Cancer Cured Me: A True Story of How a Chronic Illness Became the Gift of a Lifetime

By Bernie Beaumont

A MESSAGE TO THE AUTHOR

Hello!
My name is Cancer.
Though I came to you disguised in ugly clothes,
I knocked on your door as a friend
to awaken you to the fact
that your life was in dire need of change.
I didnt have to stay but I would have
if that is what you had wanted most.
Instead, once you saw that I truly
was your friend who simply
came to teach,
-you chose to listenreally listen,
until there no longer was
a reason for me to stay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483647463

Book preview

CANCER CURED ME

A TRUE STORY OF HOW A CHRONIC

ILLNESS BECAME THE GIFT OF A LIFETIME

BERNIE BEAUMONT

Copyright © 2013 by Bernie Beaumont.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013909732

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-4745-6

                Ebook          978-1-4836-4746-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/08/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PART ONE

1.   The Cure Word

2.   New Therapies

3.   The Mind/Body Connection

4.   Teachings from the Past

5.   Slow Roads to Freedom

6.   Pathways to Healing

7.   Beyond the Physical

8.   Where Healing Begins

PART TWO

9.   Power Tools Defined

10.   Being In Your Own Truth

11.   Becoming an Empowered Patient

12.   The Choice to Live

13.   Being Present

14.   Learning to Love Yourself

15.   Forgiving Others?

16.   Love Your Spirit

17.   Love Your Body

18.   Reflections on a Healing Journey

INTRODUCTION

I f you are besieged by an illness,-even a terminal illness, this book may serve to guide you to the answers, which, ultimately, only you can provide. If you choose to look, be aware that it may launch you on the most enlightened journey of your life. You may also discover the real you as never before.

My own journey was about discovering life as I had never known it could be. This eventually led to a realization that terminal illness was more like a loud alarm clock than an insurmountable problem.

In this discovery lies the underlying meaning behind the title Cancer Cured Me. It also helped me to recognize that we ourselves are ultimately responsible for what happens to our health, our relationships, our jobs, -in short, our wellbeing or lack of it.

Despite the fact that there are billions of people on this planet, not one is an exact duplicate of any other. For that reason alone, not my answers but the questions they may trigger within you might guide you to your own answers.

Enjoy the ride!

PART ONE

DISCOVERY

CHAPTER 1

The Cure Word

I n 1991, at age 60, I was living in a small town in New Hampshire. For five months, I had been feeling a growing yet subtle sense of malaise. Though I felt tired much of the time, I shrugged it off as a direct result of working six days a week on renovating my apartments.

A prior career in corporate middle management had conditioned me well: Time is money. Early retirement and a second career in income property had done nothing to change that thinking. Success was even more of a must because I needed to prove that my decision to go on my own was a responsible one after having left the security of a corporate career ten years sooner than necessary.

My wife was a very dedicated real estate salesperson who tended to work day and night with hardly a break. I finally chose to join the ranks. No matter how I felt, I drove myself relentlessly, frequently forcing my body beyond its reasonable limits.

As the malaise grew more pronounced, I began sensing that something might not be right in my prostate area. For better than fifteen years, a prostate infection would occasionally flare up. A visit to my urologist for antibiotics would usually bring the infection under control. It was time. My urologist had recently retired and a younger doctor had replaced him. I described the symptoms to him and he concluded that this time, my problem was a calcification build-up. He proposed minor surgery. Blood tests and Xrays were also scheduled. As he walked me out to speak to the receptionist, he concluded the visit by saying, Just to be on the safe side, I will also order a PSA. I had no idea what that was and didn’t bother to ask, nor did he offer to tell me.

Three days later, his nurse called to tell me that Dr. Mark Funk wanted to see me that very afternoon. His last-moment decision to order a PSA turned out to be a wise one. The tests indicated that I had an advanced case of prostate cancer. I was most grateful to doctor Funk for the gentle, kind, and caring way he answered my questions and filled me in on the pros and cons of various treatment options. Additional tests were ordered to determine whether and where the cancer had spread. A CAT scan, a bone scan, a biopsy, an MRI, and enough X-rays to make a B movie followed.

