By Elizabeth Stewart
My mother died two years after being diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. She had for years believed strongly in naturopathy, so after a six-month period of remission, when her cancer returned after a round of integrating complementary medicine with chemotherapy, she chose to treat her cancer solely with alternative treatments.
I am a nurse who believes in evidence-based practice and also in innovation. I accepted my mother’s decision not to use chemo when her cancer came back because I knew from researching the disease that when ovarian cancer comes back, life expectancy is similar with or without chemo.
So, despite my reluctance to trust treatments that have not been tested for safety or efficacy, I reasoned that little harm could come from alternative treatment methods at this point.
I watched as my 73-year-old mother spent the last year of her life replacing the foods she loved with concoctions of cottage cheese mixed with flaxseed oil. I listened as she justified spending thousands of dollars and hours of her precious remaining time traveling many miles to receive vitamin C infusions.
Hope for ‘miracles’
As she grew more ill, I gently questioned the supplements she was taking — often so many that there was no room left in her shrinking stomach for any food. And at times, when I could find evidence that a treatment had been scientifically tested — and proved not to be effective — I shared a strong opinion.