A friend of mine, years ago, accepted her first treatment with chemotherapy and it landed her in the ICU.

http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-informati......egion=on

Read what the doctors have to say in the links I posted, tommy. See what's said about immunotherapy vs. "standardized" treatments:

"The primary cancer therapies, namely, surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, widely accepted and practiced have their own pitfalls. The risks, deficiencies, cost, specialized skills, and medical ethics are often associated with these procedures. Even surgery, the most acceptable of the three in treatment of most tumors, has resulted in an ethical dilemma. Every time an incision is made into cancerous tumor, with even the least invasive type of incision called the needle biopsy, there is a risk of spreading the disease due to cancer cells entering the bloodstream or becoming implanted in the surrounding tissue. There are at least 10 published cases of tumors arising along the route taken by a biopsy needle.[26] Surgical excision usually done with an intention to cure also removes the protective barrier or the wall, body builds itself to protect itself from cancer metastasis. Surgery and the subsequent healing process greatly increases the risk of death by metastasis in certain cancer patients by disrupting tumor integrity, facilitating metastasis, directly seeding the tumor, inducing local angiogenesis, immune suppression, and enhancement of tumor growth.[33] Surgical stress also greatly enhances metastasis by increasing the expression of proteinases in the target organ of metastasis, metastasis being the primary concern of fatality in cancer patients.[34]

The effects of radiation are often temporary and have little impact on survival rates. One study of 3,000 breast cancer patients found that those receiving radiation in addition to surgery did no better than patients who received surgery alone.[28] The great disadvantage of radiation therapy is the same as that with surgery; it is simply not effective in the control of widely spread cancer. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy to some extent are highly immunosuppressive and therefore infections in these patients do not lead to any immunostimulation. Addition of antibiotics further deprives these patients of the benefits of an immune response and subsequent regression if any.[26]

Chemotherapy for head and neck cancer may result in a temporary reduction in the tumor size but has not translated into increased survival, control of the primary tumor, or decreased incidence of metastasis.[31] The FDA has approved more than 80 anticancer drugs, 40 of which are chemotherapeutic agents. These drugs interfere with cell division, an essential activity of the immune system, thereby profoundly suppressing the magnitude and the effectiveness of immune responses.[35,36] Hence the ability of the body to protect itself against an existing cancer is weakened; they are also neocarcinogenic which can lead to the development of new cancers that did not exist prior to the administration of chemotherapy.[26]"


Notice what's going on with immunotherapy these days:

"Thursday April 28, 2016
Canadian researcher says immunotherapy is a cancer-fighting miracle"

"When Alan Taylor, a 46-year-old father of two from Toronto, decided to have a dermatologist remove a lesion from his leg, he didn't expect the phone call telling him it was melanoma, or the implications of the diagnosis.

'The thing that shocked me,' he tells Day 6, 'was that he told me I should go out and get a will done, which was pretty terrifying. It almost made me seem like I was done right from the very beginning.'

It was an aggressive cancer. About a year after the surgery, tumours were spreading throughout his body, his lungs and his brain. Doctors told him there was only one option left, and it would probably just slow the advancement of his disease.

'Instead,' says Taylor, 'this drug turned out to be the miracle drug for me.'

The drug Taylor is taking, PD 1, is from a class of medications called immunotherapy. They help the body fight cancer by using its own immune system and oncologists are finding them effective against a growing list of cancers.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who announced last summer his malignant melanoma had spread to his liver and brain, now believes he is cancer-free because of PD1 and immunotherapy."

canadian-researcher-says-immunotherapy-i......miracle-

"Recent work by Dr. Brad Nelson and colleagues at the BC Cancer Agency suggest that cancers with fewer mutations can also be attacked with immunotherapy. In a study published last year, the group looked at tumour samples banked from cancer patients over many years. In cases where patients tended to recover, no matter what the cancer type, the study showed that immune cells were actively engaged in infiltrating the cancer.

'What’s really clear from our work is that patients who have a strong immune response have a far better survival rate than those who don’t,' Nelson says."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/heal......2371088/


"In findings published in the October 2014 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported that 27 out of 30 patients with advanced leukemia went into remission after undergoing immune cell therapy. Six months after being treated, 19 of the patients remained in complete remission.

