Christopher Reeve’s widow, Dana, just announced she was facing a battle with lung cancer. I was overwhelmed! This beautiful, 44-year-old actress, with a 14 year old son, lost her husband less than a year ago. Christopher Reeves, the star of the Supermen movies, died nine years after he broke his neck, rendering him quadriplegic. Her steadfast support of him during those years, filled me, and the world, with admiration. She is the Chairwoman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation which has raised tens of millions of dollars for spinal cord injury research and treatment. I was overwhelmed by the unfairness of it, two people in the prime of their lives, facing life-threatening illnesses.


Dana said she was disclosing the illness only because a tabloid was about to do so. In the Associated Press release (8/10/05), she said “I feel Chris with me as I face this challenge. In the face of life’s adversities, I look to him as the ultimate example of defying the odds. He is my example of strength and joy for life. She wants to go back to acting.

The more I read the article the less overwhelmed I became by the sorrow of it and the more overwhelmed I became by the courage of it. One makes a heroic journey of ones life by living it. Dana’s story reminded me of Rick Fields. Rick was the editor-in-chief of the Yoga Journal, poet and practicing Buddhist, whose book Instructions to the Cook (with Bernard Glassman) is an astounding distillation of Zen wisdom. At age 53, Rick was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was treated by surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and every imaginable alternative medicine. He lived four years with stage 4 metastatic lung cancer, outliving by years, the doctors expectations, during which time he did an interview for a Buddhist quarterly. He said he was so savoring the moments of his life right now; he was so acutely aware of love and small pleasures that he no longer felt he had a life-threatening disease, but rather, was a leading a disease-threatening life.

The great gift of the Dana’s and Rick’s of the world are that they help free us from the fear of life-threatening disease, if we can come to every day living until we die. In the game of life, you have to be present to win.

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Ron, my friend and patient for almost 20 years, recently underwent radical prostate surgery. For a couple years they watched his PSA levels rise, which signaled the potential for prostate cancer. Many biopsies were done, and none of them revealed cancer. This year his PSA levels became alarming and he had more biopsies. In one of these samples they found cancer. It was graded, scored and defined, and then he was confronted with a multiple-choice menu of treatment options.


Ron faced this challenge like others in his life: by educating himself and taking some control of his life. He learned about staging criteria and Gleason scores; he visited renowned specialists. Each one of them had their preferred treatment plan. Some touted radical surgery (although they differed in their surgical approaches).Others advocated external beam radiation, while others wanted to insert radioactive seeds directly into the gland. There were some who said that at age 72 he didn’t need surgery at all and that hormone replacement was sufficient.

All of these treatment courses have merit, and there is no single answer for everyone, so how does a patient choose? We don’t need more information; we need more doctors to guide us through the process. The sad truth is that in contemporary medical life there are fewer and fewer doctors who step up and serve as gatekeepers and advisors. Doctors who take the time to hash out the options, give you an opinion, guide you through the crisis and afterwards as well. Patients do not need more information about cancer treatment options, they need a healing relationship with someone who is in their corner and can inspire them. In its absence, patients are feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, and afraid.

Ron knew the facts, the potential consequences, and that all of his choices came with their own scariness. We always wish we had just a little more information, a little more certainty, but it always comes down to making a leap of faith -- faith that you will either land on your feet, or that you will learn how to fly.

This is how Ron prepared himself: several weeks before his surgery, we conducted a sweat lodge ceremony for him. This is a Native American healing ritual in which he had participated for years, but this time he would be the focus of the ceremony. Lots of people supported him in this dark, uncomfortable place. A place where one can face the darkness and dare to imagine a light at the end of the tunnel. After the ceremony, I asked him to carve his own walking stick and include symbols that reminded him of his sources of power and joy; it would help him on his healing journey.

The night before surgery, I flew out to Los Angeles to be with him. We ceremonially prepared ourselves and we gave him a “spirit horse.” In Native American tradition, the horse carries our spirit on its back to touch the ear of the Great Spirit. This little horse was filled with aromatic herbs and made by an artisan who filled it with love. He took it with him into his preop cubicle, and it was waiting for him later in the recovery room.

