A Message From Babette

I am writing to you from Germany! I stopped my 40 day fast in mid December and embarked on low carb diet. I then had an appointment with the oncologist on New year's Eve, and when I pushed her to give me figures, she told me that if I did nothing now, she'd give me 1 year. Alternatively, if I went for the chemo, that she recommended, there was a 50 % chance of success, but that would only give me an extra 8 to 10 months. That was an Oops moment! I was half expecting this but in my gut and heart I just did, and do not, believe this is going to be my lot. Of course, time will tell, but in the meantime I am determined to carry on looking for other ways, and to not be downhearted. When I wrote my mid-December update, I received a huge amount of support, in terms of wishes, peace, positive energies and prayers and I also got a number of recommendations of books, places, etc.

A book that spoke to me was "Radical Remission", which encompasses a fair amount of what I already believe in. Then, after Christmas, as I was still going through some emails, my attention was caught by one of you telling me of this clinic in Germany, holistic and specialised in the treatment of cancers! When I went on their website and saw this: "You are a whole person with a mind, body and spirit. You are not a disease." Homepage - Arcadia Praxisklinik (arcadia-praxisklinik.de), and when I saw that one of the recommended books was "Radical Remission", I "knew" this was the place for me to go and retreat. So thank you to Judy and Peter for telling me about Peter's stay at Arcadia, and thank you to Tim, who passed on his wife's recommendation of the book. I also want to thank all the other recommendations that have been given to me, and there are 9 of you whose emails I have not acknowledged yet, but I plan to do so from here.

Now to cut a long story very short, despite Covid, and stringent new restrictions to enter Germany, and a normal waiting list of 2 weeks for the initial consultation with one of their doctors, and then another two week wait, I quite magically ended up here 2 days ago after having initially thought it might take up to 1 month to do so. Everything fell into place, initial call within 2 days of re-opening the clinic after Christmas, flights, Covid test, appointments to be rescheduled, everything went "my way", one after another. And to crown it all, when I landed in Frankfurt on Tuesday evening, the taxi driver picking me up was... French, and delighted me with his sing song accent (from Avignon) all the way to Bad Emstal which is where the clinic is. So, do I feel looked after? Or do I feel looked after? :)

A few of you had commented or asked me about this fasting of mine, and when I mentioned it briefly to the Doctor here, he seemed to say that there are better ways to both treat the cancer and build the immune system. I was pleased to hear it, as my tumour did grow back as soon as I stopped the fast, and I was not looking forward to another 40 days of it....

So I am here, for 5 weeks which includes a 4 days quarantine, a time to look at all of myself, a time to stop thinking about others. That sounds weird, and really hard to say actually, but maybe it is just a time to retreat, to concentrate on myself, to let go, to accept the help, to not deflate compliments and offers of help. To believe that if the Universe looks after me so well, then it will look after our family and the business so I can stop "peacefully worrying" about them...

I am proud to report that since around Christmas, I have slowly managed to reach out and accept help from many of my friends, (coats and warm gear lent by friends as shops were closed here) or people I know through social media or Art of Living. It makes me so emotional to see that in the same way that I always want to help others, nearly everyone out there also wants to help... me. Oh my, this is so hard to say, voices of when being brought up "Who do you think you are? Do not be so full of yourself..."ring loudly in my head. To say that I am "worthy of help" feels as bad as going naked in the street... What a weird society we have developed...

Anyhow, I will leave it as such for now. Tomorrow morning a Covid test will hopefully be negative and we can start.

I do have access to emails, either if you "reply" to info@artoflivingcookshop.co.uk which is seen by a few of us at AoL, or write to me direct on babette@artoflivingcookshop.co.uk and as one of the elements identified for health in Radical Remission is "Embrace social support", then please do not hesitate to write to me.

Babette