproved remedies. We are convinced the community is best served by reasoned debate.

Many patients feel that elements of the medical profession – more often specialists than GPs – are inordinately biased against innovative or alternative therapies.

The furious and often emotional debate over vitamin C is a great example. While many patients report its benefits, the debate rages(3) .

The Foundation’s aim is to provide information that is available in a balanced way, encouraging individuals to take responsibility for their own decisions.

The crucial question is: why do some patients recover when others with the same illness do not? I am confident that this is more than just good luck. It is what I am most interested in studying and what new patients are interested to learn about.

We can learn from successful patients, just as we would learn from successful sporting or business people.

My own history, which is often misquoted, offers an example of the complex history of a long-term survivor.

In 1975, as a young veterinarian, and athlete, aged 24, I had my right leg amputated because of osteogenic sarcoma.

Later that year, inoperable secondaries were confirmed in the right inguinal and mediastinal lymph nodes. In those days, I was told available chemotherapies were of no value and radiotherapy would be palliative at best. The prognosis of 3-6 months was considered reasonable.

I turned to diet and meditation.

Importantly, my wife fully supported my view that cancer could involve a failure of my body’s immune system. If we could find a way to re-activate it perhaps I could recover.
We initially followed the Gerson diet(4) . This was exceedingly rigorous and created many problems.

These days, we advise against using the Gerson diet as it is far too demanding in a home setting. However, I do believe it has enough merit to warrant serious study.

I feel sure that nutritional factors helped me a great deal. Many patients report the positive benefits associated with changing their diet.

There is a good body of evidence to indicate that nutrition can alter the outcome of cancer. Numerous animal studies confirm the proposition, but studies in humans have been more limited.

I also began meditation with Dr Ainslie Meares. Dr Meares believed that prolonged meditation could reduce cortisol levels, improve immune function and so lead to recovery(5).

For that first 3 months my tumours remained static. Then severe sciatic pain forced me to try acupuncture (2 treatments only), then palliative radiotherapy, (3 treatments to my lower lumbar region only). The pain continued to be severe but was then relieved by injections of a mistletoe extract administered by a GP interested in natural therapies.

By March 1976, I was suffering severe weight loss (though 1.8m I weighed 54 kg), jaundice, night sweats and hydronephrosis of the right kidney (on IVP). The pain was again severe.
At this point my surgeon considered my prognosis to be a couple of weeks.

My wife and I then left for 4 weeks with faith healers in the Philippines. This was a truly extraordinary experience which challenged all my preconceptions and experience of surgery.

Importantly I came home 6 kg heavier, with no pain and feeling “I had turned the corner”.
In the next 6 months, while my general health improved, the cancer itself continued to spread and grow. I maintained the modified diet and meditation while my wife did many hours of massage for me. We also investigated many natural therapies.

By late 1976 I had massive secondaries on my sternum, my left lung, lumbar spine, mediastinal and inguinal lymph nodes. Remarkably, I was free of pain and otherwise unaffected by this widespread cancer. However, I reconsidered the medical options.

I was offered experimental chemotherapy based on “Adriamycin”, Vincristine and methotrexate.

I completed the first round of this protocol in 2 and a half months but there was little change in my tumour sizes. I then elected to cease treatment despite warnings of a rapid rebound.

We returned to the Philippines for 3 months, travelling then to India. In May 1977, the holy man Sai Baba told me: “ You are already cured, don’t worry”.

This was another major turning point, as it helped me to dispel doubts and be fully confident of recover.

I had no more medical treatment but continued, fully committed, to the self-help regimen as described.

By June 1978 all visible lesions had subsided. Tests in Adelaide confirmed that there was no evidence of active cancer, but I did have TB.

I responded rapidly to standard TB treatment, and my case was reported by Meares(6).

Grace and I moved to Yarra Junction, Victoria in 1980. We have had 4 children since chemotherapy.

Obviously this is a complex history. I am often asked what cured me, and I reply that it was a combined result.

