Cancer. The Big C. It’s a sad fact that most of us will be (and have been) affected by the horrendous spread of cancer throughout our world at some point in our lives.
Watching those we love to suffer through treatment and recovery is heart-breaking, but we always keep hope in our hearts that will work out for the better. Sadly, this is not always the way things work out.
Dee Mani-Mitchell knows what it is like to see this experience first-hand. After her sister was diagnosed with liver cancer and given two short years to live, Dee and the rest of the family could do little other than watch and wait as she underwent intensive chemotherapy.
Unsurprisingly, this was the only option given but there were questions regarding the validity of the treatment when it was seen as having incredibly limited chances of success. Seeing not other options, her sister went ahead and had a huge number of doses over a short period of time. The treatment was incredibly intensive and the chemotherapy tortured her whole body.
Dee recalls seeing her on her death bed (a day or so before she passed) and her sister said that she felt like it was not the cancer which was killing her but the chemo. She had felt like there no other options other than trusting in physicians and she paid the price in her final months on Earth. In light of this, Dee decided she would never do allow herself to be put in the same situation.
A couple of years later, while living in Tenerife, Dee found a lump. In March of 2017, she was diagnosed as having Triple-Negative Breast Cancer – one of the most aggressive forms of cancer and widely regarded as ‘the killer’.
At the time she was fortunate enough to be insured to receive top-level private medical care. The doctors looked into her case and offered her 12 months of chemo and 6 months of radiation before they would carry out any surgical procedures. The oncologist explained the reality of her proposed treatment and the long list of side effects made her feel queasy enough to remember the promise she had made to herself after her sister passed. Dee was not happy with this choice and asked for alternatives but they were reluctant to change their minds.
After much consultation and discussion, they agreed to remove the tumour on the proviso that she would consider chemotherapy afterwards. Dee maintained her stance and she later refused to undergo treatment post-surgery. She still worked closely with the hospital for a period of observation but she continued to ask for more time to consider alternative therapies.
They agreed that she could try to find an alternative and so she went to research her options further; her research into her condition (Stage 3 breast cancer) found a pretty grim picture of her chances (survival rate was very low). She thought if there were no other options and chemo was unlikely to help she preferred to just take her chances and see what fate would deliver to her.
Unperturbed, Dee continued to look for answers online and eventually found a story of a lady from Asia who believed in natural remedies and claimed to have cured cancer with cannabis. Initially she was skeptical and was thrown-off by the fact that it all seemed too easy. Add to this the fact that cannabis is deemed to be illegal in the UK and it’s easy to see why she was apprehensive.
As she explored the associated sources and read into it more, she found many theories which linked the illegality of cannabis to the pharmaceutical industry and their desire to make money from our ill-health (with cancer being one of the most profitable illnesses for Big Pharma).The more she read the more she found about its potential to help her in her situation. Eventually she managed to find sources of oil in Tenerife but had mixed results in terms of the quality, concentration and perceived safety of the what she could obtain. Fortunately, she managed to secure the chance of a
prescription from a hospital in the north of the island which was associated with a company in Barcelona. Once she arrived for a consultation, however, she realized that they would only offer oil at 2.5% THC and she didn’t really know if this was going to be a high enough dose for her. The reality of it was that she didn’t see any other options and she agreed to accept the prescription, but then the hospital realized it was out of stock so she would have to wait a month for a prescription to be filled.
In the interim, as opposed to just waiting and hoping not to die, Dee continued her own research and was informed that because of the hyper aggressive nature of her cancer the dose offered by the hospital would be likely to be ineffective. Through various contacts and networks she managed to secure stronger concentrations but these were not always made to the highest of standards
A friend knew of a grower who had a closed operation and explained that they could make her oil with pure distilled alcohol as a base (preferred by Dee to Naptha). Happy with the quality of the oil and reputation of the grower, Dee began to take a reasonably high dose at night to aid sleep. Incredibly, she found that it improved innumerate health issues including relieving the agony of slipped discs which she had suffering from for over 20 years.
Suddenly she found that she wasn’t reaching for her painkillers, anti-histamines or any other pills throughout the day (including Voltarol, Codeine, Diazepam etc. which she had relied on for more than two decades). From then on, Dee was taking 6 rice-grain-size dabs of oil a day which she thought didn’t seem like much at the time (although she thought that the recommended dose of a gram per day would be too much for her to take and still function). She cut out meat, sugar and chicken to work on a better diet and took cancer-fighting supplements. She quit smoking and abstained from alcohol and went ‘pure’ for four months while she let the oil do its thing.
