Katie Deming, MD, The Conscious Oncologist

[00:00:00] Dr. Katie Deming: it's not enough to just kill the cancer cells. I'm not against treatment that focuses on addressing and treating the cancer, but if you don't treat the human being who is growing the cancer, you've missed the complete problem. 

[00:00:15] Tina: I'm Dr. Tina Kaczor. 

[00:00:17] Leah: And I'm Dr. Leah Sherman. 

[00:00:18] Tina: And we're two naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer care.

[00:00:22] Leah: But we're not your doctors. 

[00:00:24] Tina: This is for education, entertainment, and informational purposes only. 

[00:00:28] Leah: Do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor. 

[00:00:32] Tina: The views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own. 

[00:00:38] Leah: Welcome to the Cancer Pod.

[00:00:44] Tina: Today's guest is Dr. Katie Deming, who, after practicing for nearly 20 years as a radiation oncologist, pivoted completely to a more holistic and person centered approach to cancer care. In around 2020, she was on the cusp of becoming a nationwide leader for the hospital system she worked at, and she was told her ideas. which centered around idealistic patient care were a bit too bold for the nationwide system. And at the same time, she had a near death experience, which she mentions in this interview, and this became a bit of a pivot point, not just for her career, but for her life.

 This was a great interview. I really enjoyed speaking with Katie. 

[00:01:23] Leah: Yeah, I, Enjoyed learning about, conscious oncology. I guess she calls herself the conscious oncologist and to hear a conventionally trained oncologist, radiation oncologist, talk about. wellness over illness. Um, it was really refreshing.

It was great. 

[00:01:44] Tina: Yeah. And I loved it because we also haven't done a lot of episodes around mind body medicine in general. 

[00:01:49] Leah: And that is also kind of reflective of, I think, how at least, patients I've talked to, I feel like that's really kind of left out in the conventional world. So I'm glad that we're diving more into it.

[00:02:01] Tina: Yeah. So without further ado. Let's get started 

Our very special guest today, Dr. Katie Deming, has made some time and we found out we're all in the same hometown. We're all in Portland, Oregon. That's a coincidence. 

[00:02:14] Leah: That's a first. 

[00:02:15] Tina: Yes. And we've just met each other about five or 10 minutes ago. So there is no backstory to our interview.

Um, I just want to jump right in. Dr. Deming, you have been a radiation oncologist in the past, for almost 20 years before you took on a new role as what you now call the conscious oncologist, which I like that term. This is very descriptive and provocative. so the term conscious oncologist what was your inspiration or why did you use this terminology to describe yourself now. 

[00:02:46] Dr. Katie Deming: Sure. Well, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure to be here and You know my story into what I'm calling conscious oncology was I Practiced radiation oncology as you said for 20 years also led cancer services for a large health care organization and had a I had a near death like experience in 2020 that just awakened me in many ways and made me realize that what I had been doing in Western medicine was not actually the way that the body heals.

And Ultimately, I called it conscious oncology because I really believe that the basis of all healing comes from higher levels of consciousness and in my system or conscious oncology, there are six pillars and they include the typical things that are in a lot of integrative practices. So diet. water, um, physical practices like sunlight, grounding, emotional work, mental work, and also spiritual work.

But the way that I see a lot of the physical work that we typically describe as the treatment for cancer is really just getting people clean and clear so that they can access higher levels of consciousness, which is ultimately what heals us. 

[00:04:05] Tina: So higher levels of consciousness. Um, I kind of know what that means in a general context.

what type of work, how do you advocate people pursue that? 

[00:04:16] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah, well, so what I'm teaching is kind of the, the different parts of the systems to help get people aligned, right? So cleaning out their diet and, and the water and, and doing the physical practices and then doing the emotional work to release past trauma.

To get fluent with their emotions. So they're not getting stuck in fear or anger. Any of the things that can happen with a cancer diagnosis, really using their mind, directing towards what they want to create, which is wellness in the body. But then the spiritual aspect of it, or the part that I tied to consciousness is that we're all here to learn lessons.

And sometimes those lessons come through physical experiences in our body and illness, and that it's important to do all of these things, the physical things and the emotional work. But ultimately it's recognizing that we are more than this body and the divine healing is possible from higher levels of consciousness and recognizing that There's something in this experience of cancer in this scenario, but it could be any crisis, right?

So any crisis creates this opportunity. There's something there for us to learn and to, maybe it's come to peace with, maybe it's forgiveness, maybe it's, but there's something there that's underneath all of this that we need to uncover to truly find wholeness and heal what brought up this issue in the first place.

