She Was My Friend

Today, I am telling a true story of someone who was a close friend of mine. The point of this story is...is...well I'm not quite sure what the point is. There are several lessons which can possibly be taken from this story and I leave it to each of you to find your own.

Carol Cooper was my friend.

Dr. Carol and I met five or six years ago when she came to our office for treatment of an eye condition. Carol was in her sixties, unmarried and had her own health practice. Although she was not a licensed physician she was trained and certified in Oriental Medicine (DOM), a licensed acupuncturist and a certified homeopath. Carol was a "true believer" in alternative medicine. Her practice reflected this.

In homeopathy parlance, Carol would be known as a "sulfur" type person. One look at her office and you would see every inch of space occupied by some medical instrument, magazine, papers or "treasure" from which she could not part. Her car reflected the same "sulfur" personality. Papers, cups, pairs of shoes and heaven knows what else were strewn all over her car. Sometimes when she exited her car, papers would roll out with her onto the pavement below.

Carol fit the sulfur personality perfectly. She was not amused when I called her a sulfur type person and would unconvincingly try to argue she wasn't.

Then again she would chide me for not being naturopathic enough, in her mind. She felt I should not write prescriptions, or do any invasive therapy, or refer patients to MD's when I felt it was necessary. To Carol, this was taboo.

But, Carol was my friend.

When I was assaulted and suffered severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), Carol was quick to try to help me. She had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber that she would have me climb in for an hour or so, whenever I could make it to her office. She carefully helped me in and out of the tube before and after treatment. She encouraged me to drink the ozone treated water made from her ozone machine to increase the oxygen in my system to try and "feed" the brain so it could heal. She made me homeopathic remedies to help with my recovery. She also encouraged me to refrain from the allopathic treatments that I was concurrently receiving which I did not follow. Such was her strong belief in alternative medicine.

Dr. Carol and I would sit in her office, or in my office and we would discuss medicine and how best to help our patients. She felt strongly that natural medicine was the most effective modal of treatment and all that was necessary. I would argue that each modality of medicine had pros and cons. That a physician should use whichever modality that he/she felt was best for the patient. We would talk about our dreams of life after our practices. We also had similar political views and we would run the gamut with this also. They were all interesting and enlightening discussions.

Carol, like me, wanted out of the US, as we saw nothing but "a bad moon arising" for the future. We discussed which country would be the best to live. We talked about each of the countries of Latin and South America and the pros and cons of each. We both ruled out Costa Rica as too expensive and too many Americans there, already. If we wanted to live amongst Americans we could stay in the US.

Finally, Carol bought a house in Panama. Carol joyfully sent pictures of her new home out by email to her friends and was very excited about the opportunity to spend her retirement years in Latin America. She hoped to move into her new home within two years after having closed her practice down and sold her home in Arizona. She was making plans for the future.

One day Carol came by my house and told me she was hemorrhaging, and asked me what I thought the cause could be. When a sixty five year old woman begins hemorrhaging it is not good news. I told Carol, it may be significant or possibly the cause could be some hormonal dysfunction. We would need tests to find out. I ordered lab tests for her and awaited the results.

When the results came the indications were as I was expecting; anemia, white blood cell dysfunction and other indices elevated. I encouraged her to go to an oncologist for testing to determine if there was cancer, if so-what type, stage, location and any metastases.

As with many people facing further testing, Carol was reluctant to go and postponed it for several weeks.

Finally she went to an oncologist and after numerous tests she was told there was cancer cells in the uterus and ovaries and it had metastasized to her liver and lung.

She came to my house and we talked. She asked what I could do for her and I honestly told her at this stage there wasn't much I could do, but was willing to try everything in my arsenal for her. I encouraged her to talk with with her oncologist and consider options such as chemotherapy, radiation or possibly a combination of surgery and one of the others.

This of course went against everything she believed.

I told her I would work with her from a naturopathic perspective to help keep her strong and improve her immune system. I gave her some laetrile (vitamin B-17) and instructed her how to take it. I gave her supplements to strengthen her physically and help fight the cancer. She asked if I could give her IV vitamin therapy, but after the head injury I developed a tremor in my dominant hand and could no longer start IV's. I reluctantly told her I could not, but I could ask some of my doctor friends to do so. She turned me down.