I have no doubt that the medical treatment on its own would have been unsuccessful. My recovery demanded a great deal of effort from both myself and my wife.

In 1981, my wife and I began an innovative cancer support-group based on our experiences. At that time little was being offered to people affected by cancer who wanted to help themselves. Patients were being left to fend for themselves. Hope was often denied and the myth of cancer as a death sentence prevailed.

We were keen to redress these painful problems and felt we had something important to offer. The main ingredients of our approach were (and still are) good nutrition, developing a positive state of mind, meditation, and mutual support.
Our patient-based programs gained wide interest.

In 1983 we founded the non-profit non-denominational charitable organization The Gawler Foundation to extend this work and left our veterinary practice.

 In 1984 I detailed our approach in You Can Conquer Cancer(7).  The book was launched by Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop who remained a strong supporter of our work.

In the same year, being keen on scientific evaluation, I unsuccessfully approached the Peter McCallum Cancer Institute in Melbourne and the Victorian Anti-Cancer Council for help with research. Like many self-help groups, our resources were limited and we could get no outside assistance at that time.

In 1987, we began developing our own extensive in house database with a view to follow-up research, In the same year I was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to the community and published a detailed account of our meditation and positive thinking methods in Peace of Mind(8).

In 1988 on the ABC Couchman across Australia, Professor Ray Lowenthal challenged us to present our fifty best cases for assessment. We readily agreed, but the proposal lapsed when Professor Lowenthal was unable to secure funding for the research from The Australian Cancer Foundation.

We are now cooperating on research projects with Monash and Deakin Universities, have helped fund a major study with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and continue with our own in-house research projects.

We welcome medical visitors to our programs and many have attended as patients, partners or observers. These people see what can be accomplished.

Remarkable transformations occur when people attend an active cancer support group. We focus first on living well and peace of mind. The hope, energy and vitality in our groups is truly amazing and quite inspiring.

People learn to communicate, to balance their lives, to clarify their goals and to work effectively towards them.

We use strategies in our programs to help people avoid guilt and find the peace of mind that is the focus of our work.

Many doctors, often unintentionally, place potentially damaging pressures on patients and, importantly, on their partners and families. We experience this often when people complain that their self-help efforts receive no support from their doctors or, worse, are attacked by them. They feel misunderstood, unsupported and alienated.

If doctors are noticing negative feelings being directed towards them by their patients, it is often because they do not listen. They would do well to sit and take an interest in them as people.

This is another key ingredient to a successful support system. We provide the time to speak and to be listened to.

Spiegel’s study shows meditation and a positive attitude help patients cope with the consequences of their disease. Doubling the lifespan by attending a support group is a powerful effect.

A good summary of the mass of literature on this subject is in The Psyche and Cancer(9).

After a 10 year study of women with breast cancer, Pettingale (10) found survival was best predicted by the patient’s attitude.

After a 7 year study, Levy(11)  found cancer survival time was best predicted by the expression of joy at baseline testing.

On the basis of psychological interviews before biopsy, Wirshing(12)  was able to predict accurately when women’s breast lumps would be proved to be benign or malignant.

Ramirez(13)  found life-threatening events were significantly associated with recurrences of breast cancers.

Another excellent series of review articles is contained in the report “Can psychological therapy improve the quality of life of patients with cancer?”(14)

In another controlled prospective study, Fawzy(15)  reported on 6 weeks of structured group intervention for patients with malignant melanoma. Distress decreased, coping increased, and, significantly 6 months later, immune function was measurably enhanced.

Professor Lowenthal says that in my book You Can Conquer Cancer I do not provide evidence for the claim that cancer patients have a typical psychological profile and are unable to cope with stress appropriately. But the cancer personality is widely recognised by many patients and scientists. (16, 17)  It certainly warrants further major study.

Professor Lowenthal says that “ taken overall science has made only a modest impact on the problem of cancer…Even where effective treatments can be offered, to many patients the potential side-effects of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are perceived as unacceptable relative to their possible benefits.” He says doctors should “offer cure in some cases, comfort in all”.

