Steve Jobs – did he miss anything?

I was intrigued by the article that Dr. Mercola wrote about Steve Jobs, and the possibility that there is one main ingredient that was missing in his life, but first, what about pancreatic cancer?

If you have been to a recent drs report, you may have heard me talk about the low survival rate.  I saw in this article that the survival rate is 4% after 5 years, which is better than the 1% that I have been quoting from about three years ago.  It is an aggressive cancer, a death sentence to many.  Jobs however, had a version of the cancer that is not considered to be as bad, as the cancer started from tumors in the endocrine system.  Neuroendocrine cancer tends to be much more responsive than pancreatic, and results in a high cure rate.

Jobs’ history is well documented with his cancer, as he looked for ways to support himself naturally, as well as using conventional methods.  During his fight with his cancer, in 2004, after scans showed the original tumor had grown despite his attempts to fight it naturally, he had the tumor removed.  When they did this, they removed part of his pancreas, his gallbladder, part of his stomach, bile duct and small intestine.  This suggests that the cancer had spread significantly.

Five years later he had a treatment done in Switzerland that is experimental in nature, that seemingly failed, because it was not long after that he had a liver transplant.  And here, we now have the question of whether this was a wise decision.  Everything else up to this point seemed like it was within the best wisdom that you could have in this situation.  But then the choice to transplant an entire liver, vs. removing the cancerous portion only.  The problem (and this has been questioned by conventional oncologists as well as the alternative health world) is that by transplanting an entire liver, you need to be placed on anti-rejection drugs, which are immuno-suppressant.

This might have been the single most significant choice in his entire fight.  At a time when his immune system had the potential to continue fighting, and perhaps had a better chance to win because most of the localized cancer cells had been removed, the immune system was now being shut down by a drug therapy.  Have you ever heard “They Got It All”?  If you have, then you have heard a lie.  There is no such thing as they got it all.  Cancer cells don’t all stay put.  Cells break off, and there is always a remainder.

The reason why a surgery works isn’t because they got it all, it is because they got enough.  Enough to allow your immune system to do what it needs to.  I am not saying that you don’t want to hear those words, I am saying that there is always work still to be done.  And in Steve Jobs’ life, there was less capacity to do it because of the necessary treatment.

You know, the other area that I wish I knew more about, was Steve’s pursuit of chiropractic.  I believe that he was a fan, simply because of the things I have read about how he lived his life.  He seems like the kind of person who would have been a chiropractic supporter.  But I doubt he was adjusted multiple times per day, or week for that matter.  And if you are a subluxated patient of mine with cancer, I am going to adjust you two+ times a day, no matter what.

In the end, I am going to celebrate this mans life for what he did to help humanity.  There are things I might not have agreed with, but he surely loved the idea of a device that helped more than hurted.

Be well and Blessed!  Dr. E