The fifth of the Seven Principles of Mindfulness in Healing from the book, Healing with the Seven Principles of Mindfulness is to create your own medical team. Here is why.
Your primary care doctor is wonderful for helping you out when you have a medical problem like a virus, cold, or infection. His recommendations in these cases are probably sufficient, along with possible prescriptions, to get you through. But when it comes to having a serious illness like cancer, other medical doctors are likely to get involved.
In many cases, you will be referred to a specialist in cancer, perhaps a surgeon, oncologist, or radiologist, to go over the details of your treatment plan. These specialists become automatic members of your medical team.
When you begin to investigate alternatives and find complementary practitioners who you like and want to work with, you can add them to your team. It is important to keep all members of your team informed about what is going on with your treatment.
In my case, within ten days of my diagnosis of muscle invasive bladder cancer in 1997, I consulted with Michael Broffman, founder of the Pine Street Clinic in San Anselmo, California. Michael is a multi-faceted genius specializing in acupuncture and Chinese medicine. He learned Chinese to study acupuncture in its native language and takes medical notes in Chinese. That fist interview convinced me to make him the quarterback of my healing team, and he as remained so all these years. His herbal formulations helped me get through chemotherapy both times and the burn ointment he recommended kept me from burning up from the radiation.
It may be difficult to find someone with all these qualifications in your area, but if you look around you’ll probably settle on someone great like Michael.
Who is on your medical team and have are they working for you? Want more information? [Read more…]
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