Cancer Options: Ten Years in Partnership - by Robin Daly, founder of Yes to Life

This week's blog post has been written by the founder of Yes to Life, Robin Daly. As part of our celebration of 10 years in partnership with Cancer Options, he discusses the relationship, Patricia Peat, and how Integrative Medicine is slowly but surely becoming mainstream...

Ten years ago, Yes to Life teamed up with Cancer Options, a consultancy established more than 5 years earlier by Patricia Peat, a highly experienced oncology nurse. Patricia had decided that the scope of cancer treatment needed extending considerably beyond the surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy that were, and still largely are, the exclusive methods of conventional medicine.

At that time, the term Integrative Medicine hadn’t been coined, and all the talk was of either conventional or alternative approaches. It was war. Happily, with the passage of time, hostilities are finally beginning to subside for all but a handful of retrograde quackbusters and conspiracy theorists, who are still slugging it out on the front lines of the internet. We are at last beginning to see the rise of what is now termed Integrative Medicine (IM), a rational synthesis of all the available ways to support people with cancer in regaining their health and wellbeing.

Patricia was very much a pioneer in promoting integration all those years ago. This was as a result of her direct experience of what does and doesn’t work in conventional medicine. Unlike most advocates for the inclusion of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) approaches, her roots were in orthodox practice.

One hallmark of IM is that it truly embraces patient choice, in its breadth and inclusivity, and in its recognition of the multiplicity of factors involved in treating cancer successfully. Yes to Life was created to increase and support patient choice, and so, although we never spoke about IM in the early years, it was implicitly the meeting ground for the two organisations. Through Cancer Options, Yes to Life was able to offer callers to our fledgling Helpline (I was the Helpline at the start) personalised information, shortlisting approaches that could be useful to them, given their diagnosis, stage of disease, budget etc, whether conventional or CAM.

This service was our core offering, and it remains so to this day. Having personally experienced what it is like to try to find this information unaided, I would say that it’s hard to understate the effect that quickly obtaining a concise ‘shopping list’ of expertly selected options can have on someone’s chances of living better and longer. Venturing out into the internet alone and unprepared can be wholly overwhelming and utterly confusing. Cancer is one of the most complex areas of medicine with a singularly opaque language of its own, and for every one of the vast number of approaches to be found, there are supporters and detractors who will pronounce it either miracle cure or certain death, respectively. Making any sense of it all without expert help is nigh on impossible.

I’m proud to say that by working together closely, Cancer Options and Yes to Life have been able to help thousands of people to make their own choices to help themselves; and in many cases, Yes to Life has gone on to support people, both financially and in other ways, to access those choices. This in turn has resulted in many, many stories of remarkable remissions and longevity in the face of dire prognoses. 

All of this would not have been possible without the expertise of Patricia Peat and Cancer Options, who are the UK’s top resource for information on the latest developments in IM for cancer. They make it their business to know about integrative clinics worldwide, the latest science and what is working for any given subset of people with cancer. They are often able to bring attention to methods on offer by the NHS that have not been presented as an option. They are fully aware of the ‘hotspots’ internationally, where clinics are achieving unusually good results and of the reasons this is the case. While there are many places you can get a more in-depth view of a particular branch of treatment or discipline, the overview of choices offered by Cancer Options is unparalleled.

I’m delighted by our achievements and the ongoing success of the partnership and I’m grateful to Patricia for her support of our charitable mission. I am looking forward to achieving even more together in the years to come.

If you would like to know more about Cancer Options, head to their website https://canceroptions.co.uk or call the Helpline on 0870 163 2990.

Feeling Like a Human Being Again

Today's blog is from Susan who writes about her experience of conventional treatment for breast cancer and how taking a new approach helped to make her feel more human again. 

I was originally diagnosed with a Grade 2 mixed ductal and lobular carcinoma of the left breast, both oestrogen and HER2 positive. I have a long history of breast cancer in my family, so I wasn’t that surprised to finally succumb to the same thing, particularly having had several years of acrimonious separation from my daughter’s father.

At first, being rather depressed at the time, I didn’t care if I lived or died, but after a few days, I pulled myself together and made a conscious decision that I wanted to live. I have always said that I would never do chemotherapy, but in 2010 when I was diagnosed, I didn’t know where to turn for information about alternative therapies and indeed, I never imagined so much research into alternatives existed. I was quite ‘matter of fact’ about the whole thing but realised much later that I had just gone into survival mode and got on with what I thought had to be done at the time.

