A Cancer Healing Story of a Taiwanese Neurosurgeon--Part III--How A Patient to heal himself

(Continued from Healing Story, Part II)

The single most important thing a patient can do for healing

Reporter:  You had survived cancer without surgery, and without the 2nd round of chemo.  Do you think your model would work for other cancer cases?

Hsu:  My model of holistic healing would work in most cancer cases.  Unfortunately, Orthodox Western Medicine was a deep-rooted medicine practiced in almost every where for every Taiwanese doctors, not many doctors and patients accepted my model for treating the cancer cases.  However, patients who followed my advice could easily live beyond 5 years after the diagnosis.

Reporter:  Tell us, what is the most important thing you did to overcome cancer?  Was that your diet?

Hsu:  No, not the diet; not the exercise.  The most single important thing a cancer patient can do is to overcome his or her fear.  The fear itself blocks the healing process of a patient. (Dr. Chen's note:  This echos what Dr. Simon says in his book, "The Wisdom of Healing.":  If the patient surrenders, and leaves the issue of death to God, he or she has a better chance of remission.) The patient must have the confidence in themselves.  Our human body has more than 4 trillion normal cells who fight for you to survive.  Let go the fear is the most important step, and probably the most difficult step for a cancer patient.  Qi-Kong or breath exercise can quiet our 'Monkey Mind' to reach a peaceful state of mind that would be extremely helpful for healing.

There were 3 major themes for overcoming the cancer:

(1) Respect Life:  Normal cells are life, cancer cells are also life.  In the Orthodox Western Medicine, cancer is a foe and must be totally eliminated.  In my treatment philosophy, we don't need to completely eliminate cancer cells to live. We don't have to. The most important thing we can do is to live, not to kill.  We can co-exist with the cancer cells as long as we put the cancer cells in-check.

(2) Protecting the Body:  Orthodox Western Medicine only treats the disease.  In the process of treating the disease, the Medicine damages the body.  In my Clinic, we protect the body so that a patient can sleep well, eat well during the treatment.  Sleep and appetite are essential for a body to heal.

(3) Raising The Body Immune System: The treatments that Orthodox Western Medicine practice today suppresses immune system, interfere with patients' ability to heal himself.  They are all against the principle of healing. 

Ping-Sai-Kong 

Reporter:  In your book, you had mentioned about Qi-Kong and Ping-Sai-Kong exercise.  Can you comment on the so-called Ping-Sai-Kong Exercise?


Hsu:  The principle of exercise for health is that the exercise is simple and effective and you can do it at anytime and at any place.  I used to play rugby. But, rugby is not the exercise good for our health.  During my medical practice as a neurosurgeon, I used to play basketball after 10-20 hours at the operation room.  Basketball once a week or once every 2 weeks is not useful for good health either.  Moreover, you can get injury from playing basketball.

In doing the Ping-Sai-Kong Exercise, you stand on the floor with feet stay apart approximately your shoulder height.  Then you swing your both hands fro and back; every 5 swing, you slightly bend your knee and stand back.  (See video demonstration.)  The hand and knee motion allows you to adjust your spine.  Because all the nerves come from the spine, your healthy spine guarantee your healthy respiratory, circulation, digestion and kidney functions.   Furthermore, you can do this at any place and anytime. I told my patients to work on this exercise 20-30 minutes every 1-2 hours.


http://www.screencast.com/t/t4KcERqfH 

 End of YouTube Video Part II.  Click "See Older Post to read about Dr. Chen's opinion.)

What is my view on cancer treatment?

Dr. Chen is pragmatic regarding cancer treatments.  Orthodox Western Medicine would be useful if the treatment success rate is greater than at least 40%.  Examples of this would be early detection and treatment of breast cancer and prostate cancer.  However, if the success rate of treatment is low or impossible such as relapse of the cancer (It means cancer cells have evolved and adopted to the chemo.), I would suggest using the holistic approach.

In any case, surrendering the fear of death to God is the most important thing a patient can do for himself or herself.  Make sure, the patient eats well for the nutrients, sleep well (Many healing processes occur during sleep.) Laugh more.  and move around.  The best is to visit parks as often as a patient's ability allows, because the Nature has an amazing healing power.  Breathing Exercise and Ping-Sai-Kong as Dr. Hsu had demonstrated will be very useful.  Our mind can heal or kill.

May my heart goes to those people who are suffering the pain and agony of cancer.  Healing is possible.  Dr. Hsu did it.  So can you.


http://www.screencast.com/t/t4KcERqfH 

Turning into 67 Reflection #5 Spiritual Growth

According to Dr.Weil, director of the Integrated Medicine at University of Arizona, every disease has a spiritual ( deficiency) root.  I heard about this not only from Dr. Weil, but also from Buddist belief in Taiwan.  The Buddist says that you harvest what you sowed.  The so-called 善有善報, 惡有惡報 in Chinese language.   Although, today we no longer believe in this connection, because bad things can also happen to good people.  Nevertheless, spirituality does not hurt in promoting health.

According to Dr. Weil, attending church, giving money for donation,contributes very little for spiritually.  For true spirituality, one must provide care for other people without asking for any return.    According to this definition, mothers, grandmothers, and care givers are those person blessed with spirituality.  For those people who do not have to care for other people, Dr.Weil suggests those people to volunteer in hospital, visit shut-in, or volunteer in either the emergency shelter or warming shelters.

I am glad to report that I take Dr. Weil's advice seriously and begin to engage in this type of activities.

