The following is news media commentary
Tom Brokaw – best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004 – wrote an opinion piece recently in the New York Times titled Tom Brokaw: Learning to Live With Cancer. As a health researcher and investigative journalist, I have been shown and exposed to information from doctors, scientists and researchers suggesting that cancer is not only preventable, it is also reversible through means other than surgical removal, chemotherapy or radiation referred to respectively as cut, poison and burn.
In many scientific and medical circles, it has been known for sometime that one need not have to “live with cancer” or indeed die from it. For many in the mainstream medical community I’m sure they have stopped reading at this point dismissing this introduction as the ramblings of meager internet writer. I can hear them saying now, "What does he know that my medical degree and continuing education at the hands of official medical journals and expensive weekend conferences haven’t taught me?" Perhaps nothing, perhaps another world or perhaps a combination of both only time will tell.
Back to Tom
Assuming Mr. Brokaw wrote his New York Times piece, as many books and articles are ghostwritten these days, I respect his courage, choice and strength to walk the path he has chosen. From Mr. Brokaw’s words, it appears he is tempted to allow his life long cancer companion to define him when he writes: “For most of my adult life I have answered the question “Occupation?” with one word: journalist. I still do, but now I am tempted to add a phrase. Cancer patient.”
At 73, Mr. Brokaw discovered he had an “incurable” cancer called multiple myeloma. He was told by his trusted medical team that the statistical lifespan for such a disease was five years. According to Mr. Brokaw “That number has not changed, but I have. After three years of chemotherapy, a spinal operation that cost me three inches of height, monthly infusions of bone supplements and drugs to prevent respiratory infection…” He goes further to state “Combating cancer is a full-time job” Indeed for all of humanity, every lifestyle choice is a small vote for or against a possible future cancer diagnosis. Mr. Brokaw’s new “full-time job” requires from his words “24 pills a day, including one that runs $500 a dose. For me, bone damage brought persistent back pain and unwelcome muscle deterioration.”
Mr. Brokaw writes with deep empathy as he talks about a friend he lost to cancer and another who suffered a stroke while also battling multiple myeloma. For many of us one thing is for sure, cancer hits home by the fact that most of us have generational pain and trauma from losing loved ones. Mr. Brokaw’s struggle and stories of loss are tragically not uncommon but nevertheless command empathy, understanding, support and love. We are all bound as brothers and sisters in the move to see beyond this disease that continues to cut down our communities without pause. While the mainstream medical community is occupied with only perceived absolutes, measurable statistics and often profits over people, the deeply personal human experience can still choose between hope or despair, courage or fear, support or isolation and love or apathy. Mr. Brokaw’s words echo the hope of a man who has bravely chosen to walk on and live life fully despite what he is experiencing.
“Yet I am not consumed by the prospect of death. When it intermittently enters my consciousness it has an abstract quality. I can’t quite get a grip on how this life might end.”
Different Paths Expose Larger Journeys
Reading about Mr. Brokaw I can’t help wonder as he describes his daily challenges and bleak statistical chance for survival if he has ever wondered outside the strictly controlled confines of establishment cancer solutions. It is unlikely that Mr. Brokaw was aware at the time that across town from his longtime NBC studios located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was the clinic of Dr. Nick Gonzalez. Since 1987 till his passing in 2015 Dr. Gonzalez had been in private practice in New York City treating patients diagnosed with cancer [including multiple myeloma] and other serious degenerative illnesses, with nutrition, enzymes, and detoxification. For Mr. Brokaw, the physical journey to Dr. Gonzalez’s clinic wouldn’t have been far at the time but the mental road outside established beliefs may have stretched off the map into areas of deep discomfort and little support. Alternatively, how would Mr. Brokaw and others with multiple myeloma faired if they sought the care of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who’s naturally-occurring antineoplaston therapy had been proven to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Dr. Burzynski’s success rate for reversing multiple myeloma was so good in his clinic he had begun trials through the National Cancer Institute.
When it's all said and done, individual responsibility and individual choice will always belong to the one who is experiencing cancer. Few of us can predict how we will fight if that unfortunate day ever falls upon us. For the ones who walked their individual path alongside the disease – no matter what their outcome – those of us who were allowed to witness their journey are forever grateful, honored and changed by sharing the space with their acts of immovable courage and naked vulnerability.
Be sure to follow my independent coverage October 14-16 of The Truth About Cancer's Ultimate LIVE Symposium. Click below for more details.
