Case History 7 - Recovery from an inoperable, invasive and  fast growing benign brain tumour(Link to Life’s Kaleidoscope book in publications)
 
It was Christmas Eve 1993. I had breathed a  sigh of relief at having just completed another very busy day while sitting in my favourite comfortable armchair in front of a roaring log fire. I was looking out of my window at the falling snow against the twinkling lights of the town in the background. I was dreaming about how I was going to spend my next seven hard earned rest days, when the harsh jangle of the phone startled me out of my reverie.

During the consultation she told me that she was 66 and  in fact she had been diagnosed with a left acoustic neuroma about 10 months prior to seeing  me. This is a benign but reasonably fast growing tumour on the nerve to the ear which can cause severe  problems by pressurising the brain stem and its important structures and the nerves coming from it, if it is allowed to proceed unchecked.  Despite her insistence that she had a severe bleeding disorder similar to haemophilia ,but the female version of it, her protestations against suggested surgery were ignored. However, in order to persuade her to undergo surgery prior to its cancellation,  a graphic description of the possible complications were given. These included inability to eat or even breathe unaided, painful paralysis of the left side of her face,  mental confusion and progressively worsening deafness and loss of balance, so that she would not be able to walk, with eventual total incontinence. According to the consultant,  the occurrence of these symptoms was reasonably imminent and would be well established within a year or two, when the tumour invaded the brain stem. As a result of being so terrified, she grudgingly consented to undergoing the surgery. Following the pre-operative blood work out, the same surgeon saw Gladysthe the day before the surgery and informed her that as the bleeding disorder was much more severe than they had anticipated, (Something that she had already told them from previous experience!!), they had decided to cancel the surgery indefinitely and discharged her home! It is hardly surprising that she was so distressed considering what she had been told in such graphic and gruesome detail about the outcome  if surgery was not immediately undertaken.

Her symptoms were threefold; those related to the tumour; those related to widespread rheumatic and arthritic condition and of-course those related  to severe anxiety and depression. The neurological symptoms consisted of moderately severe  deafness and tinnitus, severe loss of balance and dizziness, frequent bursting headaches and inability to focus in bright sunshine.  Her loss of balance was so severe that she felt like a drunk veering all over the place and hitting herself against door frames and walls, as well as misjudging the position of objects. As a result she had to carry a stick to try and help steady herself a bit.  She certainly could not go out at night or  in the dark or even wear heeled shoes as they greatly aggravated her unsteadiness. She also had to wear dark glasses in the weakest sunshine as it would exacerbate her loss of balance and  giddiness. 

She had generalised muscular pains especially in her arms and legs as well as major joint pains especially the knees and hips. She also suffered from severe backache with intermittent right sciatica which made her limp, which in turn aggravated her unsteadiness.

Her anxiety and depression centred around what she had been told at the hospital about the slow, unpleasant and painful way that she would die; something that was reasonably imminent in the absence of surgery according to her conventional consultant. She was crying a great deal and could not sleep or concentrate on doing anything constructive. She could not even bring herself to do her drawing and painting which she used to love and had found immensely relaxing. She felt very tired and lethargic most of the time.  She felt that her life had come to a premature end and that she was just existing and killing time until the inevitable unpleasant end; at least as she saw it at the time.

Apart from the regular healing, our sessions during the first few months were mainly spent in enabling her to deal with her emotional turmoil and alter her mental attitude from total negativity and defeatism towards being more positive and realising that she not only had the choice of refusing to follow the path that had been prophesied by the hospital but actually overcoming the problems that she had.  Most of her symptoms, especially the non-neurological ones started to improve slowly over the months. 

It was decided in the summer of 1994 that she should have localised radiotherapy to the tumour. Unfortunately she became extremely ill with severe exacerbation of all her neurological symptoms following the treatment. This was particularly true of  her vertigo and loss of balance which was total for a few weeks. Unfortunately I could not give her any direct healing during these eight weeks as she was bed bound a long way away from where I live. However, I continued to send her distant healing. She eventually managed to get home and we started working together once again. The brain scan performed a few months after the radiotherapy not only showed that the treatment had failed, but that the tumour had in fact grown faster than it had ever done before. Presumably this was due to the fact that the radiotherapy and the stress of the illness that followed it severely depleted her immune system and allowed the tumour to grow further.