After the four months had passed, she went back for tests and all scans were completely clear – no evidence of disease remained. The oncologist was overwhelmed and baffled by the results. Dee had been clear about her intentions with him from the start but he had initially dismissed her idea. Following a conversation about her journey, he explained that because of the 1939 Cancer Act no medical professional could offer alternative therapies or homeopathy to treat a patient or they would get struck off. With this in mind he said cautiously to her ‘my advice is to keep doing what you’re doing’.
Amazed by her own success, she decided to share her story online and was inundated with messages from people around the world. After a few conversations with some of the people who got in touch, and their endless encouragement, Dee began to consider writing a book about her experience. A publisher gave her a deal and in around six months she had gone from inception to being published.
On the day that her book went live on Amazon she was contacted by a press agency who rang her and asked about the chances of them selling her story. Next thing she knew it was being reported on around the globe and was all over the news and online. One of the British tabloids even did a double-page spread, but this incorrectly stated that she was healed using CBD oil. Dee contacted them to explain there was an error but they were quite dismissive about it. It was then that she realized there was a large advert from one of the largest UK health store chains advertising their new line of CBD products on the same page. Reports later indicated that the chain sold out of their CBD line straight after the newspaper put out the article.
Unbelievably, when she pressed the matter further she was told that nothing could be done about it and the Press company said that papers are within their rights to change aspects of a story they have bought story to suit their readers or partner companies. In essence, she was told that anyone can pay for the rights to a story and then twist it to meet their own objectives. After she continued to complain, the newspaper offered a small text apology as a sub-heading online – as this is deemed to be a public apology and sits within the legal framework there was little else Dee could do. Dee was mortified that her story was being used to convince people who were potentially being mislead into believing that your standard high street brand CBD oil would cure any type of cancer. CBD oil without FECO is not reported to have any major impact on cancer cells, but this is exactly what people are being sold on the high-street.
Her hope is that people can take inspiration from her actual story and try to find their own path to recovery, but everyone needs to be vigilant about where they access their oil from. Too many people are trying to profi t from this rush of public awareness and even on social media support groups there is the chance of getting hi-jacked by bots or being spammed by people working together to con you.
She has now set up her own group which aims to advise and discuss cannabis and cancer in a forum with well-informed people from across the industry without a focus on selling and distributing. She went on to explain that high THC concentrations will treat many cancers but people have to be made aware that hormonal cancers do not react in the same way (hormonal-driven cancers can actually accelerate if given too-high a dose of THC). Throughout her journey Dee has met a huge range of amazing people
who are thankful for her honesty and tenacity, yet sometimes she fi nds that people are contacting her to say that her methods don’t work without realizing that this is not an exact one-size-fi ts-all approach – in-depth knowledge of techniques, strains and concentrations is imperative to success and also safety for any consumers.
Her advice is that oil is an amazing thing which does a lot for people around the world, but it takes more than just a magical panacea to cure all your ills; life is about everything you put in and do to make sure that you can live a long and prosperous life. What many people don’t realize is that if you are fortunate enough to heal cancer with the aid of cannabis, you should continue to take a maintenance dose for the rest of your life to reduce the chances of it coming back. When she was in Tenerife she approached the police, explained her situation and was informed that she would not be treated as a criminal if she had a small grow for personal medical use, so when she moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, she decided to follow the same route.
The police explained that while they were sympathetic to her case there was nothing that they could do to protect her from the law. Her only alternative was to seek a prescription from one of a handful of clinics which dealt with cannabis in the UK.
Sadly, when she spoke with a representative from one of the clinics she was informed that they would not be able to supply oil with a concentration anywhere near what she was already using and also they were unable to prescribe cannabis oil to treat cancer (as we mentioned before, The Cancer Act is still a huge issue). So, she now fi nds herself in a bit of a grey area as she is essentially breaking the law to prevent her cancer coming back. She is illegally alive, as it were.
Published and Written By Psy-23 In Weed World Magazine Issue 145
Dee Mani-Mitchell is a cancer warrior that healed her aggressive breast cancer in 5 months by using cannabis oil. To raise awareness into cannabis healing, she wrote about her journey in a self published book called “My Way”, which led her onto become an Amazon best selling author and cannabis advocate. She has since been interviewed by many big cannabis brands such as The Sacred Plant and The Cannabis Health Radio Show and we also featured her in our January edition with an article titled “Illegally Alive”.
Dee believes that most illnesses and diseases are caused by an endocannabinoid deficiency and is on a quest to help educate people on the amazing benefits of this plant by helping break down stigmas which are still rife in today’s society.
(Disclaimer: the content of Dee’s column is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not intended as medical advice)
