Part 2

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Dave: Let me ask you a question; what do you think are some of the major factors causing cancer, if there are major factors? I know it’s a physical thing inside of us, but are there any things that we can do to prevent how it makes us feel?
Elizabeth: First of all, I really believe what Lawrence LaShan said, who basically said that cancer is a manifestation of despair at a cellular level. He doesn’t exactly say that misery causes cancer, in so many words; however, we always have funny cells all over ourselves anyway. If our immune system shuts down because we are so miserable, and we don’t want to “be” anymore, then those cells can more easily proliferate and nobody is around to stop them.
That is the basic idea behind that. It’s not like people are causing their own cancer by being miserable but it’s not helping. There are other reasons and it might be hereditary things. I’m not a doctor, not a medical doctor anyway so I’m not going to claim that I have any major insights on this. I do think that being excited about life, keeping stress under control, visualizing yourself healthy and doing the things to take care of your physical self are extremely helpful in reducing the chances of getting cancer and when you do get it, to help you get better basically.
Dave: I think managing the stress is certainly not from just within. The whole family is very stressed out at that moment, as well too, especially when they’re going through the same treatments that you are. Any way we can possibly eliminate that, at least bring it under control, I think you’re absolutely right. I know you’ve done a lot of work with reducing stress.
Elizabeth: That’s sort of my passion at the moment.
Dave: Absolutely
Elizabeth: There are so many amazing ways – my life has been quite stressful. Most people may not realize it but being a professor is incredibly stressful and it can be and it depends on the situation, but my situation was quite stressful. Just to stay sane – over the years and starting with the cancer stuff, I was working back then at a fairly basic level, just going to see cheerful movies and getting a massage and taking care of myself, doing things I enjoyed. It sounds so stupid but that’s really how it works; that helps tremendously, even when you can’t make time for that. Now I’ve learned a lot more techniques and I’m sharing those in my eBooks, my newsletter, and on my website. There are articles all over the Internet and probably in more books. I’m thinking about maybe creating a membership site or something.
There are things from EFT, which is one of my favorites. It’s Emotional Freedom Technique, and a lot of other things including some of the Abraham Hicks stuff. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.
Dave: I’m not, but please share.
Elizabeth: This is a little bit out of the mainstream, maybe, but basically these are books by Esther and Jerry Hicks and Esther is the channel for a non-physical entity or a member of them which call themselves (in the plural) “Abraham.” In fact, they were originally in the first version of The Secret, the famous film. There were some issues about rights and distribution so they edited them back out. Really, the whole first The Secret film, which I have now, is based on that and their teachings. They’re all over that. In fact, they’re the main game in that. They had to kind of rewrite the whole The Secret to get rid of them, which was quite a task and it didn’t make it better; it suffered from that. Anyway, Abraham teaches a lot of things but basically it’s the Law of Attraction. Have you heard of that?
Dave: Absolutely
Elizabeth: Basically, we attract what we feel. Obviously, being stressed is a very negative thing. The more stressed you are, the worse life tends to get. If you are calm, happy, optimistic, and envision wonderful things happening in your life, they usually find a way to happen. They’re teachings are really very important, both in terms of techniques they teach in how to handle some amount of overwhelm and things like that, and also in handling emotions, as well as providing major motivation for why it’s so important to do that. Since I’ve been studying their work, I more fully understand why the Lawrence LaShan’s stuff worked so well.
Dave: That’s amazing. Elizabeth, with all the treatments you’ve been through, with all the research you’ve done, with everything you’ve been through would you do everything the same or would you do anything different?
Elizabeth: I would certainly do a lot – if I had my say, I would have started with the surgeon I have now, if I’d had any way to get to him and find him; he’s absolutely amazing. He is very patient, friendly, and he was in fact once voted as the doctor with the best bedside manner in the Greater Richmond area. He is very respectful of his patients, and open to learning about new things. He didn’t know about lymphodema, like most of the surgeons don’t, but he was interested in learning about it. He was open, wanted the information that I had, and he did not try to block it off because it made him uncomfortable. He asked about it.
When I had more biopsies, the folks in the medical college in Virginia would insist on giving me all kinds of chemicals that make me sick for days afterwards, to make me stay calm or whatever. I told my new doctor, Dr. Kinasi, that “I don’t
want this stuff. If you can do it with just local anesthesia, by all means, that would be my preference.” He said, “I’m certainly open to doing it that way if it works. Let’s try it,” so that’s how we did it. I literally walked out of the hospital feeling no worse for the wear and did not feel sick at all. I had two biopsies we had to do and both of them were fine, actually three now. I had none of the sick feeling for days afterwards. It was great. He’s wonderful. If I had my way, I would have started with him.
Now that I know about a lot of things I’ve learned over the years, I would have been able to do a lot more alternative things, right from the get-go. In fact, that’s another thing I’ve discovered over the years, which is Quantum Touch energy work. In fact, I’m a certified practitioner now of Quantum Touch.
I’ve been using that.
In fact, at one point a few years back, I had a mammogram that seemed to show something worrisome to the people who looked at it. I did not want anything bad to happen so I just basically worked on my breasts for a while. The next time I went in, a few months later, a year later – I just kind of goofed on making the follow-up appointment as soon as they wanted me to. A year later, I went back in and they couldn’t find anything. I don’t know whether that was me or whether they saw something that wasn’t there, but I like Quantum Touch and I would’ve immediately started with that and EFT and would have done things like acupuncture, which I have tried out in the meantime, and even more alternative stuff.
I probably would have fought more for not having my lymph nodes “dissected” as they so innocuously call it. In fact, they have made progress now so they no longer do that, or they do a much more minor version of it. I would definitely have done that, and so on.
Dave: Why do you think that you have not just survived, but thrived professionally, emotionally, after going through something so traumatic? Why have you done so well since going through this intense treatment?
Elizabeth: The first thing that popped in my head was a saying from way back, in Germany, which of course they say here. I think it’s by Nietzsche, who is not necessarily someone whose teachings I’m big on but he said, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Certainly, getting cancer made me very much aware of how precious life is. I only get this go around, at least to the best of my knowledge, so I want to make the most of it. I want to hang onto it.
I take life a lot more seriously in a lot of ways. I don’t take other things nearly as seriously. In fact, one of my favorite stress articles that I’ve written is about
sayings, uplifting sayings. I quote a couple of ones that really helped me through that experience. One of them was a mug that I had that says, “Don’t take life so seriously. It’s not permanent.”
Dave: You’re right, absolutely.
Elizabeth: That was one thing. Basically, the importance of really being present in the moment, and enjoying life, and making sure you’re doing what’s right for you, taking care of yourself. It took years and years, and I’m still learning but with the help of Lawrence LaShan’s book, Cancer as a Turning Point and also one other person I really want to give credit to – he is the late, unfortunately, Roger Mellott, who has this amazing audio course that is called Stress Skills for Turbulent Times. I’ve learned so much from him about self care and about taking care of yourself and taking responsibility for what you’re going. That has helped me hugely, as well.
Dave: We’ve got just a few moments left for our interview today. I wanted to ask you; do you have any final thoughts, words of hope, encouragement? We’d love for you to read another poem.
Elizabeth: I would like that. In fact, there is one that I really want to read. I think it’s something that is an important thing that helped me through it. It’s about chemotherapy, actually. I have some friends, and friends are so important, but most of them were not in Richmond. Eventually, I kind of went off to my chemo stuff by myself. I started making it into almost a ceremony. I made it a day for me. I treated myself extremely well doing it, and gave myself a treat to a nice lunch at the hospital and all of that. I would like to read that poem. It’s a villanelle, actually which is a form – the first villanelle I ever wrote. It was the first poem I ever had published in a literary magazine. It’s very special.
Chemo Ceremony