I certainly had some very low days, some suicidal days and some total panic days – mostly I felt a failure as a mother, as at the time it was almost impossible for me to meet all my daughter’s needs – she was only 6 when I was diagnosed and still reeling from the family break-down. One day she told me she liked her father’s new girlfriend better than me and that one thing shattered me more than anything, but of course what she meant was that it was more fun being with the healthy new girlfriend rather than the very sick mummy who she had to leave alone every third weekend and much of the time in between.

After that, I started to look for all the information I could and a friend told me about a few good websites on natural and alternative cures and treatments, so I started reading everything I could find and was amazed by it, and so began.

As I didn’t know what else to do and presumed that time was very much of the essence, I initially agreed to go down the mainstream route.  I  had four months of chemotherapy, followed by a lumpectomy, in which a large part of my left breast was removed.  Shortly after this I started radiotherapy for four weeks. I also had Herceptin, an antibody drug, for 6 months, as I was participating in a trial.  Others were on it for 12 months.

The side-effects of the treatment were pretty horrendous, although not quite as awful as I had expected. My hair fell out within a fortnight and I was very sick from the FEC chemotherapy drugs. I turned down extra drugs that I was offered to help with the nausea because I wanted to minimise the overall poisoning of my system and each drug came with its  own complications.

 Midway through the treatment, the chemotherapy drug was changed to docetaxol, which caused me to lose all the hair on my body, my eyebrows and my eyelashes, but on the upside, much less sickness, which was a result as far as I was concerned.

Things got much harder as time went on, as the effect of these drugs is cumulative, and I got weaker and weaker - I could hardly function, which made me feel very miserable and desperate. I was also in a huge amount of pain, as I had very severe peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet, so the slightest touch was agony.  My fingers split to the bone on almost every finger, which made doing anything at all almost impossible.

It took about three years before I started to feel like an ‘almost normal’ person again – just in time to be diagnosed with a new primary cancer and secondaries in my liver and the base of my spine. So, we began again with chemo and Herceptin and now Pertuzumab as well – another antibody drug, which works much the same way as Herceptin but costs the NHS a mere three thousand pounds every three weeks. However, I had so many unpleasant side effects from this drug that I stopped it just before Christmas.


A New Approach

I decided that a new approach was needed. I first cleaned up my environment, such as disposing of all plastic containers, as these leach chemicals which are oestrogen mimics. I then changed my diet, using organic food as much as possible eating a lot of green veg each day.

I now take a number of supplements as well - astragalus, Siberian ginseng, quercetin, indole 3 carbinol, high dose vitamin D3, green tea extract, curcumins with piperine, cordyceps muchrooms, resveratrol, high dose of vitamin C, vitamin K2, selenium, magnesium, natural vitamin E – must be natural, vitamin B complex and also PectaSol-C (modified citrus pectin). More recently I started taking a wonderful probiotic, which is finally making all the difference to 2 years of diarrhoea. It is in a liquid form and called Symprove.

I also do yoga when I can and walk and get as much fresh air and exercise as I can manage – little and often is better and loads now and then. In general I live my life with as much optimism as I can, which is quite a lot now that I have all these wonderful herbs and therapies at my disposal.

So far my experience is that I am defying the odds of a person who has had chemo twice and has secondary lesions and two primaries. I have been in stable remission for the last year and a half and so far there is not one sign of any cancer anywhere in my body.  I am healing slowly but still better than I could have hoped after the ravages of mainstream treatment. I feel confident that if I stick to the protocol, I will continue to beat the odds.

I spoke to a lovely lady called Patricia Peat who runs Cancer Options and she told me about Yes to Life and how they could help me.  Paying for the many supplements herbal treatments was a struggle and so Yes to Life was a God send for me. I can’t recall now exactly but I know I spoke on the phone to several very kind and patient people at Yes to Life.

I had a consultation with Patricia Peat and found it very reassuring.  I am still doing most of the things she recommended two years later and apparently I am doing much better than the average cancer patient, which I feel certain is not a matter of luck but due to the various therapies which are working their magic for me.

Yes to life has helped me many times with a donation towards my supplements, items like the glass kettle I bought to replace my plastic one and with the cost of my consultation with Patricia Peat.  It made all the difference to me - as single mum on incapacity benefit I could not have paid for any of these things without help.  They have made a huge difference to me – my oncologist told me that only about one percent of patients up and down the country doing as well and I am and I know it’s because of the natural meds that I’m taking.