As all of this was taking place, I received a call from my regular doctor’s receptionist requesting that I make an appointment. I did so and was deeply moved by the reason for his request. He simply wanted to express his regrets over what he had been told about my cancer condition. These words in particular really hit home: My heart goes out to you, Bernie. Right or wrong, I interpreted that as a potential death sentence.

In my next visit with Dr. Funk, he told me the treatment of choice for my condition was to remove the prostate. I felt uneasy with this conclusion. It meant permanent loss of a body part. When I asked why this procedure was being recommended over any other, the answer was simple, short, and void of hesitation: Cure, he said.

At this point, I was emotionally drained, tired and uncertain about what to do. My life in general had felt empty, difficult, and confusing. At some level, it seemed I might even welcome this socially acceptable possibility of my life coming to an end. Did I actually have a death wish? I couldn’t be sure, yet it felt like I might. However, fear prevented me from giving in to that thought process. At the time, I was more concerned about the prospects of going through a potentially painful death. My conclusion was that I would give top priority to finding a way to prevent dying from cancer.

My first step was to seek the most reliable second opinion possible. After many weeks of searching, I was led to a surgeon named Alex Althausen in Boston who had been referred to me as The Urologist’s Urologist. He was a graduate of Harvard Medical School and was associated with Massachusetts General which I had previously discovered had been designated the number one hospital in the United States. Armed with all my prior test results, I went to Boston. Dr. Althausen’s conclusion was the same as Dr. Funk’s, as was his treatment of choice to effect cure. His clarity of mind, his impressive statistics, and his defined matter-of-fact attitude, and the fact that he had performed hundreds of such surgeries impressed me greatly. I decided then and there to ask Dr. Althausen to perform the surgery. My confidence returned and hope was renewed. With Dr. Althausen at the helm, and all that was available at Massachusetts General, I would win this battle.

The surgery was a total success. Dr. Althausen informed me a few days later that I had done everything right, and even commented, that as a patient, I was one in a million. As exaggerated as it was, this compliment felt great! During the ten day hospital stay, I had walked the corridors pushing an intravenous pole a total of eight miles as I ignored the pain of healing surgery. One nurse told me she thought I was ready for a pair of roller skates. The results of the surgery was beyond all expectations. The PSA count had dropped to almost nothing. I concluded that this cancer thing need not be as bad as I had been led to believe. I had beaten it with my smarts!

Now, so I thought, all I needed to do was to allow the wounds to heal, return home, request the recommended PSA test twice a year just to be sure, and forget the whole thing. However, fate would have it that this optimistic bubble was destined to burst. Cancer cells had apparently spread beyond the prostate before or during treatment. I later discovered that the prostate biopsy itself could have caused cancerous cells to spread. The PSA count began to climb immediately at a steady yet more moderate rate.

In a routine biannual visit a year and a half later, Dr. Althausen looked at the latest PSA test results and said: You should be thinking seriously about having radiation therapy. Shocked at the prospect of this development, I asked, Why? Again, I received the selfsame short, clear answer of Cure. This time, that word was far less attractive than when I had first heard it. I was no longer sure of what to believe. What do I need to do? I asked.

I can arrange for you to see an oncologist at the hospital. He will brief you on what is involved and what you can expect.

No longer confident or optimistic, I felt I had little choice but to look in to it. The oncologist’s detailed information caused me to conclude that even with radiation therapy, there was a strong possibility that the cancer would return. What a price this thing called cure! By sheer coincidence, only three days later, I received a direct mail piece from a hospital chain specializing in cancer treatment. In it, I found the American Cancer Society’s official definition of the word cure. It meant nothing more than five years of remission. After that, even though I had become officially cured, I could die of cancer. I was angry, confused, and despairing. Why did my home town doctor not explain what was meant by cure? Why did the urologist in Boston not tell me? Webster’s dictionary defines cure as a restoration of health: There is no time limit in this definition. I was annoyed mostly at the medical establishment for directing professional people to use a redefined version of a very old word without also informing them to clarify its new meaning. How could I trust anyone after this? In my despair, it occurred to me that the medical profession might be grossly bastardizing a critically important word in order to look more successful than they really were.

For days, I felt like simply