I go to war, a needle in my vein,
for chemo drugs to find and kill the cells out to destroy me.
I won’t let them gain an inch.

Twice monthly, I show up and feign
bravado, as I lie, eyes closed;
the smells of war around me, needle in my vein.

I clear my chemo days of all that’s insane,
asking and , quells my impulse to give up, let cancer gain on me.
curious, keep me sane, remind me I have power to defeat Hell’s cells.
Those needles won’t have been in vain. Warm showers later wash away the pain,
with scents of lilacs and gardenia bath gels.

Breakfast on my balcony helps me regain strength, as I breathe freely,
after the morning rain.
Croissants, hot mocha java, all that tells me when I fight and sacrifice my vein
to kill the cancer, there is so much to gain.

Dave: We could probably do a whole hour just on listening to poetry. They are really inspirational. I want you to feel free to tell our listeners how they can learn more about your poetry. Where can they get a copy of it?
Elizabeth: They can look at my website, actually. I have a link there. www.elizabethkuhn.com, but the book is called Average C-Cup, average C-cup because my breast size is an average C-cup because one is a D and one is a B. It’s available at Amazon.com, although if they want a signed version by me; I’ll be happy to make it out to anyone and any way they like, they can get that on www.elizabethkuhn.com or they can also find it on my www.favoriteselfhelpstuff.com. There is a page for poetry that I still have to work on making bigger. I’m going to make sure there is a link on there and a few of my poems, as well.
Dave: That’s fantastic. Elizabeth, I have absolutely been inspired today and no doubt, the listeners have learned a lot, as well. I want to sincerely thank you for joining us today, revealing so much about yourself, and I certainly wish you the best in the future.
Elizabeth: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure doing this. Thank you.
Dave: You’re welcome. Folks, I want to thank all of our listeners today. This is Dave Bernstein, once again. We’ve been speaking with Elizabeth Kuhn, from Richmond, Virginia. She’s been telling us about her own personal story of survival. Thanks again for joining us. We’ll talk to you soon.