I don't. Believe that, you know, cancer is just related to one thing, right? Ultimately, there's so many things that were inflamed chronically and, you know, our bodies are not set up. So then when we have some emotional trauma, we're not able to cope. And then the body ultimately creates illness out of that.

But in addition to all these pieces of healing the physical body, there's this piece of like, what is the lesson here and what is it here to teach me? And this comes from basically that experience of having. it was actually a shared death experience. I use the word near death because most people understand that.

But after having that experience and being outside of what this reality is for us, I see things very differently now. And it's hard in some ways, it's hard to put it into words, but, um, you know, it's, it's really bringing people along that, that all healing is spiritual actually.

[00:06:49] Tina: So, so that's interesting.

So in your experience, Have you seen anything dramatic happen with patients who pursued this? the, the idea of consciousness or a higher,

[00:07:03] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, and I think that what people would experience from working with me or the work is that it seems, you know, like you're doing the physical things, but it's kind of pulling all of these things together.

And my practice is new. So I left Western medicine in summer of 2022. And then I took over a year off to really do my own healing and processing and launched my practice in October. And my specialty was breast cancer and gynecologic cancers when I was practicing medicine and a lot of the patients or clients that I've seen have also done some form of traditional therapy and And so sometimes it's hard to see, well, what is the benefit of this work when they're having traditional therapy? And my first client that I had that. really didn't have the tumor removed that I could assess what the response is to this approach. Um, she had breast cancer that had metastasized her brain and she had been working with an integrative oncologist for, whatever, a year and a half before that.

And basically when she was diagnosed with the brain mat, she ended up coming to work with me. And the things that we did, you know, shifted her diet and then she did a prolonged water fast. We did some emotional work. There were some things there to be done, but the water fast really, there was almost like a spiritual component to that, that when she finished, she did 17 days.

When she finished that, she just had this. That she knew it was over like that. That was it. Like, and that she saw that she, what she was doing in her life was not what she was supposed to be doing. And so it created this like radical kind of shift for her. And when she had her. MRI. So she basically had a brain met and then she had stereotactic radio surgery.

And with stereotactic radio surgery, you would expect the tumor at three months after the treatment to be larger, but less enhancing on the MRI. And then at a year it would be smaller, but still some enhancement there. And then even years later, you'd still see, you know, something, some remnant left. So she went and had her post MRI.

And the neurosurgeon was like, this is, it doesn't make sense. Like it's gone. It's gone, gone, like gone. And she didn't understand. She was like, isn't it supposed to be gone after radiosurgery? And he was like, no, like, this is not typical. And it took me about a month to be able to get the images. But, um, in the images, I have them up on my Instagram page, but basically with her permission, but basically she has a completely empty cavity.

There's no necrosis. Like you would expect with radio surgery that you would see necrosis or dead tissue or some remnants of the tumor. And literally it's an empty cavity. And for her, what she would describe is that like this experience of doing these things, even though any one thing by himself, you know, wasn't the, the thing that set it off.

It was kind of the culmination and then her awareness of realizing like, I am. Well, I don't, I'm not this body. I don't need healing. It's already happened. It just created a miraculous transformation for her and the images are just unlike anything I've seen in my traditional practice. 

[00:10:31] Tina: And so did I hear that right? The stereotactic radiation was to the brain tumors, the metastasis to her brain and it's nowhere else in her.

Yeah. Mm hmm. Body. So, essentially, no evidence of disease at that point. Um, so time will tell and hopefully knock on whatever's next to me here, that that is, that is a truism. It's, it's an interesting thing because, you know, this whole idea of mind body medicine, of becoming right spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, and having this miraculous turnaround is, it's double edged sword of sorts.

as a clinician, right? because there's always been this, my entire career, there's been, you know, Bernie Siegel was, his books were really popular 20 plus years ago. And it was always this kind of hesitance I would have with bringing such things up with anybody, because there's also an element in there that I'm very leery of kind of a, a third rail of sorts that I don't want to Put that on somebody just because it's almost kind of sounds like they're responsible for their cancer happening in a way if you turned it around like 180 degrees, right?

Like if it can get you out, it got you there in the first place. Um, so how do you, how do you manage that? I mean, I guess if you're working one on one, you can manage it one on one, but it's, it's one of those things that it's tough to talk and generalize about, I think. 