Tom Brokaw – best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004 – wrote an opinion piece recently in the New York Times titled Tom Brokaw: Learning to Live With Cancer. As a health researcher and investigative journalist, I have been shown and exposed to information from doctors, scientists and researchers suggesting that cancer is not only preventable, it is also reversible through means other than surgical removal, chemotherapy or radiation referred to respectively as cut, poison and burn.
In many scientific and medical circles, it has been known for sometime that one need not have to “live with cancer” or indeed die from it. For many in the mainstream medical community I’m sure they have stopped reading at this point dismissing this introduction as the ramblings of meager internet writer. I can hear them saying now, "What does he know that my medical degree and continuing education at the hands of official medical journals and expensive weekend conferences haven’t taught me?" Perhaps nothing, perhaps another world or perhaps a combination of both only time will tell.
Back to Tom
Assuming Mr. Brokaw wrote his New York Times piece, as many books and articles are ghostwritten these days, I respect his courage, choice and strength to walk the path he has chosen. From Mr. Brokaw’s words, it appears he is tempted to allow his life long cancer companion to define him when he writes: “For most of my adult life I have answered the question “Occupation?” with one word: journalist. I still do, but now I am tempted to add a phrase. Cancer patient.”
At 73, Mr. Brokaw discovered he had an “incurable” cancer called multiple myeloma. He was told by his trusted medical team that the statistical lifespan for such a disease was five years. According to Mr. Brokaw “That number has not changed, but I have. After three years of chemotherapy, a spinal operation that cost me three inches of height, monthly infusions of bone supplements and drugs to prevent respiratory infection…” He goes further to state “Combating cancer is a full-time job” Indeed for all of humanity, every lifestyle choice is a small vote for or against a possible future cancer diagnosis. Mr. Brokaw’s new “full-time job” requires from his words “24 pills a day, including one that runs $500 a dose. For me, bone damage brought persistent back pain and unwelcome muscle deterioration.”
Mr. Brokaw writes with deep empathy as he talks about a friend he lost to cancer and another who suffered a stroke while also battling multiple myeloma. For many of us one thing is for sure, cancer hits home by the fact that most of us have generational pain and trauma from losing loved ones. Mr. Brokaw’s struggle and stories of loss are tragically not uncommon but nevertheless command empathy, understanding, support and love. We are all bound as brothers and sisters in the move to see beyond this disease that continues to cut down our communities without pause. While the mainstream medical community is occupied with only perceived absolutes, measurable statistics and often profits over people, the deeply personal human experience can still choose between hope or despair, courage or fear, support or isolation and love or apathy. Mr. Brokaw’s words echo the hope of a man who has bravely chosen to walk on and live life fully despite what he is experiencing.
“Yet I am not consumed by the prospect of death. When it intermittently enters my consciousness it has an abstract quality. I can’t quite get a grip on how this life might end.”
Different Paths Expose Larger Journeys
Reading about Mr. Brokaw I can’t help wonder as he describes his daily challenges and bleak statistical chance for survival if he has ever wondered outside the strictly controlled confines of establishment cancer solutions. It is unlikely that Mr. Brokaw was aware at the time that across town from his longtime NBC studios located at 30 Rockefeller Plaza was the clinic of Dr. Nick Gonzalez. Since 1987 till his passing in 2015 Dr. Gonzalez had been in private practice in New York City treating patients diagnosed with cancer [including multiple myeloma] and other serious degenerative illnesses, with nutrition, enzymes, and detoxification. For Mr. Brokaw, the physical journey to Dr. Gonzalez’s clinic wouldn’t have been far at the time but the mental road outside established beliefs may have stretched off the map into areas of deep discomfort and little support. Alternatively, how would Mr. Brokaw and others with multiple myeloma faired if they sought the care of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski who’s naturally-occurring antineoplaston therapy had been proven to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Dr. Burzynski’s success rate for reversing multiple myeloma was so good in his clinic he had begun trials through the National Cancer Institute.
When it's all said and done, individual responsibility and individual choice will always belong to the one who is experiencing cancer. Few of us can predict how we will fight if that unfortunate day ever falls upon us. For the ones who walked their individual path alongside the disease – no matter what their outcome – those of us who were allowed to witness their journey are forever grateful, honored and changed by sharing the space with their acts of immovable courage and naked vulnerability.
Be sure to follow my independent coverage October 14-16 of The Truth About Cancer's Ultimate LIVE Symposium. Click below for more details.
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