Clearly patients being recommended orthodox treatments need more psychological support to cope with both the disease and the treatment.

The argument would seem to be about how to provide comfort effectively. There is a need to investigate new areas and techniques for solutions to cancer.

Hope is the starting point and it needs to be backed by effective techniques.

A normal progression in science is for observation to precede evidence. Having recovered personally from such a critical condition, having observed our techniques transform the lives of so many others and being aware of the bulk of recent supportive, scientific evidence, my wife and I know that our self-help approach has a lot to offer.

Many doctors do encourage their patients to include self-help techniques as part of their healing equation. We believe good doctors always have done so, and hope more doctors will have the confidence to support patients and families effectively in these self-help efforts.

References

1. Spiegel et al, The Lancet, 1989, ii:888-91.
2. Lowenthal R M, The Medical Journal of Australia, 1989, 151:710-15.
3. Pauling & Moerte. Special Report, Nutrition Reviews, 1986, 44:1, 28-31
4. Gerson, M. A Cancer Therapy – results of 50 cases, The Gerson Institute, Bonita, 1958.
5. Meares, A. The Medical Journal of Australia, 1983, June, 583-84.
6. Meares, A. The Medical Journal of Australia, 1978, 2:433.
7. Gawler, I. You Can Conquer Cancer, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1984.
8. Gawler, I. Peace of Mind, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1987.
9. Kune, GA and Bannerman, S. The Psyche and Cancer, University of Melbourne, 1992.
10. Pettingale et al. The Lancet, 1985, 1:750-751.
11. Levy et al. Psychosomatic Medicine, 1988, 50:520-28.
12. Wirshing et al. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 1982, 26:1-10.
13. Ramirez et al. British Medical Journal, 1989, 291-293.
14. Greer, S. British Medical Journal, 1989, 59:149-51.
15. Fawzy et al. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1990, 47:729-35.
16. Bagenal et al. The Lancet, 1990, 336:606-10.
17. Bagenal et al. The Lancet, 1990, 336:1186-88.


Lovingly typed by my wife Ruth Gawler.

So there it is. After 20 years one thing has changed but not much else. Maybe there is more research to quote. Maybe the community is keen for a more Integrated approach to the management of cancer. Maybe there are more groups, more centres offering some form of self-help program; but I suggest I could have submitted this same article to the Australian Doctor last week and they would have taken it to be reasonably fresh. What do you think? Any comments?

So in the next few weeks I plan a series of posts to examine what is going on in oncology, and what is the place of the patient in the management of cancer. Next week, Surviving Cancer - a tribute to the long term survivors and a feature to mark the inspiring event coming to melbourne on March 5th - see below.

RELATED BLOGS
Recovery from cancer is possible

RESOURCES
You Can Conquer Cancer. Fully revised/re-written edition now in the bookshops or available on-line from the Gawler Foundation.

NEWS

1. Surviving Cancer
Hear, learn and be inspired as four remarkable cancer survivors share their stories and insights

Date: Tuesday 5th March. Light supper and book signing from 6.30pm; 7 – 8.30pm

Venue: St Michaels on Collins, 120 Collins St, Melbourne

Cost: $20, with concession for Health care cards and students $15

Enquiries: St Michaels: 03 96545120

Bookings: Not necessary; pay at the door on the night

All proceeds from the evening will support the work of The Gawler Foundation.

To download the flier, click here

2. Meditation in the Forest: Yarra Junction; March 22nd - 28th, 2013
Ready to join Ruth and myself, take some time out and experience deep natural peace - amidst the majestic forests of the Upper Yarra Valley.

This retreat will take you deep into the essence of meditation - the direct experience. As well as being restful and regenerative, in this retreat I will be introducing and guiding a structured series of breathing exercises that enhance concentration, deepen meditation and facilitate healing and wellbeing. There are only a couple of places left.