[00:11:56] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, I think that, I mean, this is one thing that I learned really quickly when I started talking about emotional trauma and illness.

And people being like, what is wrong with you? Are you saying now we cause our cancer? I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not. That's not what I'm saying at all. Because the thing is, we live in an emotionally traumatic world, right? Like you just have to turn on the news to see, you know, things that are traumatic that are being projected at us.

And. Most people, even with the best meaning parents, we have experiences that are traumatic as Children, and we know from the a study that childhood trauma increases the incidence of illness, including cancer. And so the way I think about it is this is that it's not your fault. But you are responsible for now, what awareness and information that you have.

And if you understand that these things that you've experienced can affect your physical body, then it's up to us to explore how we heal those things and how do we become whole. And so I think that you can be responsible and not. not have it be your fault per se, if that makes sense. And I say that with like the most respect possible.

But this work, and this is part of why I left the system is I feel like the Western system of cancer care keeps people trapped. It makes them think like, who knows why you got this? And there's. no explanation. It's genetic, but only five to 10 percent of breast cancers are genetic. And so people feel trapped and like a victim.

And then you're at the mercy of what the doctors say. I think the beautiful thing about this concept is that you're not at the mercy of any system. And that if you understand the inputs that we need as humans to create healthy lives, You can start to reverse the things that made you sick in the first place.

[00:13:53] Leah: So it's kind of like what you're saying, like with the chaos kind of, of the world around us now, even though we're not necessarily there, the energetics of all of that is what is affecting us. So even in a situation where, yeah, we're completely on the opposite side of the world, but if we're constantly being bombarded by this energy.

Of hate, negativity, war, whatever it may be, that's changing us on a cellular level. 

[00:14:26] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, I think there's definitely that aspect of it from a collective standpoint and the things that, you know, come at us through social media, our phones, that kind of thing, but if you think about the typical modern American, the way that we live.

Is really fast paced. We're eating processed foods on the run, not moving our bodies. So, yes, I think that those things that are separate from us are affecting us, but it's also been incorporated into our lives because it's been normalized, right? We think it's normal to just race at 100 miles an hour, and in some of it is just life today.

It is busy. So, um, I think there's both pieces of it. 

[00:15:11] Tina: Yeah, and it's interesting. I would love to know more about what you do with patients and how you go about it. This, this idea is certainly not new, right? It's like the idea, I mean, there's books called The Body Keeps Score or Molecules of Emotion or, you know, there's, there's plenty out there about how, what we feel, believe and think affects our physical selves.

And so, this is part of the two root system that you talk about, right? Cancer's two roots, 

[00:15:39] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, the way that I think about it, so talking about the like two roots in the way that is described in some of the, the writings that you're talking about is basically this idea we think of cancer as like this thing that to kill.

Right. In Western medicine or, you know, that, that you've got these cancer cells and the problem is the cancer and you just need to kill that. Right. But what I understand, and like you're just described, there's been lots of books and studies on this, that illness can be caused by other things than just the physical, just the things that you're physically doing to your body.

Likeit's not just environmental toxins. It could be emotional trauma. It could be, you know, thoughts that. If someone is, you know, convinced that they're going to get cancer. Like you take an example of Nita Moorjani and the book dying to be me. And she describes in there that her fear of cancer is what ultimately made her sick.

And when she had the near death experience and she saw that that just wasn't the case, then basically her lymphoma completely resolved on its own. So there are thoughts, you know, that can. Communicate within the body. And so the idea of that, it's not enough to just kill the cancer cells. Like I'm not against treatment that focuses on addressing and treating the cancer, but if you don't treat the human being who is growing the cancer, you've missed the complete problem.

And this is like, I was at a meditation retreat in 2017 while I was still practicing. And I was with one of my best friends, who's a GYN oncologist in Portland as well. They were telling this story uh, it went something like this, that there was a village along a river. And one day the villagers saw a body, you know, someone drowning in the river.

So they rushed out and they rescued this person off the river. And then the next day there were two people drowning in the river. So then they sent two people out next day, four, and then eight, and it was just doubling every day. And so this village became very organized and they created this whole rescue system and they had boats and they had, you know, elaborate communications and all of this stuff.

And they were doing such a good job at rescuing these people off the river that the village elders were praising the village. Like you're doing such an amazing job. And I just remember listening to this and turning to my friend and being like, This is Western medicine. And what the heck is happening upstream?

