Have you heard? A new type of trauma, caused by medical doctors who tell you
the truth about likely effects of your disease, and the pros and cons of
various treatment plans.
Truth has now become the enemy.
I thought I must have misheard it, so I listened to the
lecture twice. Timothy Trujillo, in an
AHA class on hypnosis for the cure of immune system problems, actually
denounced doctors who show you pictures of your hair falling out as a result of
chemotherapy, saying that the reason your hair falls out is that doctors tell
you that it will. If doctors lie to you
and tell you that the treatment will be completely symptom-free, then your hair
won’t fall out, you won’t have any nausea, the cancer will magically and
entirely disappear and you’ll all live happily ever after in Neverland.
Mr. Trujillo is not alone.
The alternative health field is riddled with this nonsense – and then we
wonder why licensed and competent healers despise us! And why doctors won't give us a straight answer to a simple question!
In case you were wondering, I am a practitioner of
hypnotherapy and the mind’s ability to change water into wine is truly, truly
remarkable. However – and please pay
attention to this! – that truth does NOT mean that all the laws of biology and
physics can be changed by wanted it to be so.
My beloved, but sadly deluded, sister kept saying “It’s nothing, it’s just
fibroids,” believing that saying it over and over again would make it true. The cancer that was growing
inside her killed her, because she refused to consider that repeating a
sentence a thousand times does not make it a fact.
Chemotherapy kills cancer cells by targeting cells that are dividing
rapidly. That’s why you get gut problems
and your hair falls out. It also targets your
cancer, you doofus. If your hair
follicles aren’t impacted, neither will the cancer cells be. [Immunotherapy is very different, a targeted
attack on just the cancer. But it does
not yet work on every kind of cancer, in every human body. You need Star Trek and Dr. Mc Coy’s Sickbay
to get that level of miracle.]
The real medical communication problem is not the doctors
who give you complete and accurate information about potential illnesses and
potential cures and treatment – it’s the doctors who DON’T. The doctors who have been too traumatized by
terrified patients and their families, who are horrified that you actually
talked about death or gave someone an accurate and responsible answer to “how
long am I likely to live?”
Another
sister of my heart is 3 months into an estimate of 6 months to live and the
honesty of her doctor gave her the ability to make honest and accurate plans
for herself. She took a cruise with her
grand-daughters during which everyone could speak from the heart, with no one
so terrified of loss that they ran away from the chance to speak their
love. She did that, instead of the perennial "I can't afford it, maybe later," because she knows that she doesn't have "later" as an excuse any more. She is spending quality time with
her husband and her friends and her beloved dog. And me, at the 9,000-mile-distance that we
have managed to surmount in spirit as well as occasionally in body over the course
of 35 wonderful years.
With truth, you can
take back real power, the power to choose how to spend the time you have,
and let go of the phony power that denial gives you. And I put all the “it’s NOT going to happen
to ME!” that Trujillo et al. promotes into the denial category. Try like hell to avoid as much pain as
possible. Try like hell to stretch 6
months to 6+. But accept that it might
be 5, and the pain can’t be avoided, and your best-loved goals and dreams will
not be achieved.
You really want truth too, my friends, no matter how
seductive denial is and no matter how terrified out of your mind you are. Truth is the only possession you truly have,
the only real power no one can take from you.
Truth is the only place where you are truly free.
Make a vow to
yourself, today, renewable every day for the rest of your life: In small issues as well as life and death, I
choose Truth, no matter how messy or frightening or not-what-I-want-to-hear. I choose Truth. I have the courage to face Truth, and I will
use Truth to lead me in all my decisions.
[This doesn’t
preclude spirituality….. don’t raise that red herring, darlings]
And remember that the reason why I want you to choose Truth,
is that Truth is also the only reliable road to lifetime joy. The exact mechanism of that road is the
subject for another day. For now, just
acclimate yourself to your own courageous soul, and let that butterfly called
Truth get used to alighting gently on your shoulder and whispering into your
ear. Truth is the sweetest music of all.
Read the We’re #1
chapter in my new memoir Red State, Blue Heart to understand how denial kills
thousands of black women in the USA every year, who should and would live, if
they stopped believing that they can dodge reality by refusing to Claim
it. Can’t blame this one on racism,
friends! Our refusal to insist that we
live our lives in accordance with facts has to end… before it ends more and
more of us.
