(A poem by Gerald White, kidney cancer survivor, visualization practitioner, teacher and mentor)

In sterile wards, the patients lie,
In narrow beds they wait to die.
Their hope has left them long ago,
For hope can come and hope can go.

Some even call them heroes,
And praise the fight they fight,
But fail to see the fading hopes
That vanish in the night.

They don’t feel much like heroes
As they suffer in the fight,
When it’s hard to tell the treatment
From the cancer’s deadly bite.

They are your friends and neighbors,
Loved ones you hold so dear,
Caught up in waves of terror
By the Devil’s brew of fear.

And so, dear friend as you pass by,
Be kind enough to share
A moment’s time, a word of cheer,
A touch of tender care.

Look for candles long blown out
That only you can light.
You can bring back the stolen hope
That vanished in the night.

Since there’s no law of science
That dictates these MUST die,
Beyond the blue horizon
Remissions may well lie.

Is this just wishful thinking,
The demon of false hope,
Or is it a reality
Of immune cells awoke?

For there is not a cancer cell
Our good guys cannot kill,
So strive to get them in the fight
And let them work their will.

The evil darkness cannot hope
To penetrate the light,
As love illuminates the field
So immune cells can fight.

To recognize the antigen
That marks the cancer cell,
Is all these good cells need to do
To press the fight so well.

So anything that we can do
To bring about this end,
Is greater than the evil spell
The cancer strove to send.

RUN TO THE FIGHT, don’t turn away;
You have the armament,
Yourself, the noble currency,
That multiplies when spent.

There’s a kindly thought, a cheerful word,
A drink of cool water to give,
And the person who can thrive in these sterile wards
Is the person who has learned to live.

In 1993 Gerald White survived a 20 pound kidney tumor that subsequently went metastatic to distant organs. After all medical treatments had failed and the dreadful “only three more months” death sentence had been delivered. He worked out a self-directed program of guided imagery that induced a remission in three months. Through his web page he maintains an active world wide mentoring program that has yielded many similar remissions of cases thought to be hopeless. Gerald has also produced a guided imagery CD, plus one especially produced for children. Details can be found on his website http://cancerwarsmaarsjourney.com/