All Our Days Are Numbered --: Journey Through Breast Cancer with Traditional and Alternative Medicine
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University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Dissertations and Theses @ UNI Student Work 1996 All our days are numbered --: Journey through breast cancer with traditional and alternative medicine Tomma Lou Maas University of Northern Iowa Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy Copyright ©1996 Tomma Lou Mas Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd Part of the Alternative and Complementary Medicine Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Maas, Tomma Lou, "All our days are numbered --: Journey through breast cancer with traditional and alternative medicine" (1996). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 666. https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/666 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses @ UNI by an authorized administrator of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Copyright by TOMMA LOU MAAS 1996 All Rights Reserved ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED- JOURNEY THROUGH BREAST CANCER WITH TRADITIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE An Abstract of a Creative Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Tamma Lou Maas University of Northern Iowa May 1996 Abstract All Our Days Are Numbered--Joumey Through Breast Cancer with Traditional and Alternative Medicine brings hope to women who must face breast cancer. In four books, Lorna Jordan shares the events leading up to her disease; her traditional breast cancer experience; her search for alternative medicine which will improve her health; and her journey into good health. Book One, "In the Beginning," presents evidence of Lorna's developing ill health. Beginning in adolescence, Lorna's exposure to mercury, antibiotics, and DDT contribute to her poor health. Later, in early adulthood, she begins to have mood shifts and menstrual disorders. When she takes birth-control pills, Loma develops depression and benign breast disease. Finally, breast cancer arrives. Book Two, "Shock and Despair," presents Lorna's physical and mental anguish from her lumpectomy, the reading of the pathology report, and a mastectomy. This book reveals the problems Loma must face after cancer: fear and isolation, rejection by her husband, reactions of family and friends, watching for recurrence, and finding hope for the future. Book Three, "Other Treatments" is Lorna's search for non traditional medicine which will rebuild her immune system, help overcome her allergies, and fight her cancer through nutritional approaches to health. Fighting fungi, building immunity, removing mercury, and cleansing the colon are important components of this book. In Book Four, "Getting Well," Loma meets Dr. A.V. Constantini, a world specialist in diseases caused by fungi and their toxins. From him she seeks to verify what she has discovered on her own about the causes of breast cancer and ways to prevent its return. Lorna learns to practice meditation to help heal herself. Unexpectedly, she develops a ruptured appendix and diseased gallbladder; removal of these diseased organs improves her general health immensely. Lorna and her husband share a candlelight dinner together on the fifth-year anniversary of her breast cancer. An epilogue in the form of a letter to other women encourages them to fight on and to consider the food they eat as a very important component in their fight against breast cancer. A brief postscript discusses Dr. Guenther Enderlein's postulate of Mucor racemosus Fresen as the cause of breast cancer. ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED- JOURNEY THROUGH BREAST CANCER WITH TRADITIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE A Creative Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts. Tomma Lou Maas University of Northern Iowa May 1996 11 This study by: Tamma Lou Maas Entitled: All Our Days Are Numbered-Journey Through Breast Cancer with Traditional and Alternative Medicine has been approved as meeting the thesis requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts Date J//17/?C. Date r: John W. Swope, Thesis Committee Member 111 FOREWORD When I agreed to have this book written about me, I hoped it would bring courage and faith to women who know they must keep vigilance regarding breast cancer. My purpose is to share the events leading up .to my own disease and demonstrate the kind of wellness ~hich, I believe, most woman can achieve. Many of the methods I have used and the treatments I have sought in the struggle to overcome cancer and regain my health will not be found in the offices of mainstream medical practitioners. Often I have had to introduce these ideas to my doctors, and I have persisted with my use of them. Although it has been only five