Like what is happening? Why are people coming in our doors at younger and younger ages? Why are people just looking sicker in general when they're coming to us? And then also by the way, when we get them onto the dry land We didn't tell them how they fell in the river in the first place. So why do we think they're not going to fall back in?

And so this is for me, the whole thing is like, we've got it backwards when we're just focusing on the, the like actual symptom of cancer, it's like, why did it develop in the first place? And then how do we teach people how to change their life, their terrain so that their body is not conducive to growing cancer?

[00:18:42] Tina: So it's basically, it's essentially another input. I mean, the simplest way to say this is that we ingest things, right? So we want clean air, clean water, clean food. We want nutrients. Those are all inputs into our physical selves. If you separate the mind, body, and spirit and call that another input into the physical self, Optimizing that input is basically what you're saying.

[00:19:05] Dr. Katie Deming: The way that I describe it is like we are a, our bodies, our physical bodies, and also our emotional bodies and just how we're showing up as a full human being is a balance of what we're nourishing ourselves with. So nourishing can be food or water or the sunlight, but it also can be emotionally the relationships that we have, the media that we're consuming.

So what, what are we nourishing our body with and then how are we detoxifying the things that don't belong and that ultimately what I'm helping clients do is create a balance of that. Like, how do we balance so that we're nourishing ourselves with things that are truly nourishing and then detoxifying the things that are making us sick.

And if we look at statistics, today, I think the statistics in the U. S. are like one in two men will develop cancer in their lifetime and one in three women. And that is not the same that it was when I started practicing medicine. And it wasn't that way 50 years ago. And you know, 200 years ago we didn't have cancer.

So something is happening that we've shifted the balance and we're. Becoming more toxic and we're not nourishing ourselves in the way that we're meant to. 

[00:20:20] Leah: Are you saying that 200 years ago there? I mean there there was cancer 200 years ago because they're but But not at the prevalence rate. Okay. Okay.

Yes, not 

[00:20:29] Dr. Katie Deming: at the rate that we have it And if you look at you know, so if you look at the work of weston a price and he studied this was 1930s primitive societies that had not been influenced by western influences yet You Cancer was basically non existent in those communities. They also didn't have tuberculosis, which was the disease of that day.

So if we take societies that, you know, did not have a Western lifestyle influence, You know, we, we didn't see cancer when people were living in those ways. You know, it's something that we've seen with modern industrialized society. 

[00:21:05] Leah: So what are some of the tools other than, you know, we've talked a lot on the podcast about the diet aspect, we've discussed exercise and movement, but what are some of the tools that you are using with your patients to address that?

The conscious side, well, I 

[00:21:24] Dr. Katie Deming: think that it's all the pieces together that kind of bring align someone that allows them to be more conscious, but from an emotional, I, one thing that, um, is not talked about a ton is water, you know, so diets obviously important, but one of the things that I talk a lot about is water.

We are water. Right. If we look at the molecules in our body, 99. 9 percent of the molecules are water. We're, you know, 60 to 70 percent by volume, but by molecules, 99%. And so the Aliveness, the clarity, the filtration of our, the purity of our water is really important. So water is one of the things that I talk a lot about and making sure not only that you have water that's properly filtered because municipal tap water has chlorine and fluoride and other carcinogenic agents, but also, pharmaceuticals.

So chemotherapy agents. antibiotics, hormones all in our water supply. So getting water that's filtered is important, but then also making sure it's balanced with minerals and that it's structured because in our ideal state, we are basically structured water. And this comes to the work of Gerald Pollack in the fourth phase of water, but basically describing that the health and vitality of an organism.

is dependent on the structuring of the water in the cells. And so you can drink structured water, and that's helpful. But then also the way our body structures, the water intracellular Lee is influenced by all of these things, diet. The sunlight grounding all of those pieces. So water is something I talk a lot about.

The second thing is emotions. Um, emotional wellbeing is, is very important. And if you think about it, a cancer diagnosis is like one of the most emotionally triggering events for anyone. Right. It's like all of a sudden now you're like, absolutely. I should be afraid because look, this is, you know, and this is just what's going on in the mind, I'm not saying that people should be afraid, but it's like the ultimate fear bomb that goes off for people and so helping teach people, how do you become fluent with those emotions so that you're not stuck in the fear and teaching them how to activate both sides of their brain so that they can experience emotions because.

we typically, uh, create coping mechanisms to deal with emotions based on our early childhood, and this is like going to simplify it, but generally people either become right brained, and then they feel like they're going to be overtaken by their emotions, or when emotions come up, they go on their left brain, and then they just, 

go to logic and they explain it away and they shove it down and people get trapped where they're not really experiencing their emotions because they're either going to the right side of the brain or the left side of the brain. And so psych K is a technique that is basically a whole brain technique that they use is posturing in the body.

