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Detoxification & Healing Cancer and Other Illness (20b) I’ve digested my (bladder) cancer and learned to liveby Jean-Claude Gruau © 1992 & 2002 Part 2 continued from Two Bladder Cancer Cures Achieved via Water Fasting, Part 1 English translation edited, published and annotated with permission of the author
Through my urologist and my brother-in-law, I also know that my illness is at a critical juncture, something must be done, there is no time to lose. I decide to play my last card: the fast. But I don't know whether I will last for long as serious illnesses sometimes require thirty to 45 days of fasting, and I only have experience of fasting for short periods. I had fasted for a week once, and then a second time with the intention of doing it for ten days, but only managing three! My wife and I leave for Corsica to stay at a convent where my wife's sister is practicing religion. I have decided to begin fasting, it will last for as long as it lasts. The secret of a fast is to take it one day at a time. I know that the first three days are often the most difficult and I am not mistaken. My head hurts, and you really feel under the weather. This is the price you pay. You are more or less certain that you will stop the following day. The morning after, when waking up, things are not so bad and you continue with yet another day. The afternoon of the second day was rather bad, but come the ninth day I feel better than the second! It was astonishing, but after the third day I was in orbit. I wasn't hungry. Many people think that fasting for a long period requires a will of iron. This is not true, but you do have to be very motivated the very first days. I had every reason to be motivated, such as the fear of an ablation that could have serious consequences for my sexual life, but also my own personal certainty of the efficiency of a fast. Certainty? One is never completely sure of anything, especially when it comes to medical matters. I believe in testimonies made in good faith, in testimonies that appear sound, and I hope that this tale appears sound. Monique Couderc had given such a testimony, and so had Satilaro. Shelton, who throughout his life had treated various illnesses by the sole means of fasting, did not at any point claim that fasting cured cancer, but he reported that there were only three cases in a thousand of suspicious growths in the breast that resisted a week of fasting. Many say that macrobiotics is humbug, and fasting too. So why do you think that there are people who will vouch for their efficiency? So that they can sell their books, is the answer I've received to this question. When you start to look at things through the wrong end of a set of binoculars everything starts to look suspect. But when your future is at stake , you may well think that it's at least worth a try. At least you would think so, but, alas, no! I have met several people who have never tried anything whatsoever and did not even want to read the story where I describe my recovery. For fear of being destabilised, as one of them said! The effects the fast had on meBut let's take a look at the effects the fast had on me. At the end of week 1, I certainly felt weak and had a blood test done to check my blood count. As you might remember, I'd been having a few problems with this. My family doctor had even warned my wife that at that point I had more to fear from anaemia than from anything else. I told Dr X (my wife) that if my red blood cells again dropped under three million (normal range is 4.5 to 5 million), I would immediately stop my fast. But what a surprise! I had 4.16 million red blood cells, a figure not reached in months despite the blood transfusions! My first reaction was to question the local laboratories in Corsica, and I decided to have another lab analyse my blood the following week. But the following week my blood count had increased even further! As had all the other values except that of glucose, and this by drinking nothing but warm water! The level of cholesterol had risen, something which happens to heavy meat eaters, while before the fast, given my quasi-vegan diet (macrobiotics is stricter than vegetarianism) my cholesterol had actually been sub-normal (which they say is pretty rare in France). I.e. I was, in fact, feeding off myself. This is roughly Shelton's theory; at times of nutritional deprivation, the organism will digest all tissue and other matter which isn't vital for survival. Even when an individual dies of starvation, his or her brain won't have lost any weight. Had I read Shelton's book more closely, I wouldn't have been surprised to see my blood count rise and my pulse go down from sixty to forty beats per minute. The body is resting, and finds a way to manage its nutritional needs by transforming the cancerous cells into good red blood cells! At least this is how it appears. My body is consuming everything that doesn't serve any purpose and my eyesight improves! Shelton says that some of the impurities in the lens are cleansed by this process. This is an extraordinary sensation, and one which I've verified at least three times (in fact much more than three since writing this first speech): after two weeks of fasting, light just rains from all sides! It feels like