WHEN Gemma Bond was diagnosed with cancer, she decided to go on her own treatment path.

"YOU have cancer" is a sentence, not a death sentence. That's what Mum kept telling herself when she was diagnosed with ovarian and uterine cancer. Having always been a firm believer in alternative health, chemotherapy was never going to be an option for Mum.

But she had no idea how hard it would be to say no to conventional treatment.

She was floored by the amount of pressure she came under from oncologists, friends and strangers alike. "How could you do that to your kids?" asked one friend.

Mum's "kids" range from 19 to 30 years old. "Don't end up like Peter Dingle's wife," said another.

"I could end up like my brother instead," Mum would reply. "He died of leukaemia in his 30s after enduring a hellish year of chemo."

It's interesting to note that when an alternative cancer treatment fails, the practitioner is denounced as a charlatan. But when conventional treatment fails and research shows it fails 75 per cent of the time, we assume "it was their time" and that the doctors "did their best"...................................

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/why-a-brave-mum-said-no-to-chemotherapy/st...