So. Psych K stands for psychological kinesis. And so you put your body in position where it activates the corpus callosum and connects the two sides of the brain. And when you do that, people are able to experience emotions and see that it's just a wave and it'll come up. And then if you allow it and you make it so that it's safe with using this whole brand technique, then they can write it down and they become more neutral.

And over time, this can just help people through the experience of their diagnosis. But then also you can use Psyche K to help release past trauma that may have been trapped in the body and reprogram the subconscious mind. Because when we have emotional trauma, it, Basically imprints on our subconscious and even if we know better, let's just use an example of someone who saw toxic relationships when they're little and the only relationships that they saw that were programmed into their mind is, you know, very unhealthy dynamics in a relationship and consciously they know, um, I want to pick a partner who loves me and cares for me and doesn't harm me, but what do they do?

They end up repeating the pattern that they experienced because that was programmed into the subconscious mind. So psyche is a way that you can not only become more fluent with your emotions, you can release past trauma and then program the subconscious mind for more powerful stories. So those are two things that I do also mindset work, helping people understand that our brain is like the most powerful pharmacy, you know, thousands and thousands of chemicals are directed by our mind and in medicine, we use the placebo effect to, you know, say whether a treatment works or not.

But like we never talk about harnessing the power of the fact that you could take a sugar pill and have it have physiologic effects on the body. And so that's part of my training is teaching people how they can use their mind and healing as well. 

[00:26:25] Tina: For some reason, it just brought to mind like a mood ring.

It'd be neat if people had some kind of like immediate feedback when the, when the molecules coming out are. positive and then it turns in black when it's negative and then you're like, Oh, got to, you know, change course quick. 

[00:26:39] Dr. Katie Deming: But you do actually, but we do. So our emotions. are showing us that all the time, right?

So when we're stressed or fear is, you know, it's like you feel tightening. And so this is part of what I teach people too, is to tune into your body. Your body is always talking to you. And that if you're starting to feel anxious, there's something there, right? And so we can use, um, our emotions to help guide us and see, but this is part of the problem is that.

A lot of times when people are in going through an experience with cancer, they're so, their sympathetic nervous system is so on alert that they can't even get calm enough to know when they're in or out. And so this is part of the work of helping people bring down their sympathetic nervous system and also raise their parasympathetic tone, right?

So that then they're better able to handle those stressors when they come up. Um, so breathing can be really helpful with that piece. 

[00:27:37] Tina: Yeah, and there's experience, but there's also seems to me in every individual to be somewhat a hard wiring or of, of a higher sympathetic state or a higher parasympathetic state.

And maybe a lot of that is learned, but it seems like some of it seems to be fairly hard wired where if you're already hardwired to be an anxious person, it's really a challenge not to be in a sympathetic overdrive. Yeah. More easily or more of the time. So do you find that to be the case?

[00:28:06] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah. So we know that we're affected by the mother who carries a baby can pass on that increased sympathetic tone to a baby and then generational trauma. So you know, a whole culture group of people who've experienced some form of traumatic treatment that can be passed down. So you're absolutely right.

You can be born kind of more. Like wired up, you know, but even though in all of us, if you think about, if you look at all over the world, like who's living where it's just like super easy and bliss, like planet earth is kind of a hard place to live. Right? And so. Even though we all have this hardwired into us, just because of our family's experience, our life experience, there's still ways that we can address it and help to understand that if you're living this way and you're feeling on edge all the time, ultimately that's not going to be good for your health and looking at ways, how do we reduce that?

How do we help you feel more in control and less on edge? 

Being an organ, um, psilocybin therapy is, it is legal here. Is that something that you work with, with your patients as well? so I do not. So I, um, I work with a mentor who, has extensive experience with plant medicine and his, um, the things that he's shared with me is that when you do plant medicine, you have to make sure you're doing it with someone who can see the light body because we see a physical body, but we also have a light body.

And this is like, when people describe having a bad trip. Their light body gets misaligned. This is why, you know, shamans did it because they could see the light body. And he said that it can be quite dangerous to do it without having that ability to see someone's and to put them back together in that way.

And so for me, I've never done plant medicine. Nor will I, and it's not part of my practice for that reason, because I can't see the light body and I don't want to harm someone. But what you're saying, so the things that I work with people on are things that they can get quite quickly through using plant medicine.

