FOUR years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes and the oncologist who examined me at St. Lukes Hospital recommended chemotherapy. I chose another pathalternative or integrative medicineand went to Dr. Regio Sales who is one such practitioner in Bacolod. Until May of this year I was under his care.

Right at the start Dr. Sales had a valuable piece of advice; toxins in the body trigger the uncontrollable division of cancer cells; the toxins develop from any of three (3) sourcesa poor diet, a negative mind and/or a poor spirituality. His recommendation: I can help you with your diet, but you take care of your mind and your spirit yourself. And for four years that was the kind of teamwork that we had. He loaded me with supplements to make sure my body was getting all the vitamins and minerals needed to address any disease, and I just made sure mind and soul were kept healthy too.

By the close of this summer of 2012, however, the lumps inside my body, especially the ones close to my throat and the one along my groin had grown so large that my windpipe was in danger of closing and my right leg was bloated all out of proportion compared to the left one. At this point, apparently realizing that integrative medicine could no longer contain the Big C, Dr. Sales referred me to an oncologist in Manila who told me that chemotherapy could not be avoided this time.

The biopsy conducted after I returned to Bacolod indicated that I had non-Hodgkins lymphoma of the aggressive type. The doctors report noted that I was already at Stage 4 of the cancer which by all accounts is already terminal. That I lasted four years from what was diagnosed to be an aggressive kind of lymphoma is to me a blessing that Dr. Sales treatment had granted me. But this is not the main point of this article.

My laymans understanding of a person suffering from Stage 4 malignancy is that he is already a hospital caseweak, withering, writhing in pain. I am told that some of the usual discomforts of chemotherapy include baldness, loss of appetite and taste and, sometimes, vomiting and headaches. I have had neither of these.

I have not felt pain during the four years of treatment except for discomforts in breathing and walking during the months before I began chemotherapy last September; I continue to work in the office and appear in court, albeit a little limited, and my weight has been steady. I even joined the 2013 local elections as a candidate for councilor! I may have lost most of my hair, but after three sessions of chemo, kansi still tastes as heavenly-delicious as before! And with the lumps in my throat and other parts of the body dramatically reduced in size, the feeling of well-being is indescribable.

My point? I attribute all of these to the fact that through all of the last four years I have kept a positive outlook over what could have been a mind and spirit-unsettling condition. I accepted my condition as something only God and my doctor could control; and since the cancer cells are not within my own power to control I let God and my doctors worry about them. What the mind believed, the body dutifully followed. I refused to accept cancer as a problem, and my body did so too. I believed I could live normally in spite of it, and my body did, too. I may also add that the prayers of family and friends were the confidence-booster that made me believe I could do it.

Yesterday, my daughter in New Zealand told me about an office-mate who was recently diagnosed with 3rd stage cancer. She said he was a strong strapping fellow with a very healthy disposition whose only problem was that he sometimes had trouble swallowing. Yet, when told he had cancer he suddenly deteriorated and just two months after, was already in critical condition. My daughter had to let me know because she said both his experience and mine were classic examples of how to face problems with diseasesand how not too. I could only agree with her.

Published in the Sun.Star Bacolod newspaper on November 05, 2012.

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Hagad: The mind leads, the body follows