Unfair sentence!
"Sunday, 11 Mar 2012: I have a cancer, but I have to pay all drugs!"
My name is Maria Luisa Grasselli, five months ago I started taking the Di Bella Method (DBM) treatment to cure my breast cancer.
Today MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) shows no evidence whatsoever of the Invasive Ductal Carcinoma in Situ G2 diagnosed in August last year. At present tumour markers are negative. I am 53 years old and live in Reggio Emilia (Italy).
I really find the DBM treatment very easy to take, it makes me feel good and it is a humane way of healing. It has also helped me regain normal intestinal functions after they had been compromised by previous Chemotherapy and Thalidomide treatment.
Yesterday, 8th of March, a holiday in Italy celebrating women, I was notified by the Court of the City of Reggio Emilia that my plea for obtaining financial support to purchase the components of the DBM treatment from the National Health Service [ Local Health Authority - AUSL Reggio Emilia - Italy ] has been rejected (Photo1). Until now, I and my family have paid for the medicines ourselves thus getting into great financial difficulties.
Someone has already defined this proceeding as outrageous, unspeakable, of indescribable bias and superficial. I am being denied my right to health despite all the evidence from check ups that clearly state: “There is no evidence of contrast enhancements!”. I say the Di Bella Method works!
I do not believe that mutilating a part of my body and having myself treated with further mutagen and carcinogenic substances would be healthy. Everything I have suffered due to my previous disease is a horrible thought, my intellect and my heart are both screaming: “Have I not suffered enough for The Big One?!”. Pain is pain and some things need to be said about it!
Almost six years ago I was diagnosed with Micromolecular Myeloma and secondary Cardiac Amyloidosis and was treated with an Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant in the City Hospital (Arcispedale S. Maria Nuova - Azienda Ospedaliera di Reggio Emilia). That is what I named 'The Big One', I was 47 years old at the time.
The high dose of chemotherapy wiped out the bone marrow tumour leaving me with endless discomforts of every kind in the years that followed.
Meanwhile the pre-transplant protocol consisting of the famous Thalidomide left me what I call 'the gift' of constant burning symptoms along the nerve paths of my entire body and particularly the intestinal and ocular nervous systems. These symptoms are now a miserable part of my daily life.
Before undertaking the treatment, I attended just two preliminary interviews with the Hospital Staff who politely assured me that the side effects were very rare and only two, namely sterility and hair loss and nothing more, and displayed the utmost confidence as to the successful outcome of the therapy.
After the first day of being administered Thalidomide and Dexamethasone I immediately suffered the 'very rare side effects'! Thrombosis of the Femoral Artery – involving Arterial Embolectomy surgery – and Cerebral Ischaemia.
The Medicine Department was clearly overburdened, every now and then the staff would look into the room where I lay in bed stricken by unutterable pains in my left foot, a blood clot obviously, and this for endless time. I was begging for attention, for help and eventually someone passing by swiftly threw me a Tachidol bag from the door thinking it might help.
In the eight harrowing months of on-and-off hospitalizations during which I was undergoing invasive screenings - heavy unforgettable traumas - that were undoubtedly tuning my being, certain ideas on life were being sowed in my conscience.
Finally the actual transplantation itself carried out in a sterile chamber, also caused unimaginable devastation within my psychic and emotional circuits, and all this while my physical body was being deeply poisoned, the feeling of it I cannot use words to describe! I repeat I cannot put it in words! I left the sterile chamber as if I were an insect, I felt like an insect, someone whose soul and spirit had been robbed.
The time needed to regain the ability to recognize myself has been very long. I felt ruined and pained. Suffering of body and mind. In those premises mind and emotions are not taken into consideration. This way of “fixing” the body leaves you with a legacy of disorders and pathologies that you never get rid of, never, never...... I then couldn't help but embark upon a path of search and research, investigating deeply in a philosophical way, to try to discover and understand why, why do we have to undergo so much suffering in order to recover our health.
Why is it that to cease suffering in a compromised state of health one has to undergo the extra suffering of the so-called 'therapeutic plan', such as to overcome disease? And there! Five years later this new cancer!
I really couldn't face allowing the Italian Health System to subject my body to its violent industrial treatments and therefore to subject it to further traumas, and moreover within an environment resembling a Supermarket. I remember while I was in the sterile chamber the visit of the Department Director, just once, acting as a real business manager, then I felt like a real stranger... ...or perhaps he was the stranger...
Years earlier, when the pseudo-trial of the Di Bella Method was being carried out I had become very interested in everything that concerned it; the contemptuous arrogance could clearly be seen in the faces and voices of those opposing professor Luigi Di Bella on television special shows.
It is not difficult to understand where truth lies and I think the majority of Italians could pick it up just by listening to the timbres of the discussants' voices. I had also followed with great interest Dr Giuseppe Di Bella's conferences and regularly read the official web-sites and all that was available on the Internet. Since long before I had recognized that these people, the Di Bella family, were the ones who really had the good of the patients genuinely at heart. The good of the patients. The life of the sick.
