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Chemo-And Therapy - Shubhra Krishan Shubhra Krishan is a television and print journalist from India, now based in Colorado Springs. Steeped from head to toe in the love of the English word, she is always writing poems and stories in her head. Firmly, passionately believes that "it's the life in your years that matters, and not the years in your life..."

It started with a mild cough.

I was so busy I neglected it. Until it began keeping the neighbours up.

"Pneumonia," pronounced the doctor, and put me on strong anti-biotics. The cough subsided, but I was miserable. My face broke out in rashes, and my stomach was terribly upset. All that work for which I had neglected my health, had now to be put on the backburner for two whole weeks.

Credit cards come with taxes. Medicines come with side-effects. We have learned to take these things for granted. To the extent that we don't even read the curl of paper in the medicine bottle, describing possible side-effects. But that doesn't change the fact that side-effects can be dangerous. When you pop an aspirin to cure a headache, you are also allowing it to puncture your intestines.

And then there is cancer. With its chemotherapy--and its side-effects. Side-effects that make the aspirin-punctured intestine seem trivial as a thorn-scraped elbow. Change and decline of the kind that can shake the foundations of life as we have known it. Remember the time you saw four strands of hair on your comb, and rushed to the nearest salon for a fall-arresting shampoo? Chemotherapy threatens to fell all the hair on a perfectly healthy head. Ever sat in the dentist's chair, enduring the pain for the sake of straighter teeth? A cancer patient has to worry about having no teeth at all. And those are just the first two in the long-- and scary-- list of side-effects.

The anti-side-effect ammunition that already exists, comes with side-effects of its own. Scientists are trying hard to develop safer weapons inside their laboratories, but perhaps they need to step outdoors. Swaying in the mountain breeze on their tender stems, there bloom hundreds of healing herbs that can take on the hardest of medication. Including drugs used in chemotherapy.

Amrit Protection is one such herbal formulation. Made in 250 precise steps, the formula now has scientific backing to prove it fights the side-effects of chemotherapy--without any side-effects of its own. Researchers at the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi tracked 129 breast cancer patients from the beginning to the end of their chemotherapy cycles in 1999. One half of them received Amrit Protection along with their chemotherapy. The other half received chemotherapy alone. Compared with the control group, most of the patients in the Amrit Protection group:

Had better appetite Maintained a better body weight Reported a general sense of well-being 22% fewer patients in the Amrit Protection group experienced nausea and vomiting 17.5% more patients in the Amrit Protection group had healthy Karnofsky scores ( Karnofsky score is a standardised scale for evaluating patient-performance).

Studies published before and since this groundbreaking research have confirmed that Amrit Protection goes to work by boosting the immune system.

But more than the clinical studies, it is the individual success stories that impress.

I met Betsy Malone of Northern Kentucky a few months ago. She came across as the cheerful woman-next-door: the busy mother of two teenage children. I was very surprised when she told me she was on chemotherapy.

Betsy discovered them almost simultaneously-her breast lump, and the herbal formulation that could help her through chemotherapy.

"Before I could start chemotherapy, I needed to undergo surgery," explains Betsy. "I decided to discuss breast reconstruction with my plastic surgeon, Dr Christine Horner Taylor of Cincinnati, Ohio. Christine introduced me to Amrit Protection-a herbal formulation that had helped many of her patients".

Betsy knew what chemotherapy was all about. It meant she could lose her glorious hair and her sparkling teeth. Her blood count would drop drastically, and she could go into menopause in her early 30s. Not only that. Each time she emerged from chemotherapy, Betsy would be racked with nausea and her mouth could be full of sores.

"Shuddering at the thought of those side-effects, I ordered Amrit Protection." says Betsy. But by the time she placed her order, her first session of chemotherapy had already been scheduled. The oncologists tried to make it easier by explaining how chemotherapy works and why it has side-effects. "They made me understand that chemotherapy would attempt to cure my cancer, keep it from spreading, slow it down and kill cancer cells that may have spread to other parts of my body," says Betsy. "I also understood that in the process, the anticancer drugs could affect normal, healthy cells as well, causing side-effects".

But understanding the side-effects did not make them less frightening. "For instance, I knew why I would get nausea--the doctors told me chemotherapy affects the stomach and the area of the brain that controls vomiting. I understood, but it did not help the misery," says Betsy, with a wry smile.