after a summer rain following a week of heat and dust: one receives more light, and this feeling gradually gets stronger throughout the fast and lasts some two weeks after it ended. Naturally, physically I'm not getting any stronger, but I still manage at least once every day the twenty-six steps from the pigeon loft where we have our quarters at the Erbalunga convent. And I even allow myself the luxury to weed the place in front of the monastery's church for one to two hours every day. It's also yours truly who prepares the meals for Dr X. In fact, on day fourteen of my fast I cook a meal for the convent's eleven sisters, as I wish them to try the macrobiotic cuisine. I begin to think that my fast might actually last for a month and decide that I want to return to the mainland as I fear that it may become impossible to do so later. Also, the sisters have no desire to watch me expire at their convent as they are convinced (like anyone who's never attempted extended fasting) that I will die from weakness at any moment. At the advice of the Corsican doctor (the one of the convent) I will take two teaspoons of honey for the journey. It was this doctor who wrote the prescriptions to have my blood analysed. He was somewhat fearful that I would die from hypoglycaemia (lack of blood sugar) on the plane. But the return journey goes well. An ambulance takes me to Bastia airport, another awaits me at Orly (the Paris airport). Five and a half hours after leaving the Erbalunga convent, I am back home in Tours. I feel a little awkward as I think that had it been necessary, I actually could have walked four or five kilometres, instead of being wheel-chaired through the airports! I feel as much of a hypocrite as someone pretending to be ill, but this was how the bureaucrats wanted it. All I needed was a taxi to take me from the airport to the station, but oh no, that wouldn't do! The part of the journey which isn't done by aeroplane had to be made by ambulance! At least, I am the first one to be allowed through everywhere, and that's always pleasant and I understand one of the reasons for the growing number of candidates for the presidency! Back home, I install myself on the ground floor, though in hindsight I can say that this was more from fear of weakness than any real weakness. I feel like I'm on vacation, and I live the life of a lazy king. With the window open and alternating between a lying position and moving about in a two to three hour rythm, I often watch a squirrel carefully inspecting a large tree posted before my window. Very Walt Disney! Days go by and I still am not hungry (day 18). I feel a healthy tiredness, as you would after a long walk. I go to bed and the following morning the tiredness is gone. It's true that at times I feel an acute weakness, it seems virtually impossible to lift my leg and I have just enough energy to speak in a low voice. I sometimes think of the beggar who roused passersby's compassion by saying: "I haven't eaten for three days." If he had said, "Please, I haven't eaten for eighteen days", he'd have been laughed at. My low blood count at that time was the real reason for this fatigue, but when blood samples where taken at my home, they showed that my red blood cells were still steadily on the increase, as was the platelet count. The days pass quickly. I start to feel cold and Dr X has to give me three hot-water bottles even though it's the middle of August. My digestive system is having a hard time as I begin to frequently feel nauseous, as if I had eaten too much! These nauseas are discussed by Shelton who describes a patient who started to vomit on day 50 of a sixty-day fast. Breaking the fastSo, do I last for thirty days? No, the 23rd of August 1989, I stop fasting after exactly twenty-eight and a half days during which I have, with the exception of two teaspoons of honey, only drunk water (I took one teaspoon of honey on the plane and another when I thought I would pass out after bringing in an emptied bin). There are a number of signs which show it's time to stop the fast. The first one is the return of hunger, but I was never hungry at all. Anyone who's felt frequent nauseas will easily understand the reason why. I have since read other authors than Shelton who say that often hunger will not manifest. I undertook a second fast last year (and many others since giving this speech) without ever getting to the point where I started to feel hungry. The second sign is your tongue reaquiring its pink shade. My tongue did become pink again. It had been covered in extraordinary fashion, so much so that I had to scrape it with a spoon once or even twice a day. Thirdly, any alarming sign, such as the lowering of one's red blood cell count which was just what was happening to me. The red blood cells had doubtless run out of cancerous cells to get stuck into, so their numbers started to fall. Another example (but personally I've never experienced this) is increased eye sensitivity: the person fasting can no longer stand the light. In these cases, one has to stop immediately. Isolated extreme cases are cited such as that of Marthe Robin (who fasted involuntarily as she couldn't eat!) who lived in total darkness. Apparently she did not take nourishment for very long periods of time. The most difficult part, for me