The power of faith (?)

[mariane]

I would like post a story which happened to me. It is completely unexplainable but encouraging. Almost 2 years ago in early spring 2014 I attended a patient with advanced colon cancer. He was inoperable: large liver involvement and mets to the brain. The tumor had aggressive biology. His oncologist put him on FOLFOX. FOLFOX caused serious anemia so we gave him blood, fluids etc. He started to feel a bit better. Daughter of the patient came to me to ask how I saw her dad's prognosis. I hated situations like this and did not have good news. She told me that she believed in miracles and was praying for her dad. She told me that she saw him tending his garden in the summer. I was tired and just experienced death of 28 years old man of lung cancer. I told her that unfortunately I had not seen any miracles in our hospital. She smiled with such a certainty and warmth that I felt bad and guilty and replied me that anyway she still believed in miracle for her dad. I felt bad and after my own gruesome diagnosis more than a year later I myself got left with just faith and hope for a miracle. This girl came to my mind every day. Last week I called my friend - co-worker and asked her about the patient. I was sure he was long gone but asked anyway. She told me that the patient is doing good. He has been tending his garden during 2 summers, still alive, doing good. I cannot explain this story but it made me crying.

[Lydia666]

I don't know, i guess there are exceptions to the rule, maybe his cancer wasn't that agressive as thought and he had more time than initially believed. It would be interesting to see what happens next.

[DeniseBurkett]

I believe in miracles.

[jortego128]

So do I, and I have had many prayers answered in my lifetime. Things that when I look back on them, theres really no good explanation as to why they happened other than my prayers were answered. I pray for my mother, my family, and for everyone suffering from this terrible disease daily, and I have faith that miracles will come.

[H is for Hawk]

There is something called spontaneous remmission, where patient's cancer just disappears on its own. There are many well documented cases. It is estimated to occur in 1 out of 100,000 cancer cases so it is quite rare. A fever could re activate a person's immune system, could be one explanation.

[dudette]

My favourite book since dx:
"Remarkable Recovery" by Hirshberg and Barash.

I think I'm reading it for the fourth time now.

The authors dug out documented cases of spontaneous remission in search of a pattern that other patients can follow. Guess what. There is none. At least not a single one. For some it was faith, others radically changed their diet. And like Hawk mentioned, recovery was sometimes preceded by high fever. Some patients used conventional treatment and got well beyond their prognosis, full remission. The common strand though is that all the patients had a survivor mentality and a strong mind-body connection. Emotions and moods, personality, social support system - all important factors.

[Maggie Nell]

Just the other day, I was reflecting on a small incident from my childhood, about 1972-1973, where it was a slow Sunday and my father had taken me to work with him. Dad was a Security Guard with a permanent posting at an industrial site - it was like being in the heart of a volcano. It was where the massive large steel drains would be given a layer of tar (bituminous waterproofing). Occupational health and safety guidelines, in Australia circa 1970s, didn't extend much further than "Don't touch anything hot", "Don't act the raw prawn!" and "Dont push any buttons".

Every hour, on the hour, my father had to patrol the site, turn keys and check temperature gauges to make sure the tar (bitch-U-men) was cooking away nicely. Visualize the hot mud pools in a geothermal area at, say, Rotorua/Taupo in New Zealand and you'll get my drift.

Aroundabout the 4th or 5th circuit of the industrial site, my attention was drawn to a beaten up Suggestion Box nailed to outside of the worker's canteen. My father
had cautioned me to not touch anything, to leave things be - let sleeping dogs lie was his philosophy. But I was irresistably drawn to this Suggestion Box.
I opened it....and inside was a treasure of unimaginable wealth. A buff-coloured envelope containg about $450-$500 in cold hard cash. The tantalizing rainbow
of Australia paper currency - the oranges of our $20 note, the greens of the now extinct $2 note, the sangreal shades of our $5 note.

OMG!!!! Visions of unlimited supply of Superman Bumper issue comics, White Knights, Redskins and Sunny Boys danced in my head!

My conundrum was immediate. I knew that money shouldn't have been in the Suggestion Box, but if I showed my father what I had found, I risked getting
in trouble for being disobedient. Decisions, decisions. I backed the potential my father, had showed, of being a fair and reasonable man who could grasp the
bigger picture. I also took a reality check. No way, would I get away with hiding or spending more money than I received in pocket-money without raising
suspicion. At the age of 11, I just didn't have any street-smarts or a shred of sneaky in me. The temptation to enter life as a petty criminal left my side and
threw itself into the bubbling tar pit in Building H.

Short story, long.....my father rang through to his Head Office, they rang through to their contact of the industrial site, who made further calls and
found out that the buff-covered envelope, fat with it's rainbow of currency, was the wages and holiday pay of a married bloke with four kids. Workmates
had played a prank on him, hiding his money in the Suggestion Box. Most Aussies will know what I mean, when I say the Suggestion Box is the last place anybody would think to look....

What was considered a prank in the 1972, would now be called workplace harrassment.....but I digress.

This poor bloke, like most working-class folk in the disadvantaged northern suburbs of Melbourne, lived from one wage packet to another. He was devastated to have lost this money, the mortage was due, food to put on the table and the kids holiday to Philip Island was in jeopardy. His wife prayed for a miracle. He prayed for a
miracle because, he knew, he wasn't ever going to get sex again if the two weeks in a caravan at Cowes, he had promised the missus and billy-lids, fell through.
Aussie women are like camels, we can hold out for months....

My father and I, a curious (occasionally disobedient) 11 year old girl, were called into service to deliver the miracle.

True dinks.
Honest injun.
Cross my heart and hope to live.


PS: Golly, I just thought of the real miracle that day!! There wasn't a big hairy huntsman spider in the box.........

[dudette]

Ha. Great story, Maggie Nell.

Miracles (happenstance/lucky coincidences) come in different forms. My closest friend works at St Vincent's in Sydney and got their nuns onto my case. I'm not religious but who knows ... maybe their prayers will set some wheels in motion ...

Keep your faith - in whatever.

[Maggie Nell]

I have faith in Ned Kelly ~ surrender be buggered!

Your position with regard to religion and God depends to a great extent on our attitude and our response to life.
When you meet people who are trying to live a religion which refuses to be an opium of the masses, an alien and
alienating force; when you meet people for whom the love of God involves human love, your atheism will give
way to respect, to sympathy—who knows?—to faith.....This is my appeal. Bring me your warmth and your
friendship. With you I must remain young in soul.

~ Dom Helder Camara, Spiral of Violence

[jhocno197]

I know miracles happen.

I also know that not everybody gets the 'amazing cancer cure miracle'...whether my husband does or not (and it's looking like not), it will not change my faith in God.

[LeonW]

I believe in Luck!
'Bad Luck' makes you end up with cancer, plenty of 'Good Luck' may get you out of the disaster.
For an estimate of how much luck you need, consult the statistics. Always works.

[Maggie Nell]

How amusing that you say you believe in "luck", LeonW.

Most Bantu cultures share a common myth about the origin of death, involving a chameleon. According to this myth, God sent the chameleon to announce to men that they would never die. The chameleon went on his mission, but he walked slowly and stopped along the way to eat. Some time after the chameleon had left, a lizard went to announce to men that they would die. Being much quicker than the chameleon, the lizard arrived first, thus establishing the mortal nature of man. As a consequence of this myth, both chameleons and lizards are often considered bad omens in Bantu cultures.

sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_mythology

[LeonW]

You made me smile, Maggie. Thanks for posting.
I didn't know the story, although that chameleon in my pic actually comes from Bantu country (more or less).

. . both chameleons and lizards are often considered bad omens in Bantu cultures . . . .

I'll keep that in mind when I'm ready to explore Africa again - am aiming for Q1 2016
Also note the next sentence in your wiki article; it's even more interesting:

Missionaries have often adapted the myth of the chameleon to evangelize Bantu Africans; the chameleon, who brings the good news of eternal life to mankind, is thus equated to Jesus Christ.