How long would the side-effects last, Betsy wanted to know. She was told it depended almost entirely on her overall health. While many side-effects go away fairly rapidly, some could take months-even years-to disappear. The doctor felt it his duty to tell her that some side-effects never do go away. As when the heart, kidneys, lungs or reproductive organs are damaged.

"That is how I went into chemotherapy," remembers Betsy, " Informed but afraid. I remember my first time.it was worse than anything I had expected. The nausea was so bad I couldn't get off the bathroom floor. I just lay there the whole day, sick and weak," remembers Betsy. "Each time I smelt food I was sick. And I wasn't looking forward to the next session-for they had told me it just gets worse each time."

But fortunately, Betsy did not suffer again. Between her first session and the next, Amrit Protection arrived.

Her next session of chemotherapy drew near, and with it the anxiety rose. "The fear was worse this time, for I had been through the routine once," says Betsy. "I took the prescribed dose of Amrit Protection, and entered the chemotherapy room. When I emerged, I started telling myself to get ready for it all over again-the bone-tired feeling and the unbearable nausea. I went home. Later in the day, I smelt food and waited for the familiar wave of nausea. It did not come. When I closed the bathroom door behind me, I felt certain I would be sick on the floor. It didn't happen. The entire day went by, and I was just fine.

I woke up next morning to a tremendous feeling of joy-and the knowledge that I would never be sick with chemotherapy again. That happiness is something I cannot desribe to you, but it is something everyone has noticed and commented on. I have even more energy now than ever before. I am happier, and I know it is because Amrit Protection came into my life."

I leave Betsy playing frisby with her energetic 13-year-old. The soft evening sun lights her delicate features, burnishing her radiant skin.

Jennifer Bellis is in a strenuous session of Tai Kwon Do when I reach her pretty home in Washington D.C. We settle down on her patio and she starts telling me her story.

"From the moment you realise you have cancer, your life changes forever. Barely have you got over the shock of the discovery, when the real bad news starts to pour in. They tell you that your body will be poked and probed and ripped open and closed.and that you will heal but also suffer as a result. My doctors told me I could lose my hair-and at that time, I had hair I could sit on. They told me I could become extremely anaemic, because chemotherapy can reduce the bone-marrow's ability to make red blood cells. If it got really bad, I might even require blood transfusion. I was to report to them any dizzines, chills or shortness of breath. I could be extremely fatigued-and all this when I was working towards my black belt in Tai Kwon Do".

Jennifer pauses, and I take time to look at her again-her calm face, her slim, wiry body, her bright eyes and her beautiful golden locks. If she hadn't told me, I could never have guessed.

"I came to know about Amrit Protection," continues Jennifer, "And decided rightaway I wanted to try this. When you have cancer, you are very low on hope.Anything and everything that holds out hope is worthwhile at that time."

Jennifer says Amrit Protection surprised not only her, but her doctors as well. "I did not get sick or weak, which they had expected. I did not become anaemic or bald, which they had expected. I did not go into early menopause, which they had expected," she smiles. "Not only that-I was fully active. What can be better proof , than that I continued to work towards my black belt-and earned it-while taking my chemotherapy."

Ohio-based researcher Dr Hari Sharma has studied Amrit Protection for 22 years now. "The first thing to understand about Amrit Protection is that it is a herbal food--not a drug. It does not claim to prevent or cure cancer. What it does do is, stimulate and balance particular aspects of the body's immune system. If anti-cancer medication disturbs that balance, Amrit Protection goes in and restores it," explains Dr Sharma.

Renowned vaidya Ramakant Mishra talks about the making of this herbal masterpiece. "The recipe for Amrit Protection was prepared thousands of years ago, by Ayurvedic physicians. It is a rich stew of molecules that nourishes the physiology. Amrit Protection contains the goodness of whole herbs, flowers, roots and stems-plucked with care and ground to their finest form for easy assimilation. The components of this formulation help each other move thorugh the digestive system, arrive at the correct cells, penetrate them, and do what they are meant to do-heal", explains vaidya Mishra.

How good a job they do of this, cancer patients like Betsy Malone and Jennifer Bellis will gladly tell you.

For more information contact: 1-888-422-6748 (In US) or visit http://www.amritpro.com
Note: Individual results with Amrit or AmritProtection may vary. Neither the information presented in this article nor the products mentioned therein are intended to treat, diagnose, cure, mitigate or prevent any disease. This information is provided solely for educational purposes. If you have a medical condition, please consult your physician.

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