Information, Inspiration and Insights

Here are some of the things that emerged this week from the discussions and from my communications with others who share the journey with us:

• In Tuesday’s "New York Times", there was a front page article entitled, “Lymph Node Study Shakes Pillar of Breast Cancer Care” - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/health/research/09breast.html?_r=1&nl=.... While detailing the results of a new study that challenges what has been considered conventional treatment for many who have breast cancer, I believe the results transcend any specific cancer and point to the larger issue of considering least-toxic, minimally-invasive approaches to treatment and care. I hope that you will find the article to be encouraging.

• Here are a number of books and authors that consistently get mentioned. Perhaps one or more of them can help you:

- "Beating Cancer with Nutrition", by Patrick Quillin, Ph.D, R.D., GNS
- "Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life", by David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.
- "Life Over Cancer", by Keith Block, M.D.
- "Foods that Heal", by Bernard Jensen, Ph.D.
- "Cancer Doesn’t Scare me Anymore", by Lorraine Day, M.D.
- "Knockout: Interviews with Doctors Who are Curing Cancer and How to Prevent Getting it in the First Place", by Suzanne Somers, survivor
- "Alkalize or Die", by Theodore Baroody, DC, ND, Ph.D
- "The Gerson Therapy: The Amazing Nutritional Program for Cancer and Other Illnesses", by Charlotte Gerson and Morton Walker, D.P.M.
- "A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases and the Cure of Advanced Cancer by Diet Therapy", by Max Gerson, M.D.
- "The Vitamin D Solution", by Michael Holick, M.D., Ph.D
- "Remarkable Recovery: What Extraordinary Healings Tell Us about Getting Well and Staying Well", by Caryle Hirshberg and Marc Ian Barasch

• And here’s a site by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to help cancer survivors take advantage of the healing power of foods - the Cancer Project - http://www.cancerproject.org/resources/cooking_class.cfm.

• Finally, here is a beautiful quote about creating joy that I thought might be of inspiration to you, especially on the days and in those moments when darkness and uncertainty try to take hold. It’s by author, essayist and poet Barbara Kingsolver, from her book, "High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never":

"In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again."

May this joy be yours, as well.