Michelle Kramer
My desire to help patients is driven by the death of a very dear friend to chronic myeloid leukemia. She passed away on October 30th, 1994. During the painful years that she underwent therapy for her disease, it was evident to me that she was given no information on how to try improve her health status and quality of life in order to enable her to fight the disease. Much has changed since 1994 and there is now evidence that diet, lifestyle and supplements can improve quality of life and outcomes for patients with haematological cancers.
Below is a poem written by her as a tribute to a wonderful friend, a devoted mother of three and a person with extraordinary literary skills.
Fighting Leukaemia - May 7th, 1992
By Michelle Kramer
There was a tremor in the earth
And ranged across the dusty mound, poised above the
waterhole
the lioness flicked her head and roared, fearing the day
that pride dominance and future would be over
The impala stood dead still, heads turned slightly to the
side – frozen, even for the breeze.
And I – I hung my head as all future froze, became
nothing, just as the impalas might that very night.
Zeus and Athena looked down and flicked my existence
into the waterhole – one, two, bounce –
But I – I lifted my head and howled for my God.
He gave me choices – the impalas turned – the earth wept
for its children –
And the fight was on.
He covered me with an angel’s wing.
A child’s heart broke for wanting me in the night.
I walked though Hell and Darkness to hold that hand
again,
And my father reached down through the curtains of
Time to let the Healers in.
And now – well now with every dawn and dusk,
my soul trumpets like the elephant, who finds life’s vision
in the waterhole – and lives for that –
for the finding of that water each and every day.
And my heart beats each beat, a note of gratitude –
For Thee that is, for the man that was and will always be
And for I, who surely AM.