Friday, March 2, 2012

It’s been a wild two days at the cancer conference (the 5th Annual Evidence-Backed Complementary /Alternative and Holistic Cancer Therapies Conference). I picked up Radha at the airport at 1 and we went directly across the street from the airport to the Embassy Suites. There are over 200 attendees—many cancer patients/survivors, caregivers, and lots of folks in the biz. I saw several folks from the Sari Center, including the woman who gave me the lymphatic massage, and the head of the Center.

It opened with Dr. Gwen Stritter (http://strittermed.org/SMC/?page_id=2/) who is a clinical advocate. “. . . a person who does all those things for you that doctors do for themselves or their loved ones when faced with a serious or life-threatening illness. A clinical advocate does everything from case-intensive research to helping find the right medical team to helping navigate complex medical decisions.” She gave an interesting presentation on what constitutes evidence-based medicine, starting with Marie Antoinette and her fascination with Mesmer, and how Louis XVI had Ben Franklin disprove Mesmer’s “animal magnetism.” Turns out that individual evidence from blood tests colleced by integrative docs have the same 70% accuracy as the “gold standard” of phase 3, double-blind, randomized, large, placebo-controlled trials that are usually funded by pharmaceutical companies. Loved her.
Then Toni Muirhead (http://tonimuirhead.com/) talked about oncology massage, which I heartedly endorse. I love my massage therapist at the Sari Center.
Next, Dr. Thomas Lodi (http://www.anoasisofhealing.com/) from Arizona spoke. He’s an angry man, angry at the medical establishment, and was a real downer to listen to. Afterwards, however, he turned out to be a really nice guy, who is called a homeopathic physician, but not someone I’d care to work with. One interesting point, he said that casein (milk protein) has been proven to be the biggest toxin.
Lisa Wilson from the Raw Food Institute went on about the benefits of green juice. Said the average American consumes 170 pounds of sugar per year. EVERYONE explained how cancer cells and sugars are a No No combo. She mentioned that the biggest mistake that people who go on a raw food diet make are too many sweets, dehydrated foods, and nuts. As she put it, “Everything you put in your mouth leads either to health or death.”
And that was enough for one day. Came home, ate take-out Indian food, and crashed.
The one thing that didn’t happen was my supposed meeting with Dr. Keith Block, due to various miscommunications. Fortunately, today was different.
Keith was the keynote speaker for the conference, and started at 8:40 this morning. You know I had to be really anxious to see him to get there at that hour. And he was fabulous. It was a long complex presentation, but he kept it moving right along and basically understandable by non-scientists. (And it ended with slides of him surfing in the winter on Lake Michigan, in Alaska, and I think Antarctica!
A lot of it was material that he’s also written about in his book (http://lifeovercancer.com/). Afterwards, he was surrounded by people until a woman in the conference hall, a cancer patient who has consulted with him, passed out on the floor and he had to break away to care for her.
While waiting to speak with him, we wound up talking to his wife Penny and his mother, who they had brought up from Miami since she had never heard him speak before. She was great. Got the scoop on the whole family… Then finally we got to sit down together and reviewed where I was at and how I was doing with the supplements. Told him about the problem I had with the curcumin, which he said was part of my digestive difficulty in absorption. He told me to try just one (rather than the 3 I’d been taking, trying to get up to the 7 he originally wanted). He should have a new product available shortly that’s supposed to be a lot more easily absorbed. He’s really present with you, and very personable. (Yes, Lindsey, I said hi from you…)
We missed the panel of cancer patients, each of whom had used a different approach, since that was when I was talking to Keith.
After a fantastic organic lunch buffet, the next speak was Dr. Burt Berkson (http://drberkson.com/) who has an integrative medical center in Las Cruces, NM. His story of how he reluctantly became a doctor was delightful, as was his total honesty about the treatments he’s best known for—intravenous alpha lipoic acid and los-dose naltrexone. Fascinating history, but he was very clear that he doesn’t know why they work remarkably well for some people and not at all for others. He’s off to Washington soon in hopes of getting some sort of real trial going to validate his findings. He’s been very successful treating Hep C, diabetic neuropathies, and some cancers.
Radha and I also spent time talking with a number of the conference participants, all with incredible stories. There’s something remarkable about being with several hundred people who are all sincerely working on themselves on so many levels—everyone acknowledges the mind/body connection, the importance of spiritual/emotional healing along with the physical, good nutrition, and are so open to new ideas. It must be the confrontation with their mortality, something most Americans manage to avoid at all costs.
We didn’t stay for the workshops—one on community acupuncture and one on intimacy. But enough was enough. Total exhaustion had set in. And there was no way we were going to make the movie they were showing tonight, called “Not As I Pictured.” (http://www.notasipictured.org/)
Tomorrow the breast cancer panel unfortunately starts at 8 a.m. Not a chance we’ll make it that early. But hopefully the rest of the day will prove to be interesting.
The vendors who were exhibiting were also great. We learned a lot, including the fact that I can get a year of free bi-monthly healing touch sessions from a local practitioner. And more, much more. Maybe I’ll write about some of it tomorrow. For now it’s good night…