Carol decided to utilize my help, but also chose to be treated by other "alternative healers" whom she knew and trusted. These "healers", whom I had not met, worked with Carol using "energy", "muscle testing", "laying of hands" and other methods of which I was not familiar. Carol read a book on vegetarian diet treatment for cancer and went vegetarian with emphasis on juicing and green vegetables. I encourage her with this diet as juicing and vegetables would keep her in an "alkaline" state which is conducive to healing. I also encouraged her to consume cruciferous vegetables as they are known to be detrimental to cancer cells. I told her she needed protein to rebuild tissues, though. She took whey protein to ensure her protein intake.

One day Carol came to the house and announced she was going to California for three week stay at a "cancer clinic" that treated cancer patients with vegetarian diet, juicing, meditation and exercise. She brought me a brochure and asked if I wanted to go with her as she felt it would be helpful for my TBI, also.

Carol went alone and during her stay I received several emails from her praising the clinic and treatment she was receiving. She felt it was exactly what she needed in her fight against cancer. After her time at the clinic, she came by the house still enthusing about it. She still thought I should go. I noticed Carol was looking weaker and her color was more of a gray color. Carol said she was tired, but from the trip, not from the illness. Anyway, Carol stated her other "healers" had muscle tested her and told her she was getting better ("her muscle testing numbers were improving, her tiredness was temporary and she would get well").
The next time Carol came to the house she was so weak she could hardly walk. As she exited her car papers spilled out ino the driveway. She was shivering and my wife got her a blanket to warm her. Carol still told me her other "healers" had stated she was improving. She was not following my advice or that of her oncologist, rather she was relying on the vegetarian diet and these other "healers" who through muscle testing had convinced her she was recovering.

I did not hear from Carol for a week or so, and then she called and said she was in a hospice. We immediately went and visited with her. She was in a small room in a hospice that was in a residential neighborhood. From the outside the hospice looked like any other house in the area. Inside, each room was occupied by a patient awaiting death. Carol was jovial as always, and happily told us about the garden outside her room and how peaceful it was, and how nice the doctors, nurses and aides were to her. She was comfortable. Carol did not talk about death, but nor did she talk about living. She accepted her fate. Not once, did Carol express sadness, fear or anger. She faced her destiny with grace and dignity.

Carol died about a week later in April 2007. We read her obituary in the paper and wept. I do not know what happened to her office, medical equipment, her house in Arizona, or her house in Panama. She said she had her "affairs" in order and I respected that. Carol always kept some of her cards close to her chest and these I did not press to see. We respected each other's privacy as friends often do.

Shortly thereafter we moved to Latin America.

As time went on, anger built up in me. Why had Carol listened so faithfully to those "healers" who had convinced her she was getting better when all signs indicated she was getting worse, quickly? Who the hell were these people who were not qualified to treat her cancer and through their lies and deceit accelerated her death? Carol truly felt she only needed natural medicine to fight her cancer and that was her right to choose and I respected that. I suppose Carol made her decisions, and handled it the way she wanted.

But you see, that is a danger that people who are ill may have to face. Natural healing is effective in many instances. Yet people who practice "natural healing" must be properly trained, licensed with follow up training and as with allopathic doctors followed by a medical board to protect the public from unscrupulous practitioners. In my opinion, the people who go to a weekend course and learn some technique like muscle testing, "vibrational" healing, or other such nonsense should not be allowed in a position of determining the life and death treatment of a person. Not only are they dangerous, they give properly trained natural healers a bad name. These are the people that the AMA refer when their "healing" goes wrong. But then again, I believe strongly the patient has a right to choose their treatment options, as Carol did.

Maybe no therapy would have helped Carol and she died the way she wanted. I don't know. Carol had a choice in her health care and she stood by her beliefs. This situation is why at the beginning of the article I stated I wasn't sure what the point of this article is. There are several that each reader can find if they so choose, I suppose. Or none if they choose.

But in the end I wanted to say...Dr. Carol was my friend.