For details and to book, click here

Ian-Gawler's-cancer-diagnosis : If it looks like a duck…

There are 11 strong pieces of evidence that confirm I had secondary cancer complicated later by TB. So this raises a good question - how many pieces of evidence do you need to tell the difference between a duck and a dog?  I would have thought the old saying holds, so first

Thought for the day
       If it looks like a duck
      Swims like a duck
      And quacks like a duck
      Then probably it is a duck
                                      James Riley

PLEASE NOTE : This post was updated 22 April 2014 when a further key piece of evidence came to light - taking the original number of pieces of evidence quoted in the piece from 10 to 11. The new piece is number 11 below.

This then is a call to action. The Age newspaper has revealed that the Gawler Foundation has suffered a major drop-off in attendances at its cancer programs this last few months. Linking the downturn to the financial crisis, there is the imputation that it has also been related to the hypothesis raised by doctors Haines and Lowenthal that I did not have secondary cancer, but only TB and their suggestion that my “famous recovery” was not from cancer.

This extraordinary claim was made despite the doctors not consulting my original treating doctors or my original records which were extensive and conclusively prove the fact that I did have the secondary cancer.

In this latest article, Chris Johnston of the Age chose to ignore six compelling new pieces of evidence that have come to light confirming that I was diagnosed with secondary cancer followed by the complication of tuberculosis (TB).

This new evidence came out of a rigorous review of my case by Dr Jonathan A. Streeton, a recognized senior authority on TB and my Chest Physician for over 30 years. The new evidence, collated in a letter from Dr Streeton, includes clinical references, histology, pathology and photography. This adds to the existing evidence and brings to ten the individual points that confirm the original diagnosis.

Unfortunately, Dr Streeton has chosen to neither speak to the media or to publish his conclusions in the journal where the original hypothesis was published – the Internal Medicine Journal. He tells me this is because he does not want to discuss a patient's details in public or become involved in a public controversy. Disappointing! However, he has given permission for me to use the letter, so I summarize the findings below and am happy to share it with anyone who requests it - you can do this via info@insighthealth.com.au.

This new evidence adds to the details confirming the basis of the secondary cancer already published in the IMJ, and was published in letters to the IMJ by Ruth and myself - see the related blog below.

In the light of this new evidence, I call on Haines and Lowenthal to publically concede their hypothesis was incorrect. There is a need to put the record straight. If they are interested in the truth of this matter, they need to respond. 

Why is this new evidence so significant? Well, thirty six years after I was originally diagnosed with secondary osteo-genic sarcoma (bone cancer) in 1975, the oncologists Haines and Lowenthal published an hypothesis that I may have been misdiagnosed. They speculated that my symptoms may have been explained by TB alone, and that maybe I never had secondary cancer.

They then implied my “famous recovery” was in question and somehow this was extended to question the validity of the lifestyle-based self-help cancer programs I have conducted for over 30 years. This suggestion concerns me deeply as whatever the intention of Haines and Lowenthal, the effect has been confusing and damaging. The controversy surrounding their hypothesis and the resulting publicity may result in some needy cancer patients and their families being led away from valid lifestyle- based, self-help and support options being offered by many good practitioners and organisations.

THE NEW EVIDENCE

1. X Rays of the spine were specifically diagnostic for cancer, not TB.
An X Ray from my spine from 16/1/1978 shows marked destruction of the body of the 4th lumbar vertebrae with the intervertebral spaces well preserved. This finding is almost unheard of for TB. In Streeton’s words, this “would tend to be a specific excluder of a tuberculous process involving the lumbar vertebrae… as tuberculous infection would normally involve the intervertebral discs in the first instance”.

2. No psoas abscess
Streeton points out that TB in the lumbar vertebrae normally evolves into what is called a psoas abscess that commonly leads to an open discharge via the groin. Despite large masses being involved in my case, there was no such abscess and no discharge.

3. The strain of TB that I contracted indicates I almost certainly contracted TB well after the secondary cancer diagnosis.