Unlike most of my other clients, she had very few mental images , thoughts or past life experiences during the healing sessions. She just became totally relaxed and her mind went into a state of total peace and serenity. In early 1995, she had one image during one of the sessions which I feel might have been significant.

She had the image that her head and brain were split in the middle lengthwise and someone started scraping parts of her brain out. It was an extremely painful and unpleasant experience. The pain was apparently similar to what she had experienced after her radiotherapy. Following the healing, she told me that the experience  was so unpleasant that she wanted to ask me to stop. But she felt as if she was paralysed and she could not do it. Therefore, she had to go through with it despite the intense pain. Following this episode, her neurological symptoms started  to improve more rapidly, although by the time she was seen at the hospital in July 1995 for her regular annual check up, she still had some symptoms of vestibular imbalance, dizziness and some  deterioration of her hearing on the left side. Her brain scan also showed that the tumour had increased in size but only slightly unlike previously.

She continued to attend for regular intermittent healing and do her Autogenic relaxation(Link to the autogenic book in publications) , meditation and Autogenic emotional   off-loading(Link to Autogenic book in publications) exercises  at home in between our sessions. She also continued to use the positive affirmations, visualisations and self-healing that I had taught her. By this time of-course she had become very adept at summoning up her own healing powers to work on the tumour as well as all her other symptoms which by this time were minimal and she no longer had any need for her stick. She was cheerful most of the time despite a great deal of domestic and family problems and was very positive and determined to overcome whatever she had wrong with her or came her way. 

Although her  symptoms had obviously improved considerably , the consultant who had been looking after her decided in September 1995 that in view of her brain scan appearances he would like to operate , especially since he thought that they could probably control her bleeding tendency more effectively by now. Despite this, her blood disorder would still increase her chances of postoperative complication and stroke by at least 30%. Gladys declined the offer of surgery in no uncertain way, as she was feeling so much better and taking control of her life which she was now beginning to thoroughly enjoy.

At the beginning of December 1995 while I was giving her healing I was guided to perform active thought  surgery on her brain tumour. I normally do this by putting my hand over the affected area and concentrate intensely while going through the procedure that I would have done if I was performing real surgery.  I did not tell her what I had done and when I asked her what the healing felt like, she told me that she could not say as she felt as if she had been unconscious; similar to what she had experienced when she had been anaesthetised!!

During our conversation the following week she told me that couple of nights after the healing, she had had a very strange experience. She thought that although she was probably dreaming, it felt very real. In it, she found herself lying on an operating table with six “ghostly surgeons” dressed in white surrounding her. I walked in dressed in the white outfit that I normally wear during healing sessions and instructed the “surgeons” to carry out the  surgery on her brain tumour, She then proceeded to describe perfectly what would have happened in that particular type of conventional surgery. The strangest thing was that when she woke up the next day, she found her scalp over the site of where the tumour was very sore  and painful ; as if her scalp had been cut, She could not even bear to comb or wash the area and had to ask someone to check her scalp to ensure that it had not actually been cut while she had been asleep!!

Following this episode, the majority of her remaining symptoms started improving very rapidly and she became convinced at this stage that the tumour had disappeared. She believed that this was supported by the fact that her normal affirmation of “my tumour is shrinking” was spontaneously changed to “my tumour has gone”! By November  1996 almost all her symptoms had completely disappeared; almost exactly 3 years after she started seeing me ! The only one that still persists is a mild intermittent tinnitus which no longer worries her to any extent.

In 2007, Gladys is now 78 and was telling me that she has not felt as well as this for a great many years. She has started painting and really enjoying life once again. She is able to go in the sun once again without dark glasses and loosing her balance. She can also go out in the dark without falling over like a drunk. Most important of all, she has recently joined a country western dance club and is learning all the dances which she thoroughly enjoys, especially the act of being able to twirl around in healed shoes without loosing her balance! Interestingly, her brain scan in 2006 showed no evidence of the presence of the tumour!

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