So far I haven’t been well enough to start fundraising but I’m gradually persuading my friends who run for cancer research, to fundraise for Yes to Life instead and hopefully they will do that soon.

I'd like to attend some of the Yes To Life workshops but they've been quite a distance from me and I’ve been very ill for a long time, as it’s taking an age to recover from the second round of chemo and the allergic reactions to the antibody drugs, but I hope to get to some of them soon, as I am slowly starting to feel like a human being again.

The support I’ve received from Yes To Life has meant peace of mind to me, as I have such confidence that the various remedies I am taking are going to be the difference between life (for more than the prescribed 5 – 10 years) or death. I’m just incredibly grateful for your support and wish more cancer patients would trust that they can be well and live a normal life without chemo – if I’d known in 2010 what I know now, I would have gone down a different route with my treatment and improved my chances of longevity even more.

Feeling Like a Human Being Again

Today's blog is from Susan who writes about her experience of conventional treatment for breast cancer and how taking a new approach helped to make her feel more human again. 

I was originally diagnosed with a Grade 2 mixed ductal and lobular carcinoma of the left breast, both oestrogen and HER2 positive. I have a long history of breast cancer in my family, so I wasn’t that surprised to finally succumb to the same thing, particularly having had several years of acrimonious separation from my daughter’s father.

At first, being rather depressed at the time, I didn’t care if I lived or died, but after a few days, I pulled myself together and made a conscious decision that I wanted to live. I have always said that I would never do chemotherapy, but in 2010 when I was diagnosed, I didn’t know where to turn for information about alternative therapies and indeed, I never imagined so much research into alternatives existed. I was quite ‘matter of fact’ about the whole thing but realised much later that I had just gone into survival mode and got on with what I thought had to be done at the time.

Finding an integrative path for non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Today's post is from one of our beneficiaries, Olive*, 47, from Kent who has kindly shared her experience of being treated for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. 

After a year of getting regular boils in my armpits and round after round of antibiotics I got concerned when one lump wasn't responding.  After another nine months of hospital visits starting with the breast clinic, chest clinic and skin clinic, I ended up with a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) at the Haematology clinic.

Having never heard of this condition it did not register that this was cancer.  I was on my own when the consultant broke the news, having had so many visits to the hospital I thought this would be another 'we can’t find anything wrong'.  It was a shock to say the least.  I had no warning or pre-counselling about what I was about to be told.

I drove to work after that in my state of shock and the first people I told were my boss and a colleague.  They cried with me.

My change in direction after a cancer recurrance

Today’s post is from one of our beneficiaries who has kindly agreed to share her story. Claire, 47, from Devon took an integrative approach after suffering a recurrence of cancer. 

I was diagnosed with stage 3b inflammatory breast cancer in October 2012. This is a rare form of breast cancer where there is not a lump, but a swelling and redness. I was completely in shock after my diagnosis, as it was also found that the cancer had spread to lymph nodes under my arm. My children were five and seven at the time, and I was so worried and scared that I would not be around to see them grow up.

I had seven rounds of chemotherapy soon after diagnosis, followed by a mastectomy and three weeks of radiotherapy. I then had herceptin every three weeks for two years.

Unfortunately this was not the end of the story. I had a recurrence in my neck two years later in October 2014, which was treated with six months of Kadcyla chemotherapy.

'Tripping Over the Truth' - a discussion on the origins of cancer

Today's post, from our chairman Robin Daly, is a review of the recently published 'Tripping Over the Truth: the Metabolic Theory of Cancer' by Travis Christofferson.

In 2012 Thomas Seyfried’s game-changing book ‘Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer’ hit the bookstore shelves with a thud. At £90 or so, this heavy duty science book was clearly not aimed at the ‘man in the street’, however strong his interest in cancer.

Seyfried wanted to make the scientific community aware that a fundamental feature of cancer, known about for almost a century, has been systematically ignored to the detriment of the growing number of people with cancer. He wanted to put forward the radical suggestion that simply targeting an ever increasing number of cancer causing genes was not going provide the long sought for solutions. He went on to put forward a plausible and novel strategy of targeting cancer’s energy supply, its metabolism, through a specialised dietary regime - the ketogenic diet.

The task of communicating Seyfried’s crucial messages to a wider audience was picked up by Travis Christofferson, who published ‘Tripping Over the Truth: the Metabolic Theory of Cancer’ late last year. Written, in the most part, in very accessible English, and priced at around £10 this new offering hits the spot for readers like me.

