Product Description

Michael Gearin-Tosh discovered that he had bone marrow cancer when he was 54. This is the story of his quest to manage and overcome his illness and his determination not to be coerced by specialists, the NHS and even colleagues into joining programmes of invasive treatments. The author selected a number of regimes and devised his own rigorous daily round of juices, vegetables and coffee enemas. Six years on, his extraordinary survival would be classified as a "scientific miracle". But this is not a "how-to" book, rather an account of one man's quest to listen to his own inner voice of intuition in a world so heavily reliant on the certainty that it is the doctors that know best.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44891 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
Michael Gearin-Tosh is a fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford University where he teaches English Literature, is a founder director of the Oxford School of Drama and a visiting professor in the Overseas Department of Stanford University.

Customer Reviews

An alternative analysis of orthodox medicine
On the day this book was published I heard the author speaking on the radio and I wanted to find out more about his struggle for life. Michael Gearin-Tosh is a literary Oxford Don who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1994. Instead of having the standard chemotherapy (as recommended) he eventually devised for himself a program of therapies based on different theories. His approach included diet therapy, a lot of vitamins and trace elements, coffee enemas, Chinese breathing and visualisation exercises and acupuncture. After 7 years he is still alive and stable, although the myeloma is still present. It is possible that this could have happened anyway, but at diagnosis his expected prognosis was 6-9 months without treatment.
I found it both easy and compelling to read. As a nurse I find it of immense benefit to me to see a thinking man's experience of medical treatment. I was intrigued to see how he analyses the words and language that Drs use in medical consultations and journals to expose hidden meaning beneath it. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about life experiences and choices.
The book also includes an essay by Michael Gearin-Tosh about how people's temperment and attitudes to treatment can affect how well they do when treated, and a fairly technical case history of his illness.

A moving account of an Odyssey through cancer
When Michael Gearin Tosh,an Oxford Don, learned he had myeloma, a cancer with a very low survival rate, he rejected chemotherapy in favour of Gerson therary combined with an oriental breathing exercise. This book is a moving and revealing account of how alternative therapies have helped him defy the odds and remain alive and healthy for the last 8 years. The book is controversial as some cancer specialists say it will cause patients to reject life saving chemotherapy for unproven alternatives. However, the point of the book remains valid. Whether you choose chemotherapy, surgery or an alternative approach if you put your whole being into it, mind, body and soul, you have a much greater chance of success. The mind and body are inseperably linked when it comes to healing and alternative therapies should not be dismissed as rubbish. The author is "Living Proof" that they can work, even though we are only just beginning to uncover the science behind them. This book is wonderfully written and a great read.

The patient who refused to be passive
If you are in a state of shock after diagnosis with cancer which the books describe as "incurable" and you have no medical training, how can you possibly believe that your "temperament and instincts" are significant "when a world of zillion-dollar research sees your illness as a vast problem"? Michael Gearin-Tosh recounts how he did listen to his instincts and how, after much research, debate and consultation, he resisted the barrage of professional voices telling him to have chemotherapy. According to the standard prognosis for his condition (multiple myeloma) chemotherapy was the only option and might give him two near-normal years, but he was likely to die in the third. That would have been 1997. In 2002 he is happily alive to publish this elegant, witty and hugely helpful book. He does not raise false hopes; he does not rubbish orthodox medicine, but he argues powerfully for the right of every person to make informed choices in medical matters. Sometimes medical intervention may be desperately urgent, but in many cases a little time for reflection and research into the options will not be damaging and might just be life-saving.
The book combines the intensity and emotion of a 12-month post-diagnosis journal with reflective and practical comment written from the perspective of an eight-year survivor. Gearin-Tosh does not make claims for the strict detox regime he still follows (founded on the Gerson diet it involves fresh vegetable juices, vitamin and mineral supplements and coffee enemas, plus acupuncture and Chinese breathing exercises)and does not regard himself as "cured". All he has proved, he says, is that he is not dead. He has also shown that, for all its miracles, modern, hi-tech medicine needs to take more account of the power of the mind and the spirit.