A wise man says:

“Disasters may well change us deeply, but they will pass. We must keep to our deeper convictions and remember our goals. Whether we remain ash or become the phoenix is up to us.”

Although it’s tempting to rail at and resent disaster, there’s little use in doing so. An aggressive cancer such as Charlotte’s has no malice; there is no god behind it hurling destruction. Catastrophic disease, like tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes result from the interplay of forces beyond our control concerning which, the “Why?”-question is misdirected.

Nevertheless, just as when a much-loved Scottie companion dies so also when a family member or dear friend is stricken by terminal disease, disasters within bonded relationships alter the course of our days, our work, our very thinking.

Char’s precipitous health decline demands quick response. Conventional medicine’s toxic chemicals and nuclear radiation have netted us after eleven months of protracted treatment, an advance from Stage III to Stage IV health crisis, with spread to the liver. It doesn’t take Einstein to discern that, at least in Charlotte’s case, conventional oncology and radiology have failed. We’re ready to look outside the box.

Health advocates near and far, both within and outside the Scottie community, have directed us to the San Diego International Immunological Center (San Diego Clinic) as the stateside clinic of choice for alternative cancer treatments. The SDC’s satalite clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, makes accessible to patients medicines and therapies used successfully in Europe and elsewhere in the world but not yet FDA approved. They have impressive success stories, one I heard just today, not told by them, but about them by a third party who phoned independently to urge us to consider them. The only patients they treat are the tough cases, the Stage IV cases, which conventional medicine wishes would go away because they muddy outcome averages; SDC’s patients are the advanced ones, the drop-outs from our failed medical system. So, for the San Diego Clinic to have ’successes’ at all is remarkable because they’re fixing what the system pronounced incurable. And they do have “remissions” and successes.

I know there is wishful thinking in my words. I call it hope. Alternative medicine experts may not be able to give Charlotte her health and life back, but they can’t accomplish less than chemo and radiation have done, and their approach to healing through strengthening, not assaulting, the body’s immune system makes sense to me.

So, here’s the plan. Char’s medical records have been faxed to Dr. Munoz’ office. After review and evaluation of her case they will confer with us by phone as to whether they believe they can intervene successfully. If yes, we will unplug and head for San Diego quickly. One of my sons is coming from Tennessee to stay at Las Golondrinas to look after the animals so we may stay as long as it takes in California to get Charlotte the help she needs.

I rushed the Jan/Feb issue of GSM to completion for the printers so it’s off my agenda and I’m free to take Char to the San Diego Clinic when we get the signal. We’re suspending Tartan Scottie products sales as of December 16th; orders received prior to the 16th will be shipped for Christmas. Apologies to Christmas shoppers this year. We hope all who know and love us will understand our predicament and support us with good will during the most frightening Christmas of our lives. Our business phone will be taking messages for awhile and Tartan Scottie will be on-hold. The magazine will be mailed on schedule. You may follow our progress on MacBlog, where I’ll try to post updates.

Char’s cancer is a disaster for us. No matter what happens from here on, it has changed us deeply. But whatever the outcome of this trial by fire, we are determined to be more than ‘ashes.’ Our dogs, our little business, we, ourselves, will rise again, a phoenix with healing in our wings.

Joseph Harvill, publisher Great Scots Magazine