'Take Control and Live' by Gillian Gill - A Review

Today’s post is a review of the recently published ‘Take Control and Live – Surviving Ovarian Cancer’, an autobiography by Gillian Gill.

In October 2000, Gillian Gill (or Gilly as she is known) was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. Her prognosis was bleak, with her oncologist breaking the devastating news that she had only a few months left to live. Yet here we are 14 years later, reading a very different story. Gilly’s book is the story of her unique journey through cancer; it is a story full of painful truths but also an incredible account of hope and an indomitable will to live.

The book’s title, ‘Take Control and Live’, is a mantra which runs through Gilly’s whole experience of cancer and is what she sees as the fundamental tenet of her recovery:

‘I can sum up my story like this: although different therapies help in different ways, recovery is about trying to give oneself positive healing messages, by natural means and by becoming adept at listening and responding to your body’s needs. It’s a bit like driving a car and being personally responsible behind the steering wheel. Fundamentally, it’s about being empowered to do things for oneself, not about handing it over to others. They can help, yet ultimately it’s only you who can do it’

Why Panorama's 'Can You Cure my Cancer?' is missing the point

Today's post is from our chairman, Robin Daly, in response to the recent Panorama documentary 'Can you Cure my Cancer?

After hitting us with the ‘hard fact’ opener that half of us are going to get cancer, last week’s Panorama: Can You Cure My Cancer? left viewers without a second to take a breath, let alone give a moment’s thought to questions such as ‘why?’ before sweeping us all away on a tidal wave of ‘good news’. We were alternately reassured that ‘this is an unprecedented time of progress in the history of cancer medicine and cancer research’, and thrilled by the promise of ‘personalised medicine’, the much heralded result of cutting edge gene research. ‘In both young and old patients, targeted treatments are producing spectacular results’. There was even tentative mention of the ‘c’ word - ‘cure’!

Not once on our wonder-filled roller coaster ride did we step back and pause to consider where we are really headed. As we saw people being treated for their second and third cancers with eye-wateringly expensive drugs, it became clear that, as good consumers, cancer spin has thus far succeeded in distracting us from the reality of the crisis we are in. If we keep going, it would seem likely that, not that far ahead, is the prospect of new ‘baseline’ where we blithely accept that we will all get cancer - of course - and the newspaper statistics and ‘good news’ stories will then be all about how many times.

Yes to Life Responds to the Latest Macmillan Report

Today's post is from our chairman, Robin Daly, in response to the recent Macmillan report which revealed that there are now a record 2.5 million people living with cancer in the UK.

At Yes to Life, we welcome the ‘real world’ report put out by Macmillan this month. Amidst all the ‘good news’ stories that ‘more people are surviving cancer than ever’, this report hits the nail on the head when it comes to focussing on the grim reality behind the latest cancer statistics. The report talks about ‘a cancer crisis of unmanageable proportions’, and states that ‘progress is a double-edged sword’.

Yes it’s true that more people are surviving cancer, but far more importantly, many more people are getting cancer than ever. That means more people will have their lives totally uprooted by cancer, will have to face gruelling, increasingly unaffordable treatments, and then very possibly to live out their extended lives in pain, disabled, or with treatment side effects that severely erode their quality of life. Macmillan are a powerful voice of non-conformity amidst the stock hyped news of ‘progress’ that we have grown accustomed to. They clearly identify that ‘growing evidence shows that many cancer patients do not return to full health after gruelling treatments and many suffer from serious side effects of the disease.’ To this we would add ‘and of the treatment’.

Our First Manchester Seminar: ‘Lifestyle Choices and Cancer’

Today’s post is about our recent seminar ‘Lifestyle Choices and Cancer’ which was held on the 22nd November 2014 at the Manchester Conference centre. With talks from integrative oncologist Dr Francisco Contreras, Cancer Options’ Patricia Peat and Gloria Halim, self-confessed ‘breast cancer warrior’, the morning was full of fascinating insights. Stay up to date with future seminars on our events page or by joining our mailing list (on the right of the page).

The weekend’s grey weather could not put a dampener on the excitement of hosting our very first northern seminar. Whilst the Yes to Life office is based in London, our beneficiaries are spread across the country so reaching out to different regions is very important to us, and the welcome we received in Manchester could not have been warmer. We settled into our seats, notepads at the ready, to learn more about how lifestyle choices can influence experiences of cancer.