I am taking a break from zerumbone today, except for leaving a few comments on yesterday’s post. I will instead have a look at a recent Cancer Compass article (http://tinyurl.com/4a4wxe), which begins with the description of a Reiki session. I have never had any formal training in meditation or participated in a Reiki class, but I have created my own form of meditation and sometimes use Reiki music to help clear my mind of the daily clutter. Very helpful.
As the article suggests, Reiki is part of what is called complementary treatment or integrative medicine, which combines conventional and alternative treatments. Some hospitals are now offering complementary and even alternative treatments to patients. Extraordinary, don’t you think?
And some doctors are following courses in integrative medicine, like Dr. Edward Planz, a heart surgeon, who graduated from an Internet-based two-year fellowship in integrative medicine through the University of Arizona. What inspired him to explore this field were his bypass patients’ questions about supplements and other forms of alternative medicine. Since he couldn’t give come up with any answers, he studied mind-body interactions, nutrition and botanicals. A doctor after my own heart (pun intended…)! 
This proves how vital it is for us (patients) to ask our doctors challenging questions.
This proves how vital it is for us (patients) to ask our doctors challenging questions.There is another good example in the article. Dr. Edmond Zlotea, whose approach is to take care of the whole person — structural, nutritional and emotional. […] Stress, he said, is one of the major causes of illness. […] "It’s like peeling layers of an onion," Zlotea said. " … The onion’s not too healthy on the outside, but it is on the inside. You just have to peel the layers of stress from the onion."
The article points out that taking this attitude, a holistic attitude, gets doctors into trouble with the pharmaceutical industry. As Dr. Zlotea points out, pharmaceutical companies have turned something that’s supposed to be about healing into a business." No kidding.
Well, the times, they are a’changing…or at least may be a’changing…after all, Rome wasn’t built in a day…!
I have MM and wnet through 3 months of Chemo. I’ now starting with curcu,in.
Did you ever use any of the convential treatments for your MM (Procrit, Chemo, etc)???