"50% of everything is in your head."

In the early 80’s we were transferred to South Africa, to Johannesburg.
It was an amazingly beautiful country, even with all the social problems of apartheid.

I have to admit, we loved parts of the experience, great friends that we still have, a gorgeous country, filled with amazing landscapes and naturally an animal population to rival any.

While there I started to feel badly, tired and weak. A doctor I went to kept telling me it was stress. This went on for months. I was tired and weak and eventually started to lose lots of weight, which was good, but bad at the same time since I made no effort to lose it. This doctor however, turned out to be a dud, irresponsible really, and made a huge error in judgment when trying to diagnose me. He took blood tests but only tested for tick bite fever, which is prevalent in S.A. (we had been to the bush recently) and it never occurred to him to do other vital tests had he been on the ball, when he saw that I was not improving.

Jeannine, very concerned by a lump that appeared under my arm, told our friend who lived across the street. He immediately took me to his own doctor. We went through a battery of tests and did a biopsy on the lump that appeared under my arm. The surgeon he sent us too had been his professor at university, and very funny, he said he liked the fact that I was American; he could tell me the truth. I explained that I was probably more Greek than American. It did not slow him down, he told me “you have a curable cancer”. I was surprised at the order of his words; he explained that had he said, “You have a cancer that is curable” I probably would have heard cancer and then had a heart attack. Funny guy, I guess it is surgeon’s humor, since he was laughing when he told me.

He recommended an oncologist that was amazing, in Pretoria, a short drive from home.

This doctor was a true inspiration, he told me “50% of my cure was in my head, 20% was in his head and the drugs delivered 30%. The drugs always delivered their share, his whole family, wife and children were oncologists, and so his 20% was a certainty as well.” All I had to do was deliver my share. He put it in such away that all my fears left me; we just had to focus on my cure. He had involved my wife as well, so it was very doable, actually she was the power behind the whole mental attitude.

He never spoke about remission, only cure, he just made me feel unbelievably positive.

He also told me to get rid of all friends that were negative, the hand-ringers, and people that mean well but immediately start to cry. Cancer then and even now, to some people seems like a death sentence. It wasn’t, to us it was a life sentence, and everything fell into perspective.

Six months later and fifty pounds lighter, it was gone, not a trace of it. I was able to go to work right after every chemo session except the 1st two, well actually I made an appearance at work for about 1 hour after the second chemo session and I lost, maybe, two weeks in total, as well as all my hair. I was very tired, and occasionally made no sense, but I was “CURED.”

This experience put lots of things in a positive light, I am very glad that I had cancer. I, we, are different people because of it. I do not advise getting cancer or any other life threatening disease but if you do, it does change you, and from what I have read, it is usually for the better.

50% of everything is in your head.