The man at the next table..

Usually when I eat downstairs in the restaurant I sit alone. I'll offer a cheery 'hello' to whoever else may be there, But lately I've been keeping to myself. One reason for this is the language difficulties, but another is that I've become tired of relating my story to those that ask. I feel like there's only so many times you can tell the same story before it looses it's energy, it's validity.
I've seen so many people come and go, and we have shared our stories time and time again.

Every meal time for the last week or so I have said hello to a South American couple and their adult daughter. They sit and converse in Spanish most of the time, but when they do speak English it is with a slight American accent. It made it hard for me to guess exactly where they were from.

Tonight, Bernie, a young guy here from Canada for treatment, stopped at my table on his way back to his room. We chatted for a few minutes about his travels over the weekend and he left.
Our conversation attracted the attention of the South Americans and the father called out to me "Sir", ..it didn't register and I continued drinking my soup.. "SIR" he said it a second time.
I looked up, wondering who's attention it was that he was trying to attract.

Michael introduced himself and we talked across the restaurant for some time. Eventually his wife and daughter departed for their room and he asked if he could sit and talk with me while I ate.
He ordered himself a beer, sat down, and told me his story..

Michael is a big framed, Caucasian man in his early 60's, he owns a farm in Panama where he grows coffee.
His wife has endured many years of conventional treatments, the chemo and radiation have left her frail and weak. He told me that he had always believed that they were doing the right things, listening to the doctors and taking their advice. They have travelled to America, Italy and Mexico in the hope of making her well.

He said that eventually they realised that if they kept doing the same things they were always going to get the same result; Things like liver and kidney damage, a weakened immune system and a poorer quality of life. All typical side effects of conventional chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

He told me that as a farmer he only knew how to farm, how to harvest coffee. Then one day in desperation he decided to take control of his wife's treatment. Having never used one in his life, He taught himself how to use a computer and he learned how and where to research. He told me he has spent many hundreds of hours teaching himself about her disease and what other treatments he could obtain for her. He said he had found out about plants and natural remedies that the Panama Indians have used for centuries. He hunted out and researched alternative treatments that could help reduce his wife's disease to a point that conventional treatments would have a better chance of working.

Finally all his research had lead him to the Leonardis Klinik.

His eyes swelled and reddened as he spoke, the emotional toll showing on his face. He said he and his wife were prepared to do anything to keep her alive. They will sell their farm if they need to, and he will never stop looking for ways to make her well again. What an incredible man.

I don't do their story justice, I can't in just a few paragraphs. But the stories I am privileged to be told are truly amazing. They show the incredible fighting spirit of the people that come here. I never really thought about it that way.. everyone that comes here is a fighter, a survivor. Not prepared to blindly stick with a flawed system, not prepared to just take the word of doctors working in a system dictated by limited budgets, or under the control of drug and insurance companies.

There is of course no magic bullet, no secret answer to it all. The fact is cancer will kill the vast majority of it's victims, no matter what they do. The answer I believe lies in the numbers. A certain percentage of people will beat it. The trick it finding what works for you. That particular treatment, that edge that will put you into that percentage.