Streeton was able to obtain my medical records from the South Australian Government’s Adelaide chest clinic where I was treated for TB in 1978. These records confirm the strain of TB that I contracted was resistant to the TB drug, Isoniazid. Such drug resistance was uncommon in Australia at that time, almost unheard of; whereas drug resistance was the usual in the Philippines and other parts of Asia at that time.

I had never been outside Australia prior to developing secondary cancer late in 1975, but did travel to the Philippines in March of 1976 and again after chemotherapy later that year. I have always believed it most likely that I contracted the TB in the Philippines, probably on the second visit.

4. Key photographs have dates printed on them and further prove a response occurred with chemotherapy. This makes sense for cancer, but not TB.

While the photographic evidence in my case is crucial, it has been debated. Here is why. In October 1976 I underwent chemotherapy for my cancer for 10 weeks. If I had had just TB not cancer, there is no rationale to explain how the visible masses on my chest could diminish in size. If I had had cancer, it would make sense.

Perhaps because of my veterinary training, I am a keen documenter. So I had my chest photographed before commencing chemotherapy and took serial photographs each month until the lesions had disappeared in April 1978.

Being fairly spectacular, those initial photographs, along with the “all clear” photos, have been reproduced widely in the medical and popular press. Unfortunately, early on the initial photos were miss-labeled as being from October 1977 – well after I had chemotherapy. Without checking with me, Haines and Lowenthal used the incorrect date to assert that the chemotherapy had not impacted on the course of my disease and claimed this indicated it was TB not cancer.

However, as well as having the original photo album with the full sequence of photos and their dates recorded, only recently I discovered the photos actually have Kodak dates printed on their reverse. These dates confirm the correct timelines and show there was some reduction in size of the cancer in response to the chemotherapy.

This response had also been confirmed in two letters I retained from the oncologist involved at the time, Dr Ivon Burns. On 13 August 1976 Burns writes, ‘the masses on the anterior aspect of the chest wall have increased in size’ and on 2 September 1976, ‘it measures 14 cm in diameter’. Then on 16 December 1976, he states that ‘the mass on his chest wall has decreased in size from 13cm ¥ 13cm to 10cm ¥ 10 cm’.

5. Histology of bone spicules coughed up from my chest support the cancer diagnosis.
At the height of my illness I coughed up many small spicules of bone from my chest. These have been examined recently and the histology of these bone spicules, while not definitive, does clearly support the cancer diagnosis.


The report states “the appearance are those (of) modified osteoid fragments and would be in keeping with the clinical history (of osteo-genic cancer), however, due to the obscured nuclear details of the lining cells, the histopathology findings are equivocal”.

6. A review of the numerous X Rays states that they are “typical of cancer” not TB.
The initial radiology reports regarding my case clearly confirmed secondary cancer (metastases). This is a direct quote from the first report: “Mottled calcified areas of varying size from 1.5 to 3 cms in diameter are demonstrated overlying the right sacroiliac region, the appearances of which are those of glandular metastases”.

However, recently Streeton had all of my available X Rays re-examined with expert radiologists and states “I reviewed these films with my radiology colleagues here at the Mercy Private and the general consensus was that these are typical of an evolving osteogenic sarcoma metastasis”. There was no support for the TB only hypothesis.

These six new findings strengthen the four separate pieces of evidence already in the public domain and together provide an overwhelming confirmation of the original diagnosis of secondary cancer later complicated by infection with TB, and clearly refute Haines and Lowenthal’s hypothesis that I only had TB.

THE PRE-EXISTING EVIDENCE:

7. The clinical picture. Eight independent specialists all confirmed the diagnosis of secondary cancer followed by TB.

Eight medical specialists investigated my case with a view to treating me. All examined me and my records thoroughly and ordered whatever diagnostic tests they considered necessary; all of which I complied with.

