I know the importance of the individual experience of metastacised melanoma cancer, because it is a very special journey. People are prone to forget, such as when one forgets they have a finger, until they hit it; people also forget they have a life until it is very seriously threatened. The worst sentence in this world that a doctor can pronounce is, "I am sorry, but the medical profession can do nothing further for you" This work explores how my wife, Jeannie, who was my home caregiver, and I travelled the cancer journey together. The journey was not the same for Jeannie as it was for me-it was my melanoma cancer, but I was Jeannie's husband, and therefore the stress was that much more for her, as she never knew what further stresses she had to face. This book examines the strengths of our relationship, despite the difficulties of living on an island. It is interesting how we were aware of these difficulties, and yet we worked through them. Then came the details of how the cancer was treated, both by conventional and alternative treatment. My alternative treatment had a journey all of its own, incorporating several people, all of whom were heroes in their own right. This alternative treatment was later to be regarded as a miracle by several oncologists in a Brisbane hospital. It is a thoughtful, painful, and revealing account of the years spent fighting this cancer. This book is educative, giving a report on melanoma. Mainly, the message it brings is one of hope for those who now have seemingly no hope against melanoma. I had three CT scans and a bone scan in May 2012, proving I am still free of melanoma.

I Survived Metastacised Melanoma Cancer!

Hope For Melanoma SufferersBy Frank E. Burdett

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2012 Frank E. Burdett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-0679-1

Contents

Acknowledgements.........................................................3Dedication...............................................................5A Brief explanation of Melanoma Cancer...................................9Author's note............................................................11Introduction.............................................................13Ch. 1: Living With Hope..................................................19Ch. 2: Accepting the Inevitable..........................................25Ch. 3: Understanding Melanoma Cancer.....................................33Ch. 4: Stage IV Melanoma Cancer..........................................41Ch. 5: The Truth About Bicarbonate of Soda...............................53Ch. 6: differences of Opinion............................................59Ch. 7: "You Are Bleeding Internally!"....................................63Ch. 8: Confronting My Melanoma Cancer....................................73Ch. 9: A Private, early Hours discussion.................................77Ch. 10: An Acute Fear of Contracting Cancer..............................81Ch. 11: "You Probably Won't Believe Me, But ...".........................93Ch. 12: What If Cancer Is not a disease?.................................103Ch. 13: "Ideal pH" different From What Others Teach?.....................121Ch. 14: Some Answers Are least expected!.................................125Ch. 15: Communicating and Cancer Survival................................129Ch. 16: difference Between Blood pH and urine pH.........................137Ch. 17: Outside of Conventional Medicine.................................141Ch. 18: Controversy Between Various Treatments...........................145Ch. 19: Cancer "Cures"...................................................153Ch. 20: Recovery From loss of Hope.......................................157Ch. 21: How a Cancer diagnosis Can Affect a Spouse.......................161Ch. 22: Appreciation of My devoted Caregiver.............................165Ch. 23: Reasons For Offering Genuine Hope................................173Ch. 24: An Orthodox Opinion..............................................179

Chapter One

Living With Hope

Life is unfair! That maybe so, but all too often life is also a paradox because of a lack of hope. How many times did the outcomes we had planned or hoped to accomplish in life never became a reality. Our dreams, which are made with threads of hope, simply unravel and we are left pondering: "Is there really any hope, after all?"

All around us, people are in need of hope—genuine hope; the homeless, hospice patients, the unemployed, those who are desperately lonely, and cancer sufferers—people from all walks of life that are faced with circumstances, some medical, and thus, beyond their control. These people have little to cling to, except hope. Hope is the belief that in the future personal situations will get better. Without hope, there is the strong possibility that people sink into depression and despair.

Psychological development in, and interaction with a social environment, are supportive hope programs, especially in Canada, that have been found to increase quality of life and improve the personal health of persons with advanced cancer. Since hope has been identified as a key psychological development resource among family caregivers to manage and deal with the caregiver experience, it is theorised that they may also benefit from a hope-focused intervention that is measured to their needs. Hope is, therefore, defined by family caregivers, as the inner strength to achieve future good and to continue caregiving.

Nevertheless, there are two aspects to the human side of cancer: what cancer does psychologically to people and their families, and how emotions, behaviours and incorrect nutrition may influence the risk of the development of cancer and its generally negative outcome.

Many cancer sufferers ask their medical practitioner: "Can you advise me which books, or articles, to read in order to help me cope better and get through this?"

I should think that query would be difficult to respond to because there are many books on coping with cancer. But many of those types of books tout a particular approach and promise that it alone will lead to successful coping.

If I have learned anything in this life, it is that there is no single correct approach and no simple solution that all cancer sufferers will agree with, especially when it comes to accepting proven findings in dealing with the human side of cancer. Although there are given universal testimonies about the cancer experience, particularly in the sense of uncertainty that people feel, we are each as distinct from one another in our psychological dimension as we are in the pattern of our fingerprints and our dnA. It is difficult to comprehend, given this diversity, that there is only one correct answer for every cancer sufferer.

However, when a cancer sufferer's alternative treatment is categorised as a miracle by orthodox medicine, then perhaps, we all need to reappraise our present thinking on cancer treatment! There is more than one correct solution and one series of treatments, other than surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

* * *

You may have just been informed that you have a particular type of cancer, or you may already be undergoing treatment and feel a complete loss of hope. Perhaps, you are a cancer survivor, wondering whether you are cured, or not. Or you are coping with cancer as a chronic disease and feel the need for mental support. Maybe, you are a home caregiver on the cancer journey, supporting and assisting a loved one with cancer, but feeling the need for help yourself.

Whatever your situation, I would like to be able to sit with you and talk about what's been going on and how you've been coping, and attempt to help you find the kind of support that suits just you! That's the way I would like to do it. But since that's impossible, I've tried through the chapters of this book to talk with people as if we were talking face-to-face about their illness or that of their loved one and about the problems they have had to deal with travelling the cancer journey.

I have heard many a "cancer journey," starting with finding a lump or having a pain that resulted in a visit to the doctor, who, finally, diagnosed cancer. Or, for others, it is how they were suddenly and completely surprised by the results of a routine mammogram or colonoscopy or chest X-ray that showed early signs of cancer. Somewhere along the journey, each has heard a version of the words: "I am sorry, but you have been diagnosed with cancer."

Some people, when they hear this news become scared, mixed up, and overwhelmed to the point that they hesitate to take the next step. Others come later, such as after starting their chosen type of cancer treatment. Then they hit the "Loss of Hope" syndrome as they attempt to cope with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The loss of hope syndrome starts with feelings that lead to questions such as: Can I get through this? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Have I undergone all of this orthodox treatment, feeling constantly nauseous and losing all of my hair ... for nothing?

Whatever their situation, cancer sufferers need to talk about how difficult it has been to get to where they are now. They often have only...