at least, is to break the fast. I keep saying that during the fast there is no hunger, but when I begin to eat again, I'm transformed into a starving beast, ready to swallow lead and sink my teeth into bricks. For this first breaking of a first fast, I delegated all dietary responsibility to Doctor X. Consulted by phone, René Levy suggests 150 grams of rice cooked overnight in 7 parts water and strained through a sieve, with a little tekka or tamari added (spices which Doctor X refuses). I can't think of anything but my hunger and at five in the morning, I demand Dr X make me a meal right away, or else I am ready to kill Dr X with a hammer. Unless you are superhuman, you must not be on your own when breaking a long fast (nor for that matter be on your own to undertake a long fast as there is a possibility of falling into a coma from lack of blood sugar). At the end of the fast, I weighed fifty-two kilos and five hundred grams. Three days later, thanks to my wife, I had maintained that weight. The danger, pointed out by everyone, lies in starting to eat again too quickly and too much. I could feel that my body was still cleansing. Getting the all-clear for my healthThe time had come to confront my urologist. Remember last time I saw him, my urinary tract had been blocked by a large blood clot and I was unable to pass water. Before the cystoscopic examination (to take an "insider" look at my bladder), Dr Besancenez warned me that "if you don't follow my orders I will no longer look after you". It's August and I remind you that he wanted to take my bladder out. He added a phrase to the effect of "I have twenty-five years of experience with tumours under my belt". In fact, my brother-in-law once told me that Dr Besancenez had more titles than he himself had. I tell Dr Besancenez he can't have had many patients doing a twenty-eight-day fast. He doesn't answer, takes his instrument and looks through it at length without saying a word. Finally, he declares, "There’s no reason to have the bladder removed at the moment". At the time I had a ridiculous reaction. I said to my wife: "I knew the doctor was honest". I meant intellectual honesty, not financial honesty. You have to be a great man to admit that a prognosis you've made was wrong. I suppose he couldn't believe his eyes. He made a biopsy (taking cells from the bladder to send to the laboratory). The lab verdict is plain: "absence of identifiable cancerous cells". This time the eyes at the laboratory had made the final decision. Farewell, grade 2 tumour. The tumour had lost its grade like an officer committing treason! And the examination done two years later, i.e. a few weeks ago (on April 14, 1992) confirmed that I had nothing, absolutely nothing, which would be detectable. "Healthy people are ill ones who don't know it yet", said Doctor Knock. I believe the contrary, the ill are healthy persons who don't know it yet. The ill person is an undetectable healthy one. This time it's V-Day. (In 2002, ten years after giving this speech, I still haven't seen a thing, more exactly nothing detectable has been detected.) In summary, one year of macrobiotics, badly done as I ate too ample quantities, managed to stabilise the tumour in some way, then I overcame my illness completely by a twenty-eight day fast. Since then, my urologist has not found anything abnormal, as to the gastro-enterologist, I no longer need to see him since the macrobiotic diet, even though badly followed, was sufficient to make my problems in that area disappear. Imagine that for twenty years, every single time I went to the bathroom to empty my bowels there had been blood in my stool , and that this has stopped since nearly five years! Now that I am a detectable healthy person, my wife follows the macrobiotic diet much more strictly than myself. The first time, she joined me by solidarity, and perhaps to help me through the phases where I was feeling discouraged. Eventually, she did it for herself. Remember the spectacular disappearance of the eczema she had suffered from for more than twenty years, I repeat twenty years (it first appeared after giving birth), and which had disappeared after three months of macrobiotics even though she wasn't expecting anything of the sort. This was not a result of placebo as her only reason for sharing in the macrobiotic diet back then was solidarity! We have continued with the macrobiotic diet to this day and for two reasons. The first one is simply that one feels better, the second one is that we like what we eat! It might seem ascetic to forego all butter, all meat, all milk, and even more austere to eat all these cereals. I can tell you that these cereals are delicious, but since the question of taste is not an absolute one, let's say that to me they seem delicious. One's taste is a work in progress and when the body has a real need for a certain type of food, this food will taste delicious. The inverse is false, because it's easy to create artificial needs, like that for tobacco or alcohol. Macrobiotic food is not just like medication to be taken in certain quantities, but allows for real gastronomic pleasures. I am convinced that macrobiotics can heal one of a lot of diseases and I am going to say here a few words about Saint Gaudens. At Saint Gaudens there is a Centre of Food and