O'Connor

Text Box: Resignation doesn’t have to be the option Several years ago if I ever got onto the subject of health and dying with friends I would always say the same thing, “I know I will die from either cancer or heart disease just like everyone else in my family.” Thank God I didn’t before I radically changed my thinking and my understanding of what causes cancer and heart disease. Being surrounded my entire life by victimhood and resignation, my outlook was rather bleak with only one inevitable outcome. It is true, many of my relatives, even my Father, died of one or both of those diseases. It is also true that they did not share my tenacity for rebellion when it came to bucking the industrial corporate owned system we have in our country designed to keep people sick and make big money doing it. These corporations, the drug companies, thrive because of this type of resignation. A global fear of life threatening disease, like mesothelioma, is what they depend on to convince, manipulate, and control the general public. Being born in Texas and living here most of my life there is a constant undercurrent of resignation around cancer. We have the largest “cancer fightin’ facility” in the world right here in Houston. It comes complete with its own in-house McDonald’s! People come from all over the world to live there while they fight the cancer taking over their bodies and their minds. While my main argument is aimed at adults with cancer, there are children faced with life threatening cancer whom I cannot attribute this same resignation. By comparing the amount of pediatric patients currently in the MD Anderson’s Children’s Cancer Center (est. 30-40 on any given day from their main switchboard for information on 14-Oct.-2009) to a rough estimate of adults receiving treatment at MD Anderson’s Cancer Center (est. 464 daily average based on the in-house consensus of 2008. 14-Oct.-2009), I found more proof for the argument that resignation plays a huge part in the possibility of healing oneself. Having less history of negative training for the mind gives children the upper hand in a more positive approach to healing themselves. Being the Mother of two daughters, I am sure if I were faced with the diagnosis of cancer for either one of them, I would truly be challenged to make the best decision for their survival. However, the abundance of success we have had in maintaining our health through several flu seasons and everyday exposure to cold germs, classroom “icky poo” stomach viruses, upper respiratory issues as well as seasonal allergies, I would not have to think very long on the final decision. The same would apply to my own diagnosis. Would I choose traditional methods of chemotherapy or radiation therapy to treat cancer? Simply, no. As stated before, I have not always believed this way. The first time I stepped outside of the Western thought pattern for healing and medicine was about 11 years ago when my oldest daughter, Jessie now 15 years old, had chronic “school germ sickness,” as I called it. About every 2-3 weeks she would get sick with whatever every other kid in her school had and it would inevitably lead to other things. When she would finally get past the virus, or whatever it was, she would be well for about a week and then it would start all over again. I knew there were alternatives out there to the antibiotics that made her stomach hurt, over the counter drugs that made her sleepy and expensive doctor’s visits giving us prescription drugs that I didn’t want to put into her body knowing they would cause other side effects. My intuition was that she could be healed with alternative ways other than medicine and my intuition was right. I took her to a Homeopath and since that first remedy her immune system continues to strengthen. It is very rare for her to get sick and if she does pick up some bug going around, her immune system reacts very quickly and her recovery time is 1-2 days as opposed to the general 5-7 days. I have also been in contact with many alternative healers who use energy transference, meditation, massage, raw food diets and periodic fasting, liquid vitamins and minerals created with vibration technology and the belief in manifestation through the vibration of the spoken language. All of these things and combinations thereof as well as a belief in The Divine Within, homeopathy and herbal uses are considered alternative treatment plans for any ailment or disease in our house. Herein began my trust for the human body as a perfectly working machine created to heal itself if given all the tools it needs to do so. The tools the body uses are the key to maintaining optimum health. Understanding that those tools are made up of vitamins and minerals, opens a whole new world of possibility for knowing my body and being able to hear the messages it is trying to send. Using symptoms like little flashing engine lights when it is running out of calcium or niacin, for example. Paying attention to how much sleep I get, how much stress I feel and knowing each day is another new day gives me the internship to my own existence and the quality of life I choose to have. I like to imagine what the general health of our country would look like today if more people could embrace this understanding, this knowledge of how powerful we all are as healers. I would imagine a world full of people like James “Rhio” O’Connor who would not take “No” for an answer and chose to create his own life from that moment of awakening upon his diagnosis of mesothelioma. If we truly believed we could heal ourselves, step out of the resigned life of being a victim and onto a new fresh page that we could fill with anything we wanted to, wouldn’t life be a brilliant shade of possibility?