Peter Lalor

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November 25, 2005

Aboriginal healing detail

At the very beginning of this year, a month after my birthday and initial biopsy, we received an email from a man we didn’t know named Sambodh, partner of a woman who had been cleaning our house over the holidays. He was offering to take me with a local Aboriginal named Wayne to an ancient Aboriginal who can heal, often known as Grandfather George. Wayne had already told George of my diagnosis and prognosis, and George had told them they could bring me up to him in far northeast Queensland, Australia. I was going through so much at the very beginning of this year that I haven’t even managed to write about it yet, and Jennifer was managing a hunt around the world for neurosurgery. Seeing an Aboriginal guy was one of a zillion suggestions we received. We didn't do it.
About a month ago, having already put into place everything she had found, Jennifer wanted action again and we were talking about it. I had never forgotten the possibility of seeing Grandfather George. She immediately called Sambodh, and he arranged that the very next day we'd meet him and Wayne so that Wayne could tell us about George.

Wayne started by telling us that late in the previous year he had gone to see a doctor and had been told that in about five years his kidneys would fail and that this would kill him unless they were replaced. (Coincidentally, he heard this approximately the time when a tumour would have begun to form in my brain, a few months before my grand mal seizure.) A couple months later he went back for a check-up and his remaining time was reduced to three years by the stress he had from his initial diagnosis. It occurred to him to go and see George. George had him put his own hands on various places around his abdomen and say a few things. After not more than two minutes of this George told him he was healed.

Wayne didn’t know what to think. He went back home, and when he was to see his medical specialist awhile later he wasn’t even going to mention such a thing. The doctor began examining his latest scans and immediately was stunned. “Everything is perfect!� Wayne then told him of his visit to George. The specialist said that his medical instruction was that Wayne go and see this man again. Wayne had gone in for another check-up a couple weeks before we met, and about a year later. Everything was still found to be completely perfect.

Looking back on it, I had already decided to go to George before even meeting the guys that would take me, so when we met and they were ready to arrange everything and really take care of me it felt good. Jennifer and I would have liked for her to come also, but with a couple of young children it was much easier if she stayed home with them. Besides, the trip was only set to be four days and I felt ready for my first one since getting ill.

After meeting the guys, that night I dreamt that Grandfather George was healing me. Because my medications usually prevent me recalling dreams at all, this was powerful for me. The next night, I dreamt and remembered again. Grandfather George and I were sea eagles, flying over the beach and above the ocean. He was on my right. I was two birds, and the lower one I needed to be rid of. I flew both down toward the sea, and letting the lower one go into the ocean I flew back up to Grandfather George and we kept flying out. I later told this to Wayne and he told me that sea eagle is one of George’s symbols. Both dreams made me feel that George had come.

A couple days after the meeting, Jennifer and I realized that we had had the meeting a year to the day since my initial grand mal seizure.

A few days later I decided I was sick of taking the dexamethasone medication that I’d been put on for each operation and for radiation. I cut it far too quickly, causing a day of many, many seizures. Good thing my seizures are kept relatively mild by anti-seizure medications. A doctor gave us a medication that I’d been given the last time I was in hospital. End of seizures and I slept the whole next day. Jennifer asked if she could handle getting me off the dexamethasone—after I got back from the trip. Yes dear. Thanks.

Ten days after the initial meeting the guys and I flew up to Cairns in Queensland, rented an all-wheel-drive, and headed inland into north Queensland. After several hours we camped by a beautiful little river, and as the rainy season very helpfully hadn’t started yet it wasn’t yet flooding. We got up early the next morning and arrived at the tiny Aboriginal town of Laura a couple hours later. Laura is a town of around two hundred people, most of who are Aboriginals. On the road through it is a café, a camping area, a newly done structure containing historical artwork and video. Next to that is George’s house. He wasn't around, although we knew he would be because he knew we were coming. Wayne said that this sort of thing was very normal in his years of experience—hurrying up to wait. We set up our tent very close to his house, and after several hours we saw a vehicle leaving his house so Wayne drove the one minute to see if he was there. A few minutes later he came back and told me that George was there and had said he'd heal me the next morning but wanted to see me right then, so I hopped in and we went to his house.

George was right outside it, and when we walked over to him he looked at me and immediately said that he'd treat me right then. It feels to me that even though he had come back from yet another busy day in which he is involved in the entire Aboriginal system, he sees everything instantly. Looking at me he saw the tumour, meaning that it was to come out right then.

