Other therapies

For a period, I see Dr Yong my Chinese physician weekly. She will monitor my condition, prescribe meditation if necessary and gave me qigung and acupuntucture treatment. I thought I had the best of both worlds; orthodox therapy at NCI and Chinese medicine with Dr Yong. But it all ended in October last year when Dr Yong suddenly decided to quit practising.

Did it help? The Chinese medicine? I think at least I have an assurance of added medical monitoring. The acupuncture gave additional boost to my confidence that they support me in the orthodox therapies.

But I can't say with absolute confidence that they visibly helped. At that time I was on Iressa and that helped clearly.

I was also practising Chi Dynamics' qigung. That gave me a boost that I am in some sort of control over my healing. Occasional what I presume are movement of qi helped to sustain my practise. When I was able to drive before October last year, I was also doing the Gui Lin qigung at the Seremban Lake Gardens every morning. I learnt Gui Lin qigung before I had my cancer.

I would have loved to report that they helped me, but I can't with confidence. All I can say is they gave a sense of responsibility and control that we can manage our own health. But there are lots of testimonials and anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness of many other people, and of course many qigung styles have centuries of refinement!

I have also learnt Reiki. A reiki master came to me when I was still recovering from surgery in IJN and gave me reiki treatment, and another reiki master came to do some healing when I was back in Seremban. I felt "something" during the first IJN session but nothing after that. Then late last year I took Reiki 1 & 2 which are Master-guided lessons on reiki. I don't feel any affinity to it so I dropped the reiki healing.

Other therapies which I have tried and dropped is the very interesting Malay faith healer or bomoh. He is an accountant but found that faith healing as his calling. I met him very early in my journey. He gave the typical prescription for mandi bunga of lemons and leaves, and a blessed amulet. I saw him twice and then stopped. Well, he kept on saying I will be ok!

Sometimes, friends who came hold prayers for me. It felt good to know of their concern. Once, a lost party of Hare Krishna devotees was persuaded by my sister to come and pray for me. What a riot! There I was lying in bed while the group of Hare Krishna devotees played their bangles and drums and sang prayers for me! Check out my blog about this here. I have listened also to Muslim Sufi healing surah which a friend sent for me. She is the singer of these surahs.

I had an experience with retro-hypnotherapy or regressive hypnotherapy too. It required me to go into hypnosis and retrieve past wrongs and hurts, and attempt to heal them. I find the process tedious and awkward. I prefer Anthony Robbin's method of healing now, rather than uncovering past hurts and feel the pain again. I dropped it.

Looking back, I can say, yeah, those were the days! I was open to many things, and still am. I see myself as a guinea pig for all these healings. Those times, I can feel the desperation of grasping whatever therapy that offers a glimmer of hope.

But of course I am wiser now especially to herbal treatments, and products of direct selling companies.