Playing with my shadow

To the editor:

I didn’t think about growing old. I’ve always felt so healthy that I didn’t bother to worry about such things. But here I am, 68 wonderful years of age, and wearing size medium tops and 9/10L jeans. So when people I haven’t seen in a long time tell me how great I look, they don’t know that I have diseased cells oozing out of a swollen, angry looking lymph node in the side of my neck.

Did I create this? Of course I did. I didn’t intend to have it be like this, but when I used to have to squeeze into size 16 or 18 jeans and XL tops, I must admit I wondered what it would be like to be slender, never thinking it would actually happen.

I didn’t consciously plan to cause a health crisis that would allow me to lose 10 pounds a month for five or six months because I could barely eat with an angry sore on my tongue.

Here is how the physical side of this creation began. I went to a lousy dentist 20 or so years ago who left a shard sticking out of the filling that irritated my tongue. I had a dentist file the shard off, but the sore still came and went. Then I had the tooth removed and year after year that sore still persisted.

In November 2012, it blew out like an angry balloon and was so painful I started taking ibuprofen at night and even during the day. I had been trying to heal it naturally for years.

Finally, in April 2013, I relented and had the surgeon cut it out. He wanted to do “clean margins” but I was confident I didn’t have cancer and I wanted to be able to talk. I mean for chrissakes, I’m a storyteller. I need a tongue.

Surgeon thought he got it all, but when the pathology report came back, they had discovered squamous cancer cells in the lesion.

I was sent to the radiation department. The PET scan showed a swollen lymph gland.

A Chinese doctor tried to talk me into getting a mask built so I could be still while he radiated me for six weeks or so. I would need to have teeth removed that might be problematic, it might burn my skin and make me sick, and I might not be able to eat, in which case they could insert a tube into my stomach so I could pour Ensure in it.

I declined that offer and went ahead with every natural protocol I could think of. Some of the things I’ve tried are lemon water with baking soda, Essiac tea, Black Salve, colloidal silver, organic veggie blasts (which I still drink every day), chaga, cottonwood leaves, aloe vera, healing salve, tinctures of all kinds, B17 (what we used to call laetrile), vitamin C and zinc, and distance healing.

I’m so grateful for family and friends who were supportive and helpful along my path. At times the information coming my way could be overwhelming.

My latest healing modality is having my sister Rain and Daniel Shaffer do bioenergy work called Domancic. Not only does it draw all kinds of interesting stuff out of the neck lump, but even more importantly was how it helped me overcome my fears.

I think the best idea for me is to embrace mortality with an open heart when it comes my time and until then, live every day to the fullest. It really is a wonderful life.

Patricia Wade

Palmer