[NEDenise]

Sarah,
You expressed my feeling/opinions so clearly...I probably don't even need to post my own!

I too don't see anything wrong with integrative healing and treatment. As long as it doesn't interfere with the other treatments we are receiving...what can it hurt? I've had Reiki masters visit during chemo. It may not have "cured" anything...but it was relaxing, and calmed my spirit. It certainly didn't prevent my medicine from killing cancer cells. So...it may not have helped...but it surely didn't hurt. Win/win as far as I can see.[

On the other hand, someone in my community with HER2 BC has decided - foolishly, IMHO - to forego treatment with Herceptin, or other chemo. She's taking a pass on radiation too. She has stage IIb cancer, and after her lumpectomy (and the discovery of 2 positive nodes) she has decided to treat her cancer with meditation, lots of green tea, and a colon cleansing regimen. After speaking with her at a church function, as she walked away from us, I turned to my husband and we said, almost in unison, "She's gonna die." That is NOT a good use of alternative medicine!

That's the sort of approach I am violently, adamantly opposed to! Using alternative medical treatments INSTEAD of conventional medicine to treat cancer! Really? That's the sort of thing that turns people off to supplementing their treatment with alternative approaches.

I suspect for Dr. Offit...prayer is also "magical thinking". And I wouldn't try to manage my disease with prayer alone! Even God would think that was foolish!!

I know that my fate is ultimately in God's hands...but I can't believe the God who loves me wants me to abandon reason, and not use the medical knowledge available to me, and my medical team. Someone once told me that if you want to imagine how much God loves us...think about how much you love your child...then realize that God loves that child EVEN MORE than you do. I don't know about you other parents...but for me...that's an AMAZING amount of love! A God who loves me like that definitely wants me to make use of all the tools available to me in my fight to kick cancer's a$$!

I also disagree with the doctor in the article when he talks about "false hope". I submit...there's no such thing as false hope...all hope is real. And, without hope...how could any of us...who fight stage IV cancer every single day...or are suffering through chemo side effects...how could we keep going? But hope alone is just gonna get me dead!

Okay...for someone who started off by saying I didn't even really need to post....this is awfully long!!

Come on...my posts are always long! Don't act so surprised!

Anyway...interesting topic/video. Thanks for posting it, Jackie.
Here's hoping that using "all the tools available" will get every one of us to NED!!

Denise