The experience I had six years ago led me to develop a different self-consciousness which induced me to refuse the insertion of a Clip in my breast at the time the Mammotome Biopsy was about to be carried out. It should be pointed out that the insertion of this device is routine, enabling easy spotting of the area that is going to be removed with surgery. Surgery? So that is to be taken for granted then? A demonstration of a powerful Therapeutic Dictatorship at work. Other major tests, such as the Growth Factor etc., are only carried out during surgery. What if a woman decides otherwise? How is it that they do not consider freedom of thought? Of opinion? And lastly, are they so sure to always be considered as the only possessors of knowledge? Are people really just a flock?
I subsequently collected the paraffin blocks containing the specimens for the biopsy and took them to another institute for histopathology tests to be carried out. That way I would be able to have other data without having to suffer the trauma of surgery. The Di Bella Method treatment has been a blessing. Unfortunately my family does not have the financial means to continue following the treatment scheme completely but in the meantime I am happy and enthusiast about these first results, and this after just 5 months treatment!
I could have never imagined that the acquisition of self-awareness and sense of self could make me realize that we ourselves are the unique 'directors' of our being, of our body, of our existence on the planet, of our life. In this state, clarity of mind, and therefore the ability to recognize what is good, is easily attained. Acquiring the awareness that we ourselves are the only 'directors' of our being, of our body, of our existence on the planet, of our life – this has enabled me to achieve the clarity of mind and ability to recognize what is good. Our health is above all our own personal affair and we have the right to choose.
My natural inclination has brought me towards the Work of prof. Luigi Di Bella. There can be no doubts about the Di Bella method. Every day I feel thankful for the gift the world has given us, a real Italian genius! The intent of the Di Bellas' work is tuned to life, it is in harmony with non-violence, which is very dear to me, and vibrates within compassion.
The Health Industry regards the body as stupid, Oncology employs violent treatments which wipe out everything indiscriminately and remind me of the seventeenth-century 'cure' to treat syphilis by cutting the penis off! My family has no financial means and I have brought it to a difficult situation by taking up a treatment that is respectful of my body, together with the consciousness that it embodies. In this way nothing is compromised further, and the pain involved by surgery as well as everything that goes with it – which everybody knows – is avoided.
In spite of this, the Court has passed a negative ruling, stating that this is not the right procedure: something, someone is telling me that it is better to feel the pain and take the path to the utmost suffering! How can you call yourself human if you prescribe a painful way instead of a more gentle and harmless one in order to achieve a same objective? And is there any woman who would prefer to have a breast cut open and the gland shredded, a lymph-node removed and so on, instead of a treatment that is gentle on the body, avoids suffering and leads to happy results as it has for me and other women?!
I choose not to use terms such as fight or struggle, and prefer to express myself differently due to my own inclination towards a mental and emotional philosophy favouring The Way to Inner Peace and therefore preferring to say 'I cope with my cancer' instead of fighting it. In this way I am conciliatory towards it, thus avoiding getting stuck in anger and fear. That would further increase suffering and pain.
At the time of the transplant the doctors were polite and helpful towards me, offering the merchandise that was available to them, they simply offered what they had but nonetheless it was what they felt the right thing to do. Caught by surprise, fear and ignorance, I entrusted myself to them, but that problem was only my own. In the old days there were missionaries and Red Cross nurses, nowadays we have Healthcare staff doing a job they are employed to perform. The Italian Republic is founded on work, that is what the Constitution says, isn't that so?
The philosophy behind the ruling of the City Court of Reggio Emilia is one based on work, or doing a job, it has certainly not considered the human being as made up of body, mind, soul and who knows what else! It has ignored the good of the sick... ...that's how it goes... ...in Reggio Emilia (Italy).
Transcripted and Translated by: Maria Luisa Grasselli
But why, if I feel well, if I'm treating myself at home without burdening the National Healthcare System with my hospital expenses and I'm in remission with the Di Bella Method - as shown by the mammogram and MRI - why on earth should I have surgery? Do I pay my taxes so that I can let them cut my body open just because of their capricious refusal to accept that the Di Bella Method is working in my case too? (Maria Luisa Grasselli's comment)
As from 11th March 2012, on one's own initiative...
"To the editorial staff of the following newspapers, magazines and websites and, for information, to the members of the City Council of Reggio Emilia. I would like to take this opportunity to relate the story of an Unfair sentence passed by the Court of Reggio Emilia concerning my illness treated with the Di Bella Method. Sould this be of interest to you in your work of dissemination of information I would be grateful if you could contact me at the address below before making it public. Many thanks for your kind attention and best regards. MARIA LUISA GRASSELLI (Photo 2...6)