The results are significant not least because of the kind of patients involved: people once regarded as incurable....

What’s also different, researchers say, is the nature of the immune system — and its adaptability as an anti-cancer agent. The immune system, once it’s engaged in the cancer fight, can evolve alongside a malignant tumour. No drug has the power to do the same thing."

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news......-say-yes

A remarkable recovery, but was it mind over matter or modern science?

Anita Moorjani claims she cured herself of cancer after she underwent a near-death experience. Not surprisingly, doctors take a different view. But they concede that she appeared to be dying and that her recovery was remarkable.

Oncologist haematologist T.K. Chan was one of those who treated Moorjani last February when she was admitted to the Hong Kong Sanatorium Hospital and says she was close to death.

Chan and the other specialists tapped her chest to drain her lungs, which he says probably saved her life. They then began chemotherapy, a treatment she had refused for 31/2 years.

'Hodgkin's disease is quite curable,' says Chan. 'It can have a dramatic response to chemotherapy. If it had been another cancer patient in her state, I wouldn't have expected her to survive, but with lymphoma, it's never too late.

'Whether the spiritual experience helped, I'm not in a position to say. Let's just say she did do a little better than expected as a patient who was critically ill. It was a remarkable recovery. But I feel it was the chemotherapy, definitely, and the emergency draining of the chest.

'To be scientific, if she refused treatment from us and recovered, it could be due to her experience, but she did receive chemotherapy so it's not something absolute.'

Brian Walker, Moorjani's GP, treated her with an 'alternative support' cancer treatment which is said to work by helping the body's immune system to recognise cancer cells and deal with them naturally.

He says his treatment modified the cell structure to such an extent that the chemotherapy was able to work.

Hong Kong-born oncologist Peter Ko, who works at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, arranged to see Moorjani and all her medical notes on a visit last November.

'I find myself becoming more and more intrigued with her fantastic experience and especially the message she brought back,' he says.

'I have difficulty with terms such as 'miraculous cure' and 'spontaneous remission', but her recovery was remarkable.'

Ko says chemotherapy could not have caused such a dramatic recovery and could have been highly toxic, considering the state of Moorjani's failing organs.

He says something either switched off the mutated genes or caused them to commit a sort of cell suicide.

'Either her mind or body was able to send a message to the cancer cells to turn off the mutated genes. Chemotherapy does work well with Hodgkin's but I've never seen it work like this.'

http://www.scmp.com/article/580612/remar......-science

Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vYoKgQpsFA

Https://www.viewbug.com/member/magicalaurie

Richard Thomas (John-Boy on The Waltons), a New Yorker, is often a reader at the Shakespeare Sonnet Slam which I've participated in a number of times.

You can hear him perform "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," here, right at the beginning of the audio clip:
https://jackshalom.net/2015/07/04/2637/

Thank you very much for that, Jack!

From the first note

I liked both singers you've posted.

Angelina brought tears to my eyes in seconds. I wonder what causes that with some music.

I could not understand the Women's tepid reaction to Mike's amazing audition.

-Mary Mowder

Thank you very much for posting, Mary. I didn't understand their reaction to him, either. His choice of ending wasn't my favourite, but I'm used to hearing Elvis', so I took that with a grain of salt. His opening more than makes up for it. These are authentic performances and I think it's recognition of emotional honesty that moves people with music. There's an openness in his expression that makes him vulnerable. Hers, too, and that gets people's attention. They both have pure tone and are skillful, too. The songs they chose are two of my favourites, as well. I was quite impressed with the maturity shown in her choice of that song.

Both great singers. I am continually amazed at how fantastic people you would not expect to be are.

Here is one of my favorite singers from this years AGT.

This guy performed on AGT but a different song. This was the song I first saw him perform on youtube and I like it the best.

And he's back.

Working on this song for open mic tonight- Here's Heather Rankin singing lead on "Bells":



Had a chance to meet Heather about a week and a half ago at Almonte, Ontario's Celtfest. I've been a fan of the Rankins since they hit big about 25 years ago. "Bells" is one of my favourites and Heather has it on her set list in her solo show, too.

More here:
https://magicalaurieblog.wordpress.com/