The specialists were Mr John Doyle, surgeon with cancer expertise; Dr Robin Kerr, radiotherapist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Hospital; Dr Ivon Burns, oncologist at St Vincent’s Private; A Gold coast doctor whose name has been lost, but the X Rays he ordered remain; Dr Alastair Robertson, oncologist with TB experience; Dr Rosemary Walker, head of the TB clinic in Adelaide; Dr Jonathon Streeton, chest physician and TB authority; Prof Peter Clarke, chest surgeon with TB expertise and experience.

All of these experts investigated my case thoroughly and none suspected my symptoms could be explained by TB alone. All confirmed the initial diagnosis of secondary osteo-genic sarcoma, bone cancer.

8. The visible chest masses looked nothing like TB, acted nothing like TB and were fully consistent with a cancer diagnosis.

Streeton comments on these “numerous chest wall masses which appear to be metastatic disease, and certainly quite unlike anything which would be seen in a generalized systemic (and invariably fatal) case of tuberculosis infection”.

9. Chemotherapy did reduce the size of the tumours, as might be expected with cancer and not TB: and also, did not kill me as might be expected if I had TB.

The evidence that supports that the chemotherapy did reduce the visible tumour masses has already been reviewed.

Of equal significance, it is known that the combination of chemotherapeutic agents I was treated with is highly immune-suppressive. As a consequence, even modest exposure to colds or scratches could result in massive, often fatal infections.

If my condition had involved only TB, the chemotherapy could be expected to have at least created these side-effects, but it was more likely, to have killed me. In fact, I suffered few side-effects, the lesions diminished and I have always acknowledged that the chemotherapy I received did play some part in my holistic recovery.

10. Histology on bone removed from my lung is consistent with cancer not TB
No biopsy was performed at the time of the initial diagnosis of secondary cancer for two reasons. Firstly, the clinical picture, the X Rays and other tests so clearly confirmed the cancer, none was deemed necessary. Secondly, a biopsy of the lesions I was initially diagnosed with would have necessitated an unwarranted general anaesthetic and significant surgery in my abdomen or chest.

However, in 2004, my left lung was removed subsequent to complications created by the TB. A large piece of bone was evident within this lung.

TB can lead to calcification, but not the formation of bone. As Streeton said “one gets calcification from TB, but nothing remotely of the appearances of your calcification”.

Further, the histological report on the lung reports extensively on the TB lesions in other sections of the lung. Then, commenting on the histology of the bone removed from my lung, it states “the latter appearance in particular is recognized as a change which may occur in osteosarcoma after chemotherapy”. There is no suggestion this bone could have had anything to do with the TB that was so evident throughout the rest of the lung. Clearly, both conditions existed.

11. When treatment for TB commenced, all visible masses had already resolved
Haines and Lowenthal claimed that the TB treatment cured my condition. However, photographs with the dates from Kodak on their reverse establish that all the visible lesions on my chest had fully resolved before the TB treatment commenced in July 1978.

This is a very powerful, very clear piece of evidence that the Haines and Lowenthal hypothesis is incorrect, yet no one thought to put this together until now. ( April 2014)

How could a treatment cure something that was not there? What I have always maintained - and the evidence confirms - is that I had the 2 conditions - secondary cancer and TB. The cancer was located in various places around my body, most visibly on my sternum (or chest). The TB had infected my chest and initially was not diagnosed given the very obvious presence of the cancer. It was only when the cancer had resolved (which included all the cancer masses on my chest and in my chest disappearing) that the TB became evident within my chest.

So back to the duck. 
Eleven major pieces of evidence are difficult to dismiss. Most reasonable people would conclude eleven was more than enough to differentiate a duck from a dog.

So again, while I appreciate it is not an easy thing to do, I respectfully call on Haines and Lowenthal to publicly concede their hypothesis was incorrect and to put the record straight.

What to do 

Consider a letter to the Age. You could write to a letter to the editor: letters@theage.com.au, or directly to the journalist Chris Johnston at cjohnston@fairfaxmedia.com.au. A letter of support to the Foundation: info@gawler.org. Those of us that know the work at the Foundation know how valuable it is and this is a time to support its existence and good work.

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