The next day, Sarah served as our subject for demonstration again. I did energy medicine with her while my friend, Peter, did hypnosis, at the same time. Others joined us in ministering to her. Sarah felt loved and cared for. She so appreciated our efforts on her behalf. When we were done, we asked her if she could pose the question, "what if she couldn't heal? What if she was going to die? What then?"
This is an important question to ask people with life-threatening diseases, because they could die, and it's important examine this possibility. Immunologist and psychologist (at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Cancer Center) Alistair Cunningham studied the importance of accurate appraisal in predicting long-term cancer survival. Apparently, white-washing or denying the seriousness of one's condition is unwise. Longer survivors were well aware of how sick they were.
We wondered if Sarah knew how ill she was. She looked healthy enough besides being very thin. Was she more ill than she thought?
Sarah did appreciate all the attention, though I don't know how much we altered her story. To my surprise, she died less than one week later.
Sarah helped us to explore some difficult questions in the mind-body medicine of cancer. I'll be continuing to explore these questions in my workshops in the December meetings of the NICABM (National Institute for the Clinical Applications of Behavioral Medicine) in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Then, I expect, I will have more to write about these topics.
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