My Journey with Cancer

By March of 1975, at the age of 23, I suspected that a disease had taken on a physical form inside my body. Something was terribly wrong.

My energy was low and my appetite scant, which was unusual for me. I made an appointment to see my gynecologist. When the gynecologist probed the tumour in my uterus, the pain I felt was so intense that I fainted on the examination table. The diagnosis based on the biopsy revealed an unusual strain of ovarian cancer. At first the tumour did not appear fatal, but after several rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and further analysis of the tumour, it was deemed a rare and most fatal strain of cancer. After a radical hysterectomy, rounds of radiation treatment and chemotherapy, I came to terms with the dismal truth. The cancer had robbed me of my essential female prerogative, the ability to bear children. I recognised that my life would never be the same again.

One morning, during my deepest despair, as the iridescent glow of Manhattan’s pre-dawn streaked through the slats of my window shades, I suddenly sat up in bed. The room was filled with light, as bright and pure as the full moon. The Divine Mother, draped in white, appeared at the window, surrounded by a crystalline light. At home in Guyana, I had grown up surrounded by many images of the Divine Mother in her various manifestations, and we had offered daily rituals and prayers in her honour. So I recognised her as soon as she appeared. Her arms were outstretched in a gesture of invitation, her palms facing me in Abhaya Mudra. I felt my spirit freed, my heart released from its depression. Then, She was gone.

Some years later, when I studied the Vedic texts, I learned of the infinite, all-encompassing nature of the Divine Mother’s spirit. Her feminine energy and healing spirit are transmitted to all women, and she bequeaths to each of us the power to nurture and protect. And then, a new life had begun. I opened the blinds to let in the daylight and fresh air. I began to eat again.

Buoyed by the Mother’s visitation, I returned to the doctor who had diagnosed me. Together, we mapped out a plan of treatment that included a complete hysterectomy, followed by six months of localised radiation treatments. Despite these radical therapies, X-rays taken soon after I completed the radiation revealed three tumours attached to one lung, both kidneys and hinted at other organs. Most disturbing of all was when the radiologist told me that he suspected that the rapid eruption of these tumours had been stimulated by a slip of the surgeon’s knife during the  hysterectomy. This might have caused a tumour the size of a tennis ball to burst open and spew cancer cells into the surrounding tissue.

To determine the nature and size of these unseen tumours, I submitted to three exploratory surgeries over five months. Then, during the next year-and-half, I underwent eight more operations, including two eight-hour procedures, to remove the tumours they had seen on the x-rays as well as others they found attached to my stomach and small intestine.

In October, 1977, I lay on the cold gurney awaiting what was to be my final surgery. The raw, antiseptic odour and the cacophonous clatter of the stainless steel equipments made me almost despair once again. This was still not the end. I endured twelve major surgical operations and many devastating rounds of radiation therapy over the next two-and-a-half years. By November of 1977, my doctors had determined that my cancer was, in fact, fatal and pronounced a death sentence – “Six months to live, at the most”.

An hour after receiving what amounted to a death sentence, I left the hospital without telling anyone. I was overwhelmed with sadness. The thought of dying with a drugged spirit filled me with dread. I wanted to live long enough to discover my true spirit. Determined to meet the Divine with whatever dignity I could muster, I prepared to spend my last days alone, without medical intervention, in a desperate plea to the gods and goddesses to set my soul free. I fasted and wept and poured out the most closely-guarded secrets of my heart in a journal. I had tried to flee from that grief as if it was not my own, but the cancer had come to recreate it in my life. This unresolved sorrow, I now understood, had been handed down to me in the form of impaired energy within my vital tissues, giving rise to illness and emotional suffering. Had I faced the pain, the energy would have flowed through me unimpeded. The self-knowledge would have made me strong rather than sick. Because I ignored and suppressed it, it became blocked in my body.

One night, my father’s face appeared in front of my eyes. I wept as I shared with him my loneliness and anguish, and asked his forgiveness for abandoning the family and my spiritual roots. He read me scriptural passages from the Bhagavad Gita on the true nature of karma and dharma. My father’s teachings shook me to my stubborn core. His words were a clarion call to awaken me to my true identity. Before his apparition departed, he told me that my body still possessed sufficient prana or vital breath, to sustain my life. This was a shock, since I had so completely accepted the doctors’ prognosis that my life was over. With the hope of regaining my connection with the Divine, I prayed fervently to recover faith in myself. I acknowledged the insecurities that had led me to live behind a mask, running far away from my spiritual purpose.

After four months of reconciling my inner conflicts, my emotional and physical pain dissipated.

In waiting for death to come, I had found new life. I had no doubt that my cancer had finally begun to retreat.

36 years later, I’m thriving in good health and whilst tirelessly aiding those in need of help, I hold steadfast to this truth that we must surrender our ego and reclaim the foundation of kindness, nurturance and love in our everyday lives. Through Wise Earth School of Ayurveda, I share these teachings with thousands of men and women who are in the throes of disease and recovery.   Disease becomes an intruder when we fail to recognise the gift it brings.  Healing is not about the foods we eat, medicines we consume or how many yoga classes we attend weekly.

It is only about how we respond to everyday lifestyle choices we make regarding our meals, medicines, relationships, family, work, and other activities. Among a complex mix of things, healing is about our karma, lost dreams and unfulfilled desires.