Wherein Witch Doctor Dan Makes a Diagnosis* that is Subsequently Corroborated by the Western Medical Establishment

*my words only. Dan cannot and does not actually diagnose.

When I met Daniel Lane NIS Specialist several years ago, he was already known amongst friends as the Voodoo Man. Being a professional and responsible practitioner of his craft he did not, however, introduce himself to me as such, and I was left to draw my own conclusions. My mother used to sing "My friend the Witch Doctor (not quite this version)" to me as a kid, so naturally that's where I went after my first appointment with this seemingly incongruous method of healing.

In that first appointment, Dan fixed a low-grade acid reflux issue that had been subtly dogging me for years. It was subtle enough, and had been going on long enough, that I generally took no notice of it except to take the occasional Tums (I prefer the berry-flavored ones), and I don't remember even mentioning it, but Dan caught it in his initial scan. "You have four valves in your digestive system," he explained, "and they're supposed to fire in a particular order. Yours are firing out of order, and we're going to put them back."

I lay there fully clothed on my back on the clinic table and maybe clenched my teeth, or maybe held my temples or other pressure points (at Dan's direction, and I don't remember which points, it's been a long time), my right arm up at a 90 degree angle, and Dan held some pressure points, said "hold strong" and pressed against my upraised arm. Nope, couldn't hold it. I could feel the weakness as my arm jigged back and forth against his hand. Dan tapped my head, or swiped back and forth on my upper thigh, or whichever of his methods was appropriate for this particular fix (I have obviously not been surreptitiously studying up on NIS myself), and then said "okay, now hold." He pushed on my arm and I held—rock solid. Huh.

For about 24 hours, my guts felt WONDERFUL, which is to say that they did their job without any fuss and so I couldn't feel them at all, but then the reflux refluxed. I saw Dan a couple weeks later and told him, and he said that yes, since the valves had been off for so long, they would need about 3 visits before they would hold (the same is true of pianos that have been untuned for years—they incline toward the familiar kinks and string lengths and so should be retuned every couple weeks for up to several months, until they learn the new preferences). Sure enough, 3 visits later and my guts have been excellent ever since, with only very occasional misfires associated with stress, viruses, and chemotherapies—easily fixed at one of my regular visits (I see Dan about once per month, barring pressing issues).

Over the years, Dan has helped me with all sorts of unmeasurable health and wellness issues. Not just internal organs, but also structural aches and pains and psychological trauma—including, as he did recently, migraines and acute anxiety. It's his recent suggestion of possible pituitary damage and mild hypothyroidism that I want to focus on here.

The pituitary gland secretes hormones that help with, amongst other things, thyroid function and blood pressure. If the thyroid is not functioning up to speed, any number of symptoms might appear, including increased anxiety, low basal body temperature (consistently below 98.4, which mine is), difficulty with cold temperatures, dry skin or hair, thin, brittle fingernails, and any number of other things. Dan did some tapping to wake up my brain to awareness of the pituitary damage, and then suggested that I start taking two drops of an iodine supplement (Iosol) daily, as well as adding a thyroid PMG to my collection of daily supplements. I have not had another migraine/panic episode since my visit to Dan.

Yesterday afternoon during my appointment with Nurse Sarah, I told the story of the migraine/panic episodes, said that I'd seen Dan and they'd stopped, and said that he hadn't seen any evidence of external interference—no viruses, bacteria or fungi—but that he had noticed damage to the pituitary gland.

"Yes, we start to see that around the two-to-three year mark after full-brain radiation," said Sarah matter-of-factly. "And you're at . . . just about three years. Yes, that's when pituitary and thyroid damage start to show up."

"Dan just gave me PMGs for my thyroid, and suggested 2 drops every day of an iodine tincture! I've been feeling a bit fatigued, and I couldn't figure out if it was normal aging, or somehow related to this cancer thing!" I said, excited.

Nurse Sarah and Ian and I then talked a bit about what I do, what I want to do, how I've been feeling lately, what my mother does, what Sarah's mother does (not enough, she thinks, if I am looking for a role model on the opposite end of the spectrum of ant-to-sloth), and how to deal with all this. For starters, I'm going to have a thyroid-level blood test drawn tomorrow when I go in for my check-up with Dr Specht, to get a baseline, but REALLY for starters I'm going to continue on with the supplements that Witch Doctor Dan suggested.

I have always trusted Dan, because for several years he has consistently, if not absolutely invariably, helped my body make changes for the better. He is deeply invested in what he does and in his patients; he's bright, he reads a lot about all sorts of things that can add value to NIS, and he's become remarkably intuitive as well as skilled. But I've never before had such clear proof, verifiable and witnessed by one of my allopaths, that he really knows his shit.

So, yes, I'm aging, as all people do, and the elongating healing time-frame and the increasing need to take it easy are completely natural effects of life. I am also, however, being impacted by physical issues that were foretold (if shunted aside by me during the hyperintensity of the lifesaving going on in late May 2008), and recently rediscovered by a favorite alternative caregiver, progressing right on schedule. This doesn't mean I won't have more migraines and panic attacks, or that I'm suddenly ready to jump into rock climbing, horseback riding, and weeding the front yard—separated by dog walks—all in the same day. I don't know what other side-effects might appear now that I'm three years out from that life-saving brain barrage. But I feel good—I feel like I've been placing my health and well-being into good hands.

After the appointment yesterday Ian and I were standing in front of the elevators, waiting and waiting for a ride back up from the bottom to the third floor. I was grinning—I am right now. "Dan called it, didn't he," said Ian, looking in my eyes.

"That is EXACTLY what I was thinking!" I exclaimed back at him.

"You and me," he said, motioning back and forth between our heads, showing the paths of telepathy.

The elevator hadn't arrived and I was bouncy, full of life. "Let's take the stairs!" I said, and we raced up them and out into the sun.