Contemplating Chemotherapy

By Charlie Lustman

You would think that my oncologist would have the tact to wait until my jaw healed before walking into my hospital room to tell me that I was going to begin a year of intense chemotherapy a week from Monday.
Being that I just had my upper jaw sawed off, it was a little difficult to communicate in response. So, after attempting to talk, and sounding like a seal barking for fish, I desperately reached for a piece of paper and quickly scribbled down the words, “Not On My Birthday!!!”
You see, a week from Monday was my 41st birthday and my oncologist reviewed my chart and concurred. “Well then,” he said, “We can start a week from Tuesday.” Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised at this new turn of events.
Ever since I had been diagnosed in 2006 with one of the rarest forms of cancer in my upper jaw (an osteosarcoma of the upper maxillary for you discovery channel folks) I had been through one seriously surreal and painfully difficult moment after another. But what made this particular predicament most fearful to me was the word, “CHEMOTHERAPY.”
Look, I endured two back-to-back surgeries. My pregnant wife and I both battled with the idea that I could die. My three year old son was totally unaware yet aware of the energy that was permeating throughout the house of a family who is facing such a reality. It was tough, to say the least.
But then they told us that chemotherapy is necessary in order to make sure that the cancer didn’t spread to another part of my body. “Just in case” is how my oncologist put it. “Just in case” I thought. You mean to tell me that I am going to run the most lethal chemicals known to mankind, designed by mankind, through my body in order to kill cancer cells but in the process the chemo will destroy all the good cells at the same time?
This is what I am contemplating? It’s madness! So what do you do? You’ve got one of the rarest forms of cancer on the Planet. You have a wife, a child and one in the oven. I want to live! Is this the only way? Is there any other alternative out there? Well, of course, I went directly to the internet and searched far and wide. It was terrifying.
Mostly everything I found online was negative and fear based. You have to do this. You have to do that. Statistics, statistics! It was way too overwhelming and I just shut down my iMac and collapsed. After a day or so of denial, I went to see a friend of mine who works at a natural food cafe in the little town of Idyllwild, California. Anna was a cancer survivor who survived stage four ovarian cancer using alternative  modalities to western medicine. “Yes,” she said. “You can do it Charlie. Don’t take the chemo. Cancer is a billion dollar industry and they only care about profits not people! Chemo destroys your immune system. How can that be beneficial to the human body?”
“Wow,” I thought, “Pretty heavy stuff.” Anna decided that she was not going to cut out her ovaries, or other organs they said had to go. Surgery and chemo was the only chance she had to live, according to the professionals. Anna told me that she searched for the natural route through her cancer journey and after four years of de-toxing, drinking green juices, a macrobiotic diet, acupuncture, energy healers, yoga and spiritual retreats all over the world, she had eradicated the cancer from her body and even had a healthy beautiful baby boy shortly after her recovery.
I was inspired! But Anna was quick to pronounce her disclaimer: “Everyone is different, Charlie, and you have to choose your own path. Ok, so now I get a message from a cancer survivor with an alternative plan. Can wheat grass, macrobiotics and spiritual retreats save my life?
The answer seemed to be… yes, it’s possible. But the question remains… am I willing to take a chance and NOT do chemotherapy? You can only imagine what my doctor said! “Charlie, you cannot afford to take a chance with your prognosis. It is a totally unknown form of cancer and the required treatment regiment is chemotherapy and chemotherapy has shown to shrink sarcoma tumors with less chance of metastasis to the lung.”
Yes, sarcomas are very aggressive forms of cancer that move quickly to the lungs where the real danger lies. The fear came right back to me and I was caught in the middle of this very popular controversy. Look, everyone knows that chemo is dangerous. Most people say that people die from the chemo not the cancer.
Well, that may be true but they also say that without chemo the cancer will eventually shut down your organs and then you’re a goner anyway, so, what the hell would you do if you were in my shoes? I am a tough guy. When I got the diagnosis I was shocked but I was glad that it was me that got the phone call that infamous day.
Who should get cancer in my world? My wife, kids, parents, friends? Cancer came to the right guy and if I was to face a year of chemotherapy then bring ‘em on! I can take it! I was so confident in how I was going to do chemo that I had a t-shirt made designed to look like a Superman costume with an emblem on the chest that read: CHEMO-MAN. I was ready. But I was going to do chemo my way and that meant also doing all the natural alternative  treatments along the way.
Fortunately, my doctor honored my position and only told me that 72 hours prior to chemo and 72 hours after chemo was to be considered a no fly zone. No herbs, grass, supplements, vitamins, NOTHING. “Fine,” I said, “I can live with that.” And so, after a long and arduous contemplation of the entire surreal situation, I entered the cancer center a day after my 41st birthday and they ran a tube through my arm, directly into my heart, so that the chemo would flow into my body’s central distribution center and attack the enemy and my immune system with full force.
My alternative treatments played a major role in lessening my side effects and helped me to bounce back with every chemo treatment! Both eastern and western approaches worked! Well folks, what can I say? I am still here! I made it. And I feel like I am better than I was before I started. I lost thirty pounds in the process and I look pretty darn good.
I also got to watch the birth of my baby girl, sold my stressful business and liberated myself from things that I never really wanted to do in the first place. I went back to my true passion, music, and now I perform all over the world singing and sharing songs about (what else?)… Contemplating chemotherapy..
• • •
Charlie Lustman now lives and works on Maui and is an active participant in “a Musical HOPE Campaign” Maui County 2010.The show will be Sunday, December 19th at 7pm at The Historical Iao Theatre in Wailuku. The production is presented by The Pacific Cancer Foundation; all proceeds will go to this organization.

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Posted by Ken on Nov 29 2010. Filed under December 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry