My holistic orientation was central to my convictions, and I was fortunate to have a strong community of colleagues who supported my choices. I could not have sustained my vision over the course of such a long struggle without the tremendous strength of my support network. Conventional treatments do not only ravage the human body. It was unacceptable to me to let my body become a toxic waste site, an environmental hazard. Chemotherapeutic agents are extremely toxic substances which have their founding in the chemical warfare agents developed in the earlier part of this century.
Radiation therapy uses the same forces at work in nuclear weaponry.
Agreeing to treat my cancer with these methods would bring me into a dependent relationship with substances and forces which go against my most basic values of respect for our planet and its ever more fragile ecosystems. Taking chemotherapy into my body, it would then become mine, and its elimination out of my body and into the waste stream would now be my responsibility. This raises serious ethical, moral and philosophical issues for me. Two aphorisms came to mind. Chemotherapy agents when eliminated from the body through urine and feces become a part of our collective waste stream.