He put a plastic chair down in the yard for me. I sat in it, and looking around saw that there were various animals; roosters, dogs wandering around. They all looked sparkly and beautiful in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. They all looked perfect somehow.

Wayne asked George if he should leave, as he didn’t know if he should be present for someone else’s treatment. George told him it was fine for him to stay, walked over to a tap outside his house and got a plastic mug which he put a little water into. Then he walked over to me, put the cup on a table I was near, and stood behind me. I couldn't see him, but Wayne later explained what I couldn't see. Grandfather George was passing his hands over my head from front to back, without touching me, and looking very pained and wincing. "Deep, it's deep", he kept saying. Several times he went back to his tap and rinsed his hands, and he also put his fingertips into the top of the cup. He had his fingers wet at times and drew his fingers back from my forehead to the back. "Ah, got it", he said at one point after only a few minutes. He put one of his forefingers onto the top centre of my skull pointing straight down and then stepped away, saying it was done. The tumour was gone. It had taken him about three minutes.

Knowing I couldn't quite see inside the cup, Wayne asked George if I could see it. He put it close on the table so I could. The cup had some reddish-pink liquid in it. It looked like it was maybe on top of the water. I feel that I just can’t recall the colour of it other than bad. George asked if I'd seen enough, and then rinsed it out with more water and put it back with his others. He then said we could come back the next morning to ask questions.

Wayne and I kind of staggered back to our car and drove the minute back to where we were camping. I was feeling very emotional, but about no particular thing. I had Wayne sit behind me and put his arms around me and had a great little cry, merely feeling that I was releasing. Again, as my drugs prevent crying I’m generally delighted when I can.

That evening I walked back past George’s house, found a payphone and called Jennifer—surprising her greatly to hear from me at all—and told her what had just happened.

Wayne suggested that I think of questions for the next day, and I was awake much of the night, thinking of many. As time passed I felt that learning where I am is my own journey and there were no questions worth asking other than one. We all went to his house the next morning and I asked him if I was healed and the tumour was gone. Yes. Gone.

I had brought a large shell Jennifer had wrapped that she had found on a powerful walk she’d taken in northern California years before she and I had met. She had also written him a letter of gratitude and I’d brought some pictures of our kids and us. I showed him all the pictures and read him her letter.
While I was doing that Wayne had gotten my video camera out of the car and he filmed a little of George and I and had him talk about what he had done for me. George also spoke some about healings he has done for others. I was feeling that George was an amazing, valuable man with much to do; he had taken care of me and I didn't want to take up his time, even though he was there, available for us right then.

He did have a busy day ahead, so we soon left and began our drive back to Cairns. Still being the morning on the day before our return flight, we drove back to the shallow little river we’d spent the first night next to. It was such a beautiful spot, and far from anything. Late in the afternoon I took all my clothes off and waded quite a long way up the river, feeling a little Aboriginal myself. Very nice.
That evening, as soon as I finished eating dinner I felt strange briefly. Then I felt strange again—and afraid. I felt that I might have to go to hospital to be checked, but I didn’t particularly know why. The men were completely present, and even ready to pack up and go if I needed to. I decided to lie down on my bed in the tent, and there I asked George for help. I lay there panicky for a while, then fell asleep. Perhaps a couple hours later I woke up as the guys were getting into their beds. They asked how I was feeling. I was feeling fine. I got up and got myself ready for bed, and slept well all night.

The next day we still had lots of time before our flight in the afternoon, so we cruised back to Cairns on the coast, went from restaurant to restaurant around the city, and swam in a pool right next to the ocean before going to the airport. At one point I felt strange in a way like I had the night before, but I knew that nothing serious was going to happen and it passed quickly and easily.

Jennifer picked us up in Brisbane and we snuggled in the back seat while Sambodh drove and Wayne told her all about our journey. Once she and I got home I told her of the two events of feeling strange and that I wondered if it indicated that I no longer needed anti-seizure drugs. We started cutting two drugs slowly that very night, but a week later I was once again having mild seizures and given that either of them could have caused that we reinstated the anti-seizure drug and continued cutting the dexamethasone that I don’t need anyway, but is hard to cut. It will take at least a month to cut it, and then we can start on the anti-seizure drugs to see whether I’d still have seizures. Having had three neuro surgeries I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d continue to have seizures. But I hope not.

Posted by Peter at November 25, 2005 04:56 PM

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