How about reading and writing about inspirational stories?  Dr. Weil did not mention that, yet I found writing alone is also a very powerful tool to grow spirituality.  Let me illustrate this with a story from one of my painting friend, Judy (name has been changed to protect the identity of the individual).  She had a very bad first marriage;  the experience was so bad that those bad experiences haunted her either in sleep or in awake even she has been happily married to Nick, her second husband.  She began to write about those haunting stories and the strategy to overcome those fear.  When she finished writing, miraculously, those haunting experiences disappeared.  Her husband, Nick went into deep depression after his son took his own life at age of 21.  Nick also overcame his depression by writing.  My own experience of writing stories in blog or writing e-mail with a friend on "Trust in God" and "Forgiveness", also helps my spirituality.

In short, for spirituality I will continue to volunteer in shelters, writing inspirational stories in blog,  meditate or say prayers, and read inspirational stories.

Turning into 67. Reflection #4. Life saving life style changes

The most important life style changes is that I stick to Joe Furman's diet almost religiously to improve my digestion system.  Furman's diet is stricter than the ordinary vegetarian diet.  A vegetarian diet, the dieter can eat pasta, breakfast cereal, or bread and bagel.  Not for Furman's diet. According to Furman's, theses refined starch substances is no different from table sugar, can produce havoc to buddy's  insulin regulation producing body's inflammatory response.

My regular diet for breakfast:  Kefir/yoguart(plane)/home-made sauerkraut/garlic, as aside dish;  steel-cut oat meal with sweat pepper, berries, tomatoes, grapes,and avocado as the main dish.   Lunch will be a big salad with greens, carrots, sweet peppers, berries, grapes, apple, nuts, and avocado.  Dinner will be primarily cooked vegetable.  Sometimes, I would have egg and fish.

When I disclosed this diet plan to one of my tennis buddy, he laughed at me saying that diet was a typical 'rabbit food.'  Yes, maybe it is a 'rabbit food'.  But rabbits don't get cancer, type-2 diabetics or heart attack like us.  Many studies have shown convincingly, a vegetable-fruit-probiotic based food saves lives as they have been documented in the citations of Dr. Furman's books, "Eat to Live" and "Super Immunity".  I do not know whether this diet will eliminate my precancerous conditions in the stomach.  However, I do see clearly two positive outcomes:  (1) My seasoning allergy symptoms are greatly reduced since I adopt this diet.  (2) My antibiotic-resistant H Pylori is gone, at least for now.

Other important life style changes is that I incorporate meditation into daily routine.  There are many meditation CD available in the market.  Listening to these meditation music in a quiet environment can effectively quiet our busy mind.  No one can dispute mind-body connection with the good health.

  

Turning into 67, Reflection #3--Triumph

The biggest triumph this year is eradicating antibiotic-resisting H-Pylori in my stomach.  Since H. Pylori is a primary carcinogen for stomach cancer and since I already have precancerous conditions in my stomach, I was devastating when I learned that I had antibiotic-resistant H. Pylori in my stomach.  The infectious disease doctor wanted me to try 21-day another antibiotic regiment; yet he gave me no guarantee that the new treatment will eradicate the bug.  Besides, if the 21-day treatment failed again, this H. Pylori would become non-treatable, or a super-bug.

I refused.  Instead I tried to use diet, pro-biotic, and herbal medicine (Mastic gum and Matula tea) to see if they are effective.  According to my research, these approaches were very successful in the reported case.

In June, when I had endoscope and culture studies with both 1 day and 1 week culture work at Mayo Clinic found nothing on this bug, I was elated.

This was the biggest triumph of the year.  

Turning into 67. Reflection #2. When do I retire?

As I turn into 67 in a few days,  I will belong to the most senior faculty ( in terms of age, not the rank) group.  I am the oldest faculty in my unit.  I am older than the chancellor, the provost, the dean, and other "bosses".  Although colleagues are often very polite not to ask me when do I retire, they probably talk about this in private.  Among my friends in Appleton, especially old Kimberly-Clark colleagues, they do often bluntly ask, when will I retire?

The short answer to this question is that, not yet.  Not for a while.  My dad worked until he was 80.  My brother, Ting-Kai, who is 11 years older than I is still teaching at Furdam university in NY state.  Compare to them, 67 is still a "puppy".  I still have many years to go.

Teaching provides me mental challenges on the subjects I teach; giving me opportunities to interact with young men and women allowing me to guide them for their future career success.  The scholarship aspect of my job provides me ample opportunity to create, to keep on learning.

When I was awarded as a tenure faculty in 2008, I did not have any expectation for any more career advancement.  For one thing, I am short of the drive compared to those young colleagues in the 40's or 50's. For another reason, my expertise is in the area of polymer chemistry.  Polymer chemistry research requires expensive equipment; UW-Green Bay is not able to fund my research.

Well, situation changes in an amazing way.  Few years ago, I had a chance to listen to a great seminar given by Professor Weinhold of UW-Madison.  I decided to take on quantum computation as my new research direction.  Working with him for about 4 years, we actually have 4 manuscripts to submit for publication.  Once these4 papers are published, I may be able to apply for promotion to the 'Professor' rank.

In short, at age 67, I still have a lot of iron to fire, both in teaching and scholarship.  It would be a while before I decide to retire.

Turning into 67. Reflection # 1--Gratitude

I will turn into 67 in a few days.  Four years ago, when I came back from Taiwan, I was very sick.  I was wondering if I can live through 65 birthday.  Well, I not only live through 65, I actually reach 67.     I am actually looking forward to reach 70.  Although I still have some medical problems now and then, I know I have more knowledge of taking care of myself.  Thus, my first reflection on my 67 year old birthday is my deep gratitude to God to continue to sustain my life.  I can breathe, walk, laugh, and work on demanding faculty job.  God also grants me optimism about the future and all the tools and knowledge to take care of myself.