years since my lumpectomy, radical mastectomy, and chemotherapy, there has been no recurrence of my disease. This is true, I believe, because I have diligently struggled to improve a weak immune system and reduce severe allergies which have contributed to my poor health. It is this weak immune system which invites breast cancer and which brings metastatic cancer back to the body. Each of us is different. Our body systems respond differently to food we eat, to the air we breathe, and to disease. Therefore, what is said here regarding how nutrition and positive living have affected me will vary from woman to woman. The concepts discussed here, however, should help guide anyone who desires to study her own body and learn to read what it is telling her. Above all else, I hope this book will empower women everywhere with knowledge about good nutrition and its relationship to their breast cancer disease. Hopefully, each will also find the spirituality which has brought me health and happiness. Perhaps too, sharing these ideas will bring change to mainstream medicine's view of "food and nutrition" and illuminate how nutrients from "food" can serve as medicine to heal the body. May this book also help doctors see how food, fungi, food "artifacts," and allergies invite this abyss we know as breast cancer. Lorna T. Jordan IV CONTENTS BOOK ONE: IN THE BEGINNING CHAPTER ONE: JUST A LITTLE PAPILLOMA 6 CHAPTER TWO: A CHILD GROWS UP 10 CHAPTER THREE: GETTING A GRIP ON LIFE 17 CHAPTER FOUR: COLLEGE AND ROMANCE 22 CHAPTER FIVE: MARRIAGE-THE PROMISE AND THE SHADOW 26 CHAPTER SIX: BREAST CANCER ARRIVES 30 BOOK TWO: SHOCK AND DESPAIR CHAPTER ONE: THE DOCTOR'S WORD 33 CHAPTER TWO: PROCEDURES 38 CHAPTER THREE: FEAR AND ISOLATION 44 CHAPTER FOUR: THEIR STRUGGLE TOGETHER 48 CHAPTER FIVE: ALLERGIES, FUNGI AND FOOD 55 CHAPTER SIX: ALONENESS 61 CHAPTER SEVEN: SLEEPLESSNESS 64 CHAPTER EIGHT: FRUSTRATION WITH DOCTORS 67 CHAPTER NINE: REJECTION 75 CHAPTER TEN: FAMILY AND FRIENDS 78 CHAPTER ELEVEN: WATCHING FOR RECURRENCE 83 CHAPTER TWELVE: SEQUELAE 87 V BOOK THREE: OTHER TREATMENTS CHAPTER ONE: REACHING FOR RECOVERY 93 CHAPTER TWO: SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS 98 CHAPTER THREE: QUETICO WILDERNESS THERAPY 104 CHAPTER FOUR: HEALING THE BODY 107 CHAPTER FIVE: HEALING THE MIND 112 CHAPTER SIX: FIGHTING THE FUNGI 115 CHAPTER SEVEN: BUILDING IMMUNITY 119 CHAPTER EIGHT: CONTRARY TO DOCTORS 123 CHAPTER NINE: REMOVING THE MERCURY 127 CHAPTER TEN: CLEANSING THE COLON 130 CHAPTER ELEVEN: CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN 137 CHAPTER TWELVE: HEALTH OR DISEASE 141 BOOK FOUR: GETTING WELL CHAPTER ONE: MEETING THE GOOD DOCTOR 145 CHAPTER TWO: LEARNING TO LIVE 160 CHAPTER THREE: A TURN OF EVENTS 170 CHAPTER FOUR: OTHER DOCTORS BRING HOPE 188 CHAPTER FIVE: DINNER TOGETHER 193 EPILOGUE: TODAY AND TOMORROW 196 POST SCRIPT 200 ENDNOTES 202 BIBLIOGRAPHY 231 AFTERWORD 242 1 BOOK ONE: IN THE BEGINNING 2 One in every eight women in the U.S. will get breast cancer in her /ifetime. 1 CHAPTER ONE JUST A LITTLE P APILLOMA One night in the fall of 1974 as Lorna Jordan dressed for bed, she found a black liquid oozing from the nipple of her left breast. Looking closer, she found a dark stain on the bodice of her peach colored nightgown. She squeezed her breast and a tiny drop of dark exudate appeared. "Tony, look at this!" she cried. The black droplet swelled on the nipple as she pressed her breast. "What is it?" "I don't know, Lorna," replied Tony calmly, as he came closer to inspect the colored fluid. "You better see the doctor." Lorna's husband knew the discharge wasn't normal, but he did not want to frighten his wife. Lorna pulled her nightgown up over her shoulder as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She felt her small frame being dwarfed by the thoughts flooding her mind. This black fluid scared her. It had never been there before. Lorna got in to see Dr. Thomas Gordon in two days. As she sat waiting in his office, Lorna felt irritable and moody. Her recent episodes of insomnia brought with them a tenacious stubbornness which no one could budge. These moods were typical lately. When Dr. Gordon finished his examination, he adjusted the examining gown over Lorna's chest and asked her to sit up. Lorna dropped her legs over the side of the examining table and waited for Dr. Gordon to speak. When he finished washing his hands, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. Looking at Lorna with a noncommittal expression on his face, he said, "It is just a little papilloma." Lorna looked perplexed, and Dr. Gordon continued. "It's a swelling_ in the duct of your breast. The surface tissue of the duct has developed little polyps or warty growths on it. The black fluid you found is blood." Then Dr. 3 Gordon demonstrated with his hands how the long, narrow tumor was situated in the duct near the top of her breast.