SourSop or hongmowlaulin

Cancer mum denied chance to say goodbye

The family of a 35-year-old mother who died under NHS respite care have accused doctors of making no attempt to save her life because they assumed she was dying anyway.

Andrea West was suffering from cancer but had been told she could live for a further two years.

But the mother of six died within days of being admitted to a palliative care centre last month with what her family thought was a routine infection.

The day before her death last month, she had been looking forward to going home, chatting with her children, eating crackers and drinking cola, her family claim.

But when her husband Chris visited her the following day he found her heavily sedated.

When he urged unit staff to send her to hospital for treatment, they refused – saying she would only die in the ambulance.

Mr West had already become concerned about his wife’s treatment after finding she had been labelled with a ‘do not resuscitate’ notice.

The notice, which meant she would not be revived if she suffered a medical crisis, went against the wishes of Mrs West and her family, who were desperate to prolong her life so she could spend precious months with her children, aged between one and 17.

Yet Mr West said he and his wife had to ask five times to have the notice removed.

After her death, Mr West claims he was told by a nurse and his GP that despite being expected to live for at least 18 months, his wife had been put on the Liverpool Care Pathway, the controversial system designed to ease the suffering of the dying in their final hours.

Last night the clinic denied that Mrs West had been placed on the LCP.

But the case will reignite debate over the treatment of those who are believed to be dying.

Thousands of patients are placed on the LCP every year, which some medics say leads to the premature deaths of more than 100,000. Mr West said: ‘Andrea had a lot of things she wanted to do for the children. She didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to them.’

The Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust, which runs the unit where Mrs West died, declined to give further information on the case before Mrs West’s inquest. The LCP was devised in the 1990s and involves the heavy sedation of a patient and the removal of tubes providing food and fluid.

However its use was criticised in the summer by a senior consultant, Professor Patrick Pullicino, who told a medical conference that nearly a third of NHS deaths now involve patients on the pathway.

He said a decision to put a patient on the LCP has become ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’, adding that ‘factors like pressure on beds and difficulty with nursing confused or difficult-to-manage elderly patients cannot be excluded’.

Mrs West, who had two children from a previous marriage and four – aged seven, four, three and one – with her husband, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in January last year which later spread to her lymph nodes.

Her husband said she had been given between 18 months and two years to live. Mr West, a former care worker who now looks after his children full-time, said a nurse had advised him last month that his wife should be admitted to Priscilla Bacon Lodge in Norwich for palliative care.

‘I believed she had an infection,’ he said. ‘She had had the same symptoms in the past with infections. I didn’t think it was serious at all.’

Mr West and the children visited Mrs West on September 19. ‘She was active, cheerful and looking forward to going home,’ Mr West said. ‘She spoke to her children, she was eating cheese and crackers, and she was drinking Coke with lemon.’

However, he said, his wife was concerned because she had been told doctors had placed a ‘do not resuscitate’ notice in her notes. Mr West said his wife told him: ‘I have fought this far. Why would I want to die now?’

However, he said, it took five requests from himself and his wife before medics removed the DNR notice. The following day, at 6.30am, Mr West was phoned by nurses to be told his wife had been bleeding and vomiting. He was, he said, told she was likely to die that day.

‘I couldn’t understand it at all,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t understand why they assumed she was going to die so quickly.’ On arriving at the unit he said he found that his wife had been heavily sedated and no tubes for artificial hydration or nutrition had been connected.

He said he was later told she had been placed on the LCP. ‘I asked a nurse and she said, “We are treating her on the Liverpool Care Pathway. The papers have been prepared by the doctor and she is being treated as a dying lady on the LCP”.’

He said he ‘argued with’ doctors to provide his wife with intravenous fluid and this was done. As her condition worsened he threatened to call an ambulance to take her to hospital.

‘They said I shouldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘They said it would disturb her dignity and she would die in the ambulance.’ His wife died at 8.30pm that evening.

‘Her death was sudden and very unexpected,’ he said. ‘She would have been shocked at the idea that she was dying. We all thought she had a year, probably a year and a half. She wanted to make boxes for the children, with pictures and other things to remember her by.’