So you might say that the way that I'm working with them is a little bit harder, but one of the things that I think is really valuable is when you do that kind of tougher work on a conscious level and not using the medications, it takes a little bit longer, but it also is part of that process is healing as well.

And so that's just been my practice. I'm not opposed to it. I actually like love to hear people's experiences of using cell assignment, and I've studied extensively the work at Johns Hopkins. It's just not part of my practice for those reasons. 

[00:31:04] Tina: I was just at a conference and, uh, two naturopaths were in a heated debate about this.

One insisting that, you know, the hard work is essential for, you know, feeling better, spiritually and, and reaching that place. And the other person saying, yeah, but why do that when you can, well, and so that's why I'm like. It's great 

[00:31:23] Dr. Katie Deming: that it's an option because some people and also time is short for some people and it can be really healing even if someone is not going to heal their cancer to heal their soul before they transition.

And you know, for me, I've spent a lot of time around death. I came into oncology through working at hospice. I've participated in medical aid in dying in Oregon and I really know that there is healing. That needs to happen before people leave this body. And sometimes psilocybin can be the fastest way for them to achieve that.

And, or with a cancer diagnosis where it's just, they're too tired or, you know, those kinds of things. I, I, I see the role. I just, for me, it's like, it's not going to be something I do. 

[00:32:12] Tina: Yes. It will continue to be hotly debated out there in the world. I'm sure. 

[00:32:16] Leah: One of the first things that, um, I did when, I found out that you were going to be one of our guests is, I believe Tina did this as well.

You know, we went and we watched your TED talk that I guess is kind of what initially you're known for. I don't know the, the talk about, the verbiage around, you know, cancer, like how do you, how to talk to patients about cancer and what you focused on in that talk was the use of the word survivor. And you also talked about, the war metaphors.

So what is some of the language that you use when talking with your patients, especially because Um, I know for myself, like I'm not bothered by the word survivor. I don't like the word thriver for myself. It's not my word. I also don't like the words cancer journey. I always say cancer experience.

I don't know why, but that's just that, you know, those are my things. And so like what. Do you ask patients out front, what are the words that you want to use? Like, how do you find a individual's language? 

[00:33:20] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, let me just for your listeners, so that if they haven't heard my TED talk, they just understand the kind of idea that was presented in that.

But basically when I was leading cancer services for a very large healthcare organization, we were redesigning the care. And I believe that whenever you're designing care, you need to have the people who are experiencing the care at the table with you to tell you what this is like. And so I had a group of advisors that were patients and family members or caregivers.

And one day we were talking about the survivorship program, which is basically the part that we call in Western medicine after you finish active treatment, that you go into survivorship program. And one of the women said, I hate that word. And I was so confused because I'm like, what word, like, what, what did I say?

And so then she explained that survivor was really triggering for her and she had stage four cancer and she was angry. Why would we ever call her a survivor? And because The, NCI definition for a cancer survivor, it's shifted slightly since then, but it was basically any person with cancer from the day of diagnosis until the last day of their life, they're called a survivor, regardless of their disease status.

And she was like, why would you call me a survivor if I'm going to die of my cancer? Like that seems just cruel. And then by the way, this program that you're talking about, I'm never going to get a chance to go into because I'm never going to be done with treatment. And then slowly the whole table just erupted.

And they're like, I always hated that word. Someone was like, I love that word. And I was just. Blown away that there were so many, like, really strong emotions coming out around this word. And so then I ended up studying it with some colleagues. We did, a couple of studies, but the one that was published was through, Susan Love's Army of Women.

And looked at how women felt about the term survivor and also stratified them according to their stage. And, also ask them why they felt the way that they did. And what we found was that people were kind of seemed ambivalent. If you just went with like, how do you feel about the term? It was like slightly positive, but it was.

Pretty neutral, but then when you went into the comments and the reasons why, like 61 percent of the comments were negative and we just started hearing all these different stories of people, why they didn't like it, like, I'm angry that I've stage 4 and you're calling me a survivor, or I feel like I'm tempting fate when I use the term survivor, or it reminds me of like a terrible time in my life, but all these just different reasons.

And so for me, in that Ted talk, I talked about how. I just never thought about the implications of the words that I was using and especially something that was adopted so widely within cancer care. And this whole experience just made me more aware of language. So I just tend not to use labels. I'm like, why would we label a group of people?

