Re: Pink ribbon day
By: Member Ms Ley
"My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago. She had a mastectomy and has recovered very well. I mention my mother because she is a little bit alternative and her view was that chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a lifetime of drugs probably was not for her. She was going to take an alternative path. My mother, Angela Braybrook, has always been a keen follower, as I have said, of alternative therapies. She followed the Gawler Approach. I met Ian Gawler a couple of weeks ago and I was truly impressed by his view of how we can approach a diagnosis such as cancer in our lives. It would be very easy for me, as some-one who has not been diagnosed with this disease, to say, 'Well, if you are diagnosed, this is what you should do,' but when my mother was diagnosed with cancer I had firsthand knowledge of someone taking that approach. She decided that diet and meditation was the key, and that is the work of the Gawler Foundation. Ian Gawler, as members of the House will know, was diagnosed with almost inoperable secondary cancers some 30 years ago. He has lived a long and happy life since then. Doctors had completely given up on him and he took matters into his own hands and struggled through an awful period when he worked out that the way to go was through diet and meditation. He travelled overseas, he looked into the spiritual side of life and his experiences are recorded in his book The Dragon's Blessing, which I recommend. In fact, when friends of mine are diagnosed with cancer, as happens all too often, I give them a copy of the book.
My mother implemented the Gawler Approach. It is about organic food, it is about plant based food and it is a vegetarian diet, but the most important thing is the meditation. When I met Ian Gawler in Melbourne a couple of weeks - it was not planned; it was a social event-I asked him particularly about the meditation. I said, 'We all have such busy lives; how difficult is it?' He said that it was really difficult. He meets people all the time who say they can manage the diet part, because they just have to work it out and stick to it, but the meditation part is a lot more difficult. His advice was: 'Practise it, try it, and even if you can only do it for 10 minutes at a time it will come to you. You will learn to do it. You will be so much better for it.' He said to me, 'Of course you should start early; you should not wait till you get diagnosed with a serious illness.' The alternative approaches that do not rely on medication sit side by side with traditional Western medicine. That, I think, is the key thing that Ian Gawler says. Do not throw away Western medicine-it has an extremely valuable place-but look also at what you can do to support yourself in other ways.
It is important that the House recognise breast cancer for the serious disease that it is, but we should also take pride in our oncologists, breast care nurses, support workers and community members and all that they do every day. The reduction in deaths, to the extent that it is happening, is largely a result of their very important work. To meet these people is truly inspiring. So today, 25 October, I urge everybody to buy a badge, wear a badge and do what they can to support more research into breast cancer."
for full transcript see http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/latesthansard/rhansard.pdf ( starts page 11)
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