He added: ‘One day she was eating and drinking. The next she was dead. It makes no sense to me.’

A spokesman for the Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust said: ‘We can confirm this patient was not on the Liverpool Care Pathway. However, we have been advised by the coroner that it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time as it may be subject to a coroner’s inquest.’

-dailymail.co.uk

Cancer: the Forbidden Cures (MUST WATCH Videos)

Anna Hunt, Contributing Writer

Waking Times

Cancer is a growing worldwide epidemic, with staggering statistics: 20,000 people dying of cancer every day; 1 person out of 3 will be faced with cancer at one point in their life; and 1 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year. The standard treatment for cancer has been the same for many decades and is comprised of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, the latter two being toxic to healthy cells in the human body. These treatments, as well as the research surrounding cancer, generate millions of dollars each year for the medical industry, with a typical cancer patient spending on-average $50,000 to treat the disease.

Sadly, there is clearly a lack of desire in the mainstream medical establishment to research alternative, natural medicines and treatments for cancer. One of the primary reasons for this that it is difficult to patent a natural treatment, thus limiting the revenue potential of natural and homeopathic medicines. Therefore, there is little interest from the pharmaceutical companies to put natural remedies through the expensive and arduous FDA approval processes. Another reason is believed to be that the pharmaceutical industry, through its control over the education system, drug-testing process and the FDA, as well as through its influence over the American Medical Association and medical publications, is not interested in a cure unless there is significant revenue potential as well as an opportunity for lucrative patents.

Over the last century, several natural cancer treatments have been developed and used to treat patients (even cure them) in the US and in other developed countries. One example is a natural concoction of herbs called Essiac, created by nurse Rene Caisse in Canada in the 1920′s. Another is an herbal cure created by Harry Hoxsey, who funded clinics in 17 states before they were all closed down by the FDA in the late 1950’s. And yet another is the Gerson Therapy, created by German doctor Maximilian Gerson, who was one of the first to suggest a nutritional approach to treating chronic disease in the 1940’s.

Full Report and Full Vimeo Video Documentary HERE

Grandfather, 78, beat 'incurable' cancer by changing his diet

Extraordinary story of the man who got 'all-clear' after swapping red meat and dairy products for 10 fruit and veg a day 

A grandfather, who was told by doctors that his cancer was 'incurable', has been given the all-clear less than four months later - after trying a different diet.

Allan Taylor could have been forgiven for fearing the worst when doctors told him they could do nothing to treat his condition.

But the 78-year-old would not give up, and instead searched the internet for an alternative method to fight his cancer.

After studying websites, he decided to radically change his diet - and found his condition improved dramatically.

Mr Taylor, a retired oil rig engineer from Middlesbrough, replaced red meat and dairy products with 10 portions of raw fruit and veg each day.

His diet included powdered grass, curry spices, apricot seeds and selenium tablets.

Mr Taylor made the changes after he received a letter on April 30, telling them were was no point having any more chemotherapy as it would not cure him and neither would an operation. 

'They said if they cut out the cancer it would just pop up somewhere else,' he told the Sunday Mirror.

'But I was determined to stay positive and decided to find my own cure.

'I was determined to stay positive and decided to find my own cure'

'On August 6 I got a letter from North Tees hospital to say a scan had shown my cancer had gone and "the abnormality is no longer visible". I’m all clear.'

Mr Taylor's ordeal began in February last year when he noticed a two-inch lump in his abdomen. He was sent for a scan and told he had colon cancer.

Last September he underwent an operation, during which a surgeon removed a nine-inch section of his colon, and he began a three-month course of chemotherapy.

But in April this year he was told the cancer had spread to small intestine.

Mr Taylor responded by tapping the words 'colon cancer cures' into an internet search engine.

He used the information, together with advice from his local health food store, to devise his new diet.

He believes that having a teaspoon of powdered barley grass in hot water every morning and night was particularly crucial.

'There is no question in my mind that my diet saved my life,' he said. 'And all it cost was £30 a week.'