You know, hundreds of thousands of people with, you know, cancer is so many different diseases, right? Like even within breast cancer, it's not all the same, but we're talking about all people with cancer, so many different conditions. Why would we use a single label to, basically identify this whole group of people.

And so for me, when people ask, like, well, what do you use instead? So thriver or warrior or whatever. And I was like, I don't use, I call you Tina or Leah, because I'm like, I, I just use people's names and I don't use these labels anymore because I realized that they can be triggering. But I do encourage people like my clients to think about these words because they are out in the world and just like, does that resonate for me?

And if Survivor resonates for you, amazing, use it. If it doesn't, don't use it. And also the language of like, you know, some people never say, My cancer. They say I've experienced cancer. And so I just am always listening. Like, what is it that supports you and your healing? And I will use those words, 

It's interesting that it's not as much of a conscious conversation with my clients about what words I use with them because I just tend to not use Those like trigger words now that I know what they are, but I encourage them to really think about what language is supportive for them and like, and I talk about more metaphors as well.

Like some people get really motivated by, you know, I'm going to fight this and, you know, kill the cancer cells and whatever. But. You also have to realize that some people, their sympathetic nervous system is activated by all that language. And sometimes loved ones are using it, you know, to talk to their loved one, but the loved one doesn't want to fight or doesn't want to do whatever.

And then it creates this internal conflict and also conflict in the relationship. And so I just encourage people who are caring for someone or have someone that they love, who's dealing with an illness to ask. Like, just say, you know, how can I best support you? What words are healing for you? Are there words that you don't want me to use?

And just be curious and ask the questions. I don't have the answers. I just know that when we start to label, we get ourselves into trouble. 

[00:38:33] Leah: Yeah. I think that's a perfect thing for our audience. Cause we do have caregivers who. Listen to our show 

[00:38:40] Dr. Katie Deming: and also, yeah, one other thing that I say for caregivers is recognizing that you may not know the right things to say.

Like sometimes we just say things because we're not sure what the right thing is to say, but recognizing thatwhat may naturally come out of you. May not be what they need to hear right now and recognizing that you, you want to be mindful and also that you need support. You need people outside of your loved one who's dealing with illness as a support for you so that they don't end up holding you up because they're worried about.

You know that you're worried about them and it becomes this like thing that the person who's sick now is having to lift everyone else up around like, Hey, I'm okay. It's okay. Right? So this is one thing that I encourage caregivers just to like, really, how can I take care of myself? So that then that way I can be there for this person.

And also this is hard on me, like to be a caregiver for someone who's sick is scary, it's overwhelming, it's exhausting, it's all the things. And so making sure you have your own support so that you can be supported in the process. And you know, then the person who's healing, it doesn't feel like they have to make everyone else around them.

Okay. 

[00:40:01] Leah: And I definitely experienced that because I was seeing patients as I was going through treatment. And I think, you know, there are many of us who feel that where, you know, it's hard enough just trying to get ourselves through the day, but we're, yeah, we are, we're holding up our families, trying to make things normal.

If somebody has kids, you know, trying to create that normality. So, um, yeah, that's huge. 

[00:40:22] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah. 

And I, and I see this more than anything that the person who's sick ends up overdoing to try and compensate for the fact that they're not able to do what they were doing before. But ultimately, this is one of the things that I really coach my clients on is like this experience, you know, so cancer is two symbols in Chinese.

The first symbol is danger, which makes sense. The second symbol is opportunity, like you've been cracked open and there's an opportunity here. And if you take care of everyone else, which you've probably been doing up until this point, if you're, you know, that's your tendency, something has to shift here.

And so this is a time where you can practice being uncomfortable to try something different with your family to demonstrate that that's okay. They can take care of themselves and it's easier said than done, at least with the people who are in your family. Just being really clear, like I have to take care of myself right now.

This is part of, you know, me getting sick is a wake up for me to say I need to, and I, I tell people that it's like, you're like a little garden when you're healing. And like, we've just put little seeds into the earth and there's fresh soil and you don't let people walk all over. your new garden and your seeds, right?

You put up a fence. And so part of this is like putting up that fence and being a little bit selfish. It's not selfish, but you know what I'm saying? It may seem that way because it's going to be a shift from maybe the way you were interacting and taking care of everyone else before. It's like, you have to do that if you're gonna allow yourself the process of healing.

[00:42:05] Leah: Mm hmm. I think that's a perfect metaphor. I love that. I think that's really, that's a nice, that's a nice place to kind of, to kind of end our, our talk. Um, is there anything that you want to promote. Well, I know you have a website katiedemming.com. com and You do offer a program 

[00:42:27] Dr. Katie Deming: Well, I have I have a workshop series that's going on right now the healing cancer workshop series It's on the six pillars.

So diet water Physical practices, emotional health, mindset, and spiritual healing, um, and that will be recorded. So if people, you know, don't catch that live, that'll be on my website, but I also have a podcast Born To Heal 

[00:42:50] Leah: That's right. Tina 

was enjoying listening to it. 

[00:42:53] Tina: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very well done.

I want to look, listen to more of them. I listened to clips just in preparation for this, but it's excellent podcast. So yeah, I recommend that people check that out wherever they're listening to us now. It's probably already there. 

[00:43:06] Dr. Katie Deming: Yeah. So in my podcast, just so people know it initially when I first launched it in 2021, it was just short tips for people who are going through conventional cancer treatment to make it easier.

But in, um, February of 2024, I relaunched the podcast and now I basically share my experience of the shared death experience, why I left Western medicine. And then I bring on guests who, who are teaching me because There are so many things that in Western medicine we are not taught. And most of it is about how to create wellness in the body.

We're taught everything about illness. And so I bring on experts from different areas and so that I can learn and my audience can learn along with me. 

[00:43:52] Tina: It's always been, it's always been a fascination that in, conventional medical schools, all the books start with pathology. You know, like you learn a little bit of normal physiology, but then you really know disease well.

[00:44:02] Dr. Katie Deming: No, that's exactly when I left Western medicine, I was like, I understand disease very well. I do not know anything about what creates health in the body, which was a humbling, humbling. realization to make. And that's the work that I'm doing now is studying what creates wellness, which you guys are taught about.

[00:44:22] Tina: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm happy to say, I think the tides are turning a little bit in medical schools because when we, when I went back at the late 1990s, I went up to Oregon Health Sciences University to look at their bookstore at the conventional medical school. There was one nutrition book on the shelf at the time.

It was super skinny and it just said, the five minute nutritional consult. And I thought, that's it for the whole bookstore. All right. That was the take home for the day. 

[00:44:48] Dr. Katie Deming: It's actually still really problematic in medical schools today, because so teaching kitchens is like a group of physicians and culinary experts who are, you know, trying to get, um, Like cooking into hospitals and schools and all of that.

But, um, basically they have a lobby group and they have these really high powered attorneys who have been lobbying to get education on nutrition into medical schools. And this was just like, this was just 20, 20, 22. So just a year ago that I did this conference and basically the only thing that they could get passed through legislation was that nutrition be optional.

For medical schools to adopt most medical schools today in 2024 do not teach anything about nutrition, which is just so sad, but it makes sense. The system is not designed to truly heal people. It's designed to, you know, do what it does, which prescribed treatments and symptoms. And I'm not saying there's value there.

But, you know, if you change people's nutrition, you can really change their lives. 

[00:46:02] Tina: Yes, we won't go into the history of conventional medical schools 'cause that is a rabbit hole and people can do that on their own, on the internet . 

[00:46:08] Leah: So thank you so much for coming on the show. I would love to have you back.

We would love to have you back as, um, as a guest and explore more of what you do. 

[00:46:18] Dr. Katie Deming: Thank you. It's been my pleasure to speak with you and I'm actually excited. It was so nice to meet fellow Oregonians , and talk with both of you. So I would love to come back. Thank you for having me. 

[00:46:29] Tina: Yeah, I look forward to another conversation and, uh, another, eye opening, conversation about what you do and, and, you know, I, I will say this in our next conversation.

I would love for our listeners to write us questions that you would want a radiation oncologist to answer because you also have 20 years of experience as a conventional radiation oncologist and people have questions that they can't get out or they can't ask or maybe they're not appropriate or whatever, but maybe people can write to us and, uh, give us some ideas of what else they might want you to help us understand.

[00:46:59] Dr. Katie Deming: Absolutely. 

[00:47:00] Tina: So thanks again. 

[00:47:01] Dr. Katie Deming: Thank you. 

[00:47:02] Leah: Thanks for listening to the Cancer Pod. Remember to subscribe, review, and rate us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social media for updates. And as always, this is not medical advice. These are our opinions. Talk to your doctor before changing anything related to your treatment plan.

The Cancer Pod is hosted by me, Dr. Leah Sherman, and by Dr. Tina Kazer. Music is by Kevin MacLeod. See you next time.