If you can’t find a doctor to be your gatekeeper, find a friend, someone you trust to serve in that role. It could be a member of your family, spiritual guide, or support group -- somebody in your corner cheerleading who reminds you that you are not alone in the darkness. We need to build more supportive communities where we can tell each other our experiences, and you can start in “The Healing Café” on my website. I can’t be the only one writing. We need to be talking to each other . . . it’s like carving a communal walking stick to help us on the road.

We are all connected. Mi takuye oyacin.

P.S. If you would like more information about the spirit horses mentioned in this byte (each one unique and handcrafted), you can contact the Phoenix-based artisan directly by email: lynntanis4433@aol.com.

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I learned of the death of Dr. Alain Bombard in an obituary column last month. He was a French physician interested in survival techniques, and he became a legend in the 1950s when he drifted in a small dinghy from the Canary Islands to Barbados, with no provisions.

At the Oceanographic Research Institute in Monte Carlo he studied strategies for survival at sea. He concluded that stranded sailors could survive subsisting on plankton, raw fish and sea water. In 1952, he hoisted up a small triangular sail in his motorless boat and started his voyage across the Atlantic. Through storms, calms, and delirium, he made the crossing in 65 days. He wrote about it in his book, The Voyage of the Heretique (Simon and Schuster, 1954), in which he described his ordeal as a “starving, thirsting hell.”

A German doctor, Hannes Lindemann, became fascinated by Bombard’s survival ideas and tried to duplicate his feat. He made two solo trans-Atlantic attempts: one in a dugout canoe, and one in a kayak. Drinking only saltwater and eating raw fish and plankton, Lindemann’s feet and legs swelled dangerously, and he aborted both attempts.

Lindemann said he didn’t know how Bombard did it and in his own book, Alone at Sea (Random House, 1958), he cast doubt not only on the sea waters potability, but also said that Bombard probably sneaked provisions aboard (like beer).

I don’t want to weigh Lindemann’s claim against Bombard’s — I think they’re both a bit daft. I don’t see anybody else out there leaping into a motorless boat, wanting to see how long they can live on sea-water, raw fish (and maybe a couple of beers).

In medical school, I was taught if you didn’t drink water for a couple of days, your kidneys would shut down. Depending on your conditioning, perhaps you’d go 3 days, but then you would go into renal shutdown. When I came to Indian country and observed ceremonies in which warriors could go four days without drinking (while also dancing, sweating and piercing themselves), I knew the body had an incredible capacity to sustain itself if there was the will.

I think Bombard was heroic and L’ Heretique. Heretics have a vision that does not conform to established doctrines. They see beyond what’s explainable and acceptable, and in every generation, it is they who expand the boundaries of our believability.

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Lance Armstrong just completed his seventh consecutive victory in the Tour de France, a feat unmatched in the history of cycling. There has always been something superhuman about Lance…scientists say that he is genetically gifted to be the perfect rider.


His body is an extraordinarily efficient machine: his blood lactic acid levels are unbelievably low so his muscles don’t tire easily. His VO2 max (a measure of how efficiently oxygen is delivered to the muscles) is an astounding 85 ml of oxygen/ per kilogram of body weight/ per minute. The average person has a VO2 max of 45 and with training can get it to 60.

Edward Coyle, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas who studies Armstrong in his human’s performance lab, says his power output is so high, there are probably no more than 20 people on earth with his ability.

Coyle said Lance’s number, however, may not be that different from the other premier racers on the tour. They are all genetically gifted, follow similar training programs, but even if they rode on Armstrong’s Discovery team, with it’s great teamwork, they might not win because physiology alone cannot explain Armstrong’s unparalleled feat. The difference, Coyle says, is the ability to muster the right mind set, “they have to believe they can really do it when it counts.”

Lance Armstrong has always inspired me from the time almost a decade ago, when he was diagnosed with metastatic testicular cancer. With tumors in his lungs and brain, Lance believed that he could move beyond its limitations. He was aggressively treated, but his greatest strength came from within. His mindset was he had the cancer, the cancer didn’t have him. He believed he could beat the odds.

The rest of us may not be as genetically gifted as Lance. When performing at peak power, we may not be able to match his output, but belief is a powerful motivator and booster of the immune response. See beyond your limitations and you actually increase the likelihood you can win.

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