“Yeah,” I said, trying to fight back tears.
“Think of a basketball.” (She showed me with her hands.) “Now think of a six-inch cantaloupe melon. (She showed me again.) That’s a significant change.” Long pause. “But it’s not significant enough, Brandon. You still need to have it surgically removed.”
I turned my face away so she couldn’t see me as I wiped my eyes, and quietly asked if we could talk about it in her consultation room. I thought it had gone down a lot more than that. As I sat with her, her words seemed to come through a haze. She clearly could see I was upset and was trying to assuage me while remaining firm in outlining the direction I should take.
“It’s a huge improvement, Brandon. There’s nothing to be disappointed about. Clearly you’ve been doing something to heal yourself. But I feel I must let you know tumors are known to be volatile, and it is possible for them to vacillate radically in size—that’s why your tummy blew up in size in the six weeks before your first visit. There’s nothing to say it won’t blow up in size again. You need to get real about this, Brandon. You need to get the tests done to determine its nature, and once they are complete, have it surgically removed. That’s my strong advice to you. This is not something to take lightly—a cantaloupe-sized mass means it’s already quite advanced.”
Everything she said made sense from a logical point of view. But everything inside me was still saying NO! I sat there quietly as she spoke, not offering any outward resistance—just trying to take on board her words, and truly weigh their validity. There was no doubt she made sense. But that inner knowing of “you’ll get it handled” was still strongly in the background.
At one point, in a mildly disinterested voice, she asked what I had done over the last month for such a dramatic change to take place. I piped up, hoping that she might actually want to hear about the intense emotional healing journey I’d undergone. Innocently, with great enthusiasm I began to launch into my story. She stopped me short.
“No, no! I just want the facts. What have you been doing physically? What foods have you been eating? What herbs, if any, have you been taking? Has your diet changed significantly? What about your physical activity? I just want the facts for my file.”
So I began listing out all the herbs, enzymes, colloidal minerals, colonics and massages, and ended by saying that I was on 100 percent fresh and raw fruits and vegetables, combined with fresh squeezed juices.
She noted it all down, closed the file, and said dryly, “Well, you may have to remain a raw food-ist for the rest of your life, if you think that’s what created the change”—with a wry, sardonic smile that looked unbecoming on her otherwise pretty face.
Inwardly, a door slammed. I stopped feeling like a helpless wimp and got it: this was not a doctor who wanted the whole picture, the real facts, which included the emotional side of things. She wanted her idea of what the facts were! I realized there was no further basis for discussion, and something inside said ENOUGH.
Simply, and somewhat curtly, I thanked her for her time, and said that my belief was not that the tumor would blow up and down and up again, but that I was on a healing journey. I was determined to honor my body, and would give it whatever time it needed to complete the healing process.
She looked dumbfounded. She became very unattractive as she attempted to persuade me that I was in dreamland, and reiterated that my only option was surgery. I looked at her as I left, and felt a strange combination of compassion and disgust—is healing only about the food we eat, and the medicine we take? I realized that that was simply her model of the world, and that it wasn’t her fault—her training was necessarily narrow. Doctors are trained to work on bodies—in the same way that mechanics are trained to work on cars. They go into the healing field ostensibly to help people heal, but somewhere along the way they forget that people aren’t just their bodies. We have bodies, minds, and emotions, but most importantly what we are is soul—something that can’t be touched, tested, or surgically removed.
As I drove home, I was very glad for the wake-up call her lack of understanding had given me. Her arguments had been very seductive, and I had begun to fall into a doctor’s idea of how to heal someone—you fix them by taking out the parts. It took her total lack of interest in the rest of my healing journey to make me realize once again that I must follow my own truth no matter how foolish it appeared from the outside. It was a hard choice, because unlike attacking the tumor from a purely physical level, you couldn’t see, touch, or even “test” the emotional shifts that had taken place inside me; and yet, for me, they were every bit as real as the physical shifts that seemed to follow from them as a direct result.
At that moment I felt very alone. Logically, I knew it wasn’t true, as I had devoted, supportive friends and family, yet somehow I still felt lonely. I realized that there is a way in which everyone must follow their own, unique healing path, and it is an experience that no one else can have for you. Spiritual transformation is an inner journey—it’s the soul’s personal path of learning and letting go, and it’s something that must be experienced on your own.
When I stepped through the door, there was a message on the answering machine from Don, who was in Hawaii preparing for a Tony Robbins two-week seminar called Mastery. He had remembered my appointment with the doctor and was wondering how it had all gone—he sounded enthusiastic and supportive. I really felt I needed to talk to him, to share what was going on, but felt inwardly ashamed—that somehow I’d failed—it hadn’t completely healed.
At the thought of Don and my friends in Hawaii, I felt even more alone. Some of my closest friends were there. I didn’t want anyone to know—I knew they were rooting for me and would be very disappointed. I knew I needed to give it more time.
Then I remembered my first conversation with Tony—“No problem—you’ll get it handled, I’ll see you at Mastery.” I hadn’t made it to Mastery. My failure was so clearly obvious.
Tony’s wife, Becky, had sweetly called me three days earlier, warmly imploring me to come along to Mastery—“You don’t have to work—you could just come and hang out—be there in support of Don.” I’d been touched by her reaching out to me, but quietly answered, “Beck, it means so much to me that you would call, but this is one time I need to give myself completely into my own healing journey. I’ve been there for so many people over the past thirteen years. Right now is just not the time for me to give to others, even if I’m just in the background. I’ve promised myself that for once I’d just support me, and I’d give it my best shot.” These were hard words for me to say, as my whole heart and soul wanted to be there to help, yet I knew I had to keep my promise to myself.
I knew Don wouldn’t be available to talk to until late that night, so I decided to give my dear friend Skip a call, to confess my “failure” to somebody and at least get it off my chest. He’d been one of the eight people I’d shared my healing journey with, and had been there with me from the beginning. He’d held my acupressure points for both sessions as I’d continued my processing, and had really seen me through an intense and powerful transformation. He’d been irrepressibly supportive all along, and I figured he might help me lighten up, at the very least.
Skip answered the phone with his normal enthusiasm. “Hey, Brandon! How’d it go?”
“Well, not as well as I’d hoped. It only went from the size of a basketball to the size of a six-inch cantaloupe.” I related the whole doctor’s visit.
“Hey! Hey! Stop right there, Brandon. Did you say it went from a basketball to a cantaloupe? That’s incredible . . . you’re amazing! What are you worried about? It’s on its way down. Don’t listen to what that doctor told you—just look at the results. You know it’s not going to blow up and blow down—YOU KNOW what created that shift—I was there with you when most of it happened.”
Then, chastisingly, as if speaking with humor to a child, he said, “You know better