Mr Taylor learned he had the all-clear in a letter sent from North Tees hospital

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2204080/Grandfather-incurable-cancer-given-clear-swapping-red-meat-dairy-products-10-fruit-veg-day.html#ixzz26ldVg2hj

By ROB PREECE

PUBLISHED: 14:30 GMT, 16 September 2012 | UPDATED: 08:26 GMT, 17 September 2012

Compact Fluorescent Lights

Swimming pool disinfectants linked to cancer

Swimming pools can give you cancer, because disinfectants in the water react with sunscreen, sweat, and skin to form a toxic cocktail of chemicals, a study has suggested.

The disinfectant used to keep pool water free from disease can also react with swimmers' urine and hair to cause conditions including asthma and bladder cancer.

Products like sunscreen and oil are packed with nitrogen, which reacts with the disinfectant to create toxic chemicals capable of mutating genes.

These mutations contribute to birth defects, accelerate the ageing process, cause breathing problems, and even induce cancer after long-term exposure.

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois compared samples of tap water and pool water and found using advanced DNA technology that pool water samples led to more cell damage in humans.

Lead researcher Professor of Genetics Michael Plewa said: "All sources of water possess organic matter that comes from decaying leaves, microbes and other dead life forms.

"In addition to organic matter and disinfectants, pool waters contain sweat, hair, skin, urine, and consumer products such as cosmetics and sunscreens from swimmers.

"The study compared different disinfection methods and environmental conditions and our results proved that all disinfected pool samples exhibited more DNA damage than the source tap water.

"Care should be taken in selecting disinfectants to treat recreational pool water.

"The data suggest that agents containing the chemical bromine should be avoided as disinfectants of recreational pool water.

"The best method to treat pool waters is a combination of UV treatment with chlorine as compared to chlorination alone."

Prof Plewa also said that carbon should be removed before disinfection when pool water is being recycled.

He added: "Swimmers can also help reduce the toxicity of pool water by showering before entering the water.

"Pool owners should also remind users about the potential harm caused by urinating in a pool.

"These simple steps can greatly reduce the production of toxic disinfection by-products."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Cancer cells killed by chemotherapy may cause cancer to spread

(NaturalNews) Chemotherapy is known to come with a long list of side effects -- from debilitating nausea and hair loss to extreme fatigue -- and in many cases, it does not cure or even stop cancer from progressing. But what if chemotherapy does something no one has realized before during all the decades it has been in use? What if chemo actually encourages cancer to spread throughout the body, the process known as metastasis?

Researchers with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center and UAB Department of Chemistry have just been awarded a $805,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program to see if the answer to those questions is "yes". The study is investigating the very real possibility that dead cancer cells left over after chemotherapy spark cancer to spread to other parts of the body.

"What if by killing cancer cells with chemotherapy we inadvertently induce DNA structures that make surviving cancers cells more invasive? The idea is tough to stomach," Katri Selander, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UAB Division of Hematology and Oncology and co-principal researcher on the grant, said in a statement to the media. "Fundamentally this question must be answered to advance the knowledge base and to know all the risks and benefits of cancer treatment. This research has the potential to reach across numerous scientific disciplines, and may one day improve the lives of patients worldwide."

The UAB scientists are concentrating on inactivated or altered genetic material (DNA) left in the body after breast-cancer cells are exposed to chemotherapy. The research team stated that the resulting altered DNA could be the deadly factor that sparks the dreaded process of metastasis through a specific molecular pathway. Finding out whether chemotherapy could cause cancer spread is hugely important to the field of oncology because metastasis is the number one cause of cancer recurrence and treatment failure.

Dead cancer cells have been found to activate a pathway in the body mediated as a protein dubbed toll-like receptor 9, or TLR9, that is present in the immune system and in many kinds of cancer. "If TLR9 boosts metastasis, then researchers will work on finding targeted therapies that block or regulate this molecular pathway," Dr. Selander stated.

For more information:
http://main.uab.edu/Sites/MediaRela...
http://www.naturalnews.com/chemothe...