Mindsweeping

Headaches are down to 1 out of 10. Picture a 10 being ‘kicked in the head’ by a burly Norwegian dude as described by a doctor there last summer… probably a Viking (the kicker, not the doctor!) and probably the tumour ‘rearing it’s ugly head for the first time’, to quote my current oncologist. Another first: yesterday I didn’t take a single painkiller, the first time since last October. Good news, but how do I get the pain levels down to 0 out of 10?

My experience is that there’s little consensus about how to tackle cancer. One respectable doctor told me ‘the wife of a patient—a guy about your age… she put him on a strict anticancer diet; kept him off of sugar, bread, and dairy; followed all the rules’. My own wife and I waited for the punchline anxiously… ‘Well, he withered away and died’. My nutritionist retorted a few days later: ‘we’ll change a few things in your lifestyle and you’ll be fine’. Then there’s a friend who’s beaten cancer for years while enjoying respectable quantities of fondue and absinthe. The counterfactual: David Servan-Schreiber, a guy who used wholesome living to survive a brain tumour for two decades; all while writing a book about his experience and setting up Médecins Sans Frontières in the US.

I don’t know which side is right, but I doubt anyone has ever overdosed from probiotics or a shot of wheatgrass. So taking a leap of faith, I walk into the nutritionist’s office. We speak about avoiding and fighting the poisons that have become so pervasive in our world: electromagnetic fields (EMF), dioxins, processed foods, pesticides, sugar, growth hormones, table salt, sulphites, monosodium glutamate, mercury… so many I get lost pretty quickly. How to navigate this minefield? I have mixed feelings about her recommendations. Drinking lots of veggie smoothies to strengthen the immune system? Makes a lot of sense. Blocking EMF caused by ‘bad’ electronic devices by installing ‘good’ electronic devices? Probably a bit late. Natural deodorant? Ooooh yuck am I going to stink? Redoing a root canal in case of recurring infection? Ouch. Wearing an EMF Protection pendant? Now I’m getting scared. 

Indeed, these conversations always put a mix of hope and fear into me. It’s good news (hopefully) to know there’s so much I can do (hopefully) to boost my health. But has our world really become such a dangerous stew of deadly poisons? Like a bad horror movie, I just don’t know which way to run. And when that paranoia hits is actually a good time to literally run… head on outside, crank up some boisterous rock band, and just run ‘till it hurts. 

Maybe pain levels of zero are unrealistic at best and boring at worst. Maybe 1 out of 10 isn’t so bad. Maybe there’s something in the words of a crazy friend: ‘I’d rather be not-bored than happy’. Or to paraphrase one Zen master, the pain reminds me I’m alive. Just don’t tell my nutritionist.