Health run by René Lévy, where they teach macrobiotic cuisine. This way of eating, based on the theory of Yin and Yang, which distinguishes two forces in nature, the force of dispersion (Yin) and the force of concentration (Yang), establishes a balance between these opposites. That these theories may be hazy is quite possible, but I have seen their results. Briach had a brain tumour, and this young man is not an ectoplasm. His parents have a phone number, and my wife used this number to call them to find out how they prepared his food, because he is now perfectly cured. You probably know the story of Sapper Camembert which happened about one and a half centuries ago. This nice chap was ill and went to see the doctor. The doctor told him to follow his "ordonnance" (French word for prescription). Camembert was illiterate and further did not know what an "ordonnance" was in the sense the good doctor meant it. "Ordonnance" in French also refers to a domestic help and at the time officers, and in particular military doctors, had in their service a domestic aid named this way. As the doctor's domestic aid was on horseback, the sapper had to run to follow him around. Consequently, Camembert got very hot, sweated profusely and was cured in this way. So at first, when I saw how cancer (prime example of a Yin illness) could be efficiently treated, I was ready to obey completely and unthinkingly, in the name of efficiency. Later, I realised it was silly of me to believe in the necessity to religiously follow rules, even if they were macrobiotic rules. Because in macrobiotics, you learn to make your own prescription at some point by selecting what you put on your plate. There was an article in Le Monde called "Killed by Prescription", that reported a study made on patients who had unfortunately died from the side effects of their prescription. I have to say that, should that happen to me, I'd prefer that prescription to be my own. On the importance of the healing ambiance surrounding the patientI'm going to tell you a little about the ambiance you find at Saint Gaudens as compared to the ambiance reigning in hospitals. In the Parisian hospitals as well as those in Tours (I've spent ample time in both of them), there is a "dead leaf atmosphere". By that I mean that the patients are completely without responsibility. All authority is relinquished, not only to the doctors, but to the clinic. The patient has as much responsibility as a dead leaf floating on water. The patient is reduced to the level of a helpless child, s/he is told when to go to bed, when to get up, when to walk, and when to eat and drink. You get a television, and if that isn't enough to send you to sleep, a sleeping pill on top. The patient is being patient; he awaits the high point of the day when the meteorite doctor shoots past, white-coated, surrounded by more coats keeping a respectful distance, and with a nurse attached who takes down every word uttered by this Jupiter. The patient waits, his/her only act of their own volition having been to check into the hospital. It's like running the car through the car wash, all you have to do is wait while the big brushes spin and the water spurts in order to come out clean and regenerated. Your only desire is to get out of there, because the time spent in this place is just a parenthesis in your life. The conversations between patients in a hospital mainly focus on what is wrong. At Saint Gaudens it's the complete opposite, the conversation centres on what is getting better. For sure there are some passive types there too, expecting to get everything from "them". This kind of person will be somewhat perturbed to find there is no anesthesiologist on site, now that they are all ready to be anaesthetised, taken care of, coddled and fussed over. But these people (and in a certain way we are all part of them) either change their attitude or leave. The ambiance is the cure. Everyone admires their own progress as well as the progress of others. I met a man from Switzerland who had rectal cancer and who told me: "I have will power, I am going to eat buckwheat and I am going to get well." He was touching, one could feel that he had turned his entire being towards his recovery, you sensed that he had taken control of his situation. To conclude my notes on this strictly medical topic, I don't want to give the impression of having a derogatory attitude towards doctors and medicine. I have been happy to consult them, and my urologist still "follows me up", even if it's just to verify that I am truly cured! You simply need to be aware that there are "parallel" possibilities [as the French say]. Often, the body knows better than anyone else what's wrong, the survival instinct in us adapts itself immediately without us even being aware of it. It transforms what we drink, eat and breathe into what we are. When things become unhinged, this vital instinct can put them back into order. The fast is an efficient way of awakening this survival instinct, because it gets you into the right mindset and "spirit set". The power of the fast goes hand in hand with the mindset and spirit, perhaps one should simply say the power of mind and spirit. On risks of fasting and taking one’s healing into one’s own hands:
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