A professionally very successful 50-year-old man came to my clinic for treatment following a nephrectomy. His kidney had been removed because of a malignant tumour. Apart from the surgical procedure his doctors could offer no further therapy, and the patient came on the advice of his wife. She wanted to prevent the cancer from striking again and also asked for a homeopathic strategy for possible acute complaints. She worried about her husband because he tended to ignore health problems and downplay symptoms. The malignant kidney tumour had already caused blood in the urine and pain for some time, but only when the symptoms became unbearable did the man see his doctor. By then the tumour was already eight centimetres in size. A timely visit to the doctor would not have fit the image of the tough, resilient man.
P(atient): "I would like to explain my situation with a metaphor from sport: If we as a team don’t stick together and get through the match, then we lose. Or it’s like an emergency doctor who has to make life-saving decisions at the right moment. For that he must be very strong. We have to hang on because we want to achieve something and mustn’t give up too early. You have to know where you’re going when you put your foot down. No help comes from outside; you can only make it by using your own body."
He describes himself as an optimistic person, a real man who doesn’t need painkillers. Even at the dentist he forgoes anaesthesia. Complaining about pain would be absolutely unmacho. It is not a disgrace to go down, but you should see that you get up again as quickly as possible. "I don’t need a safety net. I should have become a firefighter. I only really step on the gas when it gets dangerous and then everything works. That’s my motto. When the pressure rises, I react quickly, hard and well."
When the diagnosis of cancer was raised, the man reacted with the words: "Get your instruments and cut it out!" During the operation a small vein in the abdominal wall was injured and the patient almost bled to death. He was given 5 litres of blood and spent some time in the intensive care unit. About that time he says: "When everyone else loses their nerve, I perform at my best."
His 
greatest goal in life was to build a house for himself and his family, with a solid roof, tight windows and a proper fence around it. He is a 'caveman'. In this way he can protect himself from the uncertainties that life brings. A secure place for the family, where uncertainties are limited and one can protect oneself from harm.
P: "I mostly act out of fear of being hurt. My friends know how to hurt me. Recklessness hurts me a great deal, but I don’t let it show. Only to my wife can I show that I’m vulnerable. My strategy doesn’t work so well with her. I often make fun of others so that they don’t make fun of me first and injure me that way."
"That’s true," his wife interjects. "He has a very emotional, vulnerable side; there he is incredibly soft." The patient’s father was a top-level athlete and died of a stroke at 48. Within an hour he was dead. The patient was ten years old at the time and never really mourned properly. "You had to deal with the new situation and make the best of it."
The man’s personal medical history included a massive slipped disc that had paralysed his entire abdominal wall. "Back then I reached the limits of what was bearable and had to take painkillers. I wouldn’t have gotten through it otherwise."
Analysis
The main theme of the case was vulnerability, with compensatory mechanisms on both physical and emotional levels. This theme is typical for the Asteraceae, the botanical family of the composites. I therefore looked for a remedy from this family that matched the patient’s mentality (the "instruments you need to cut everything out", as the patient himself put it) and at the same time had a strong tendency to bleeding. The patient’s heavy and almost fatal bleeding as a result of a relatively small injury was an unusual and striking symptom.
According to Sankaran’s theory of miasms, this case fits the typhus miasm, in which one comes into top form in times of crisis. Both Chamomilla and Millefolium belong to this miasm. The correct remedy in this case was Achillea millefolium. The name comes from the hero of the Trojan War, Achilles, who is said in legend to have healed his wounds with millefolium.
Important rubrics
Mind: dullness
Mind: fearless
Urethra: discharges, bloody
Generalities: bleeding; cancer, in
Generalities: bleeding; injuries; from
Generalities: injuries; surgery; complaints from
Generalities: injuries; ruptures, tears; of blood vessels
Prescription: Millefolium C200, to be taken twice daily over an extended period. Later the patient received a 1M, in total 4 times over a period of four years, always for an acute infection. The patient always reacted immediately to the remedy. Already 1 day after taking it he felt well again. His creatinine values, which were high after the nephrectomy (1.4 mg/dl), normalised (0.9 mg/dl). All further follow-up examinations were unremarkable.
Later I recommended systemic family therapy because I suspected his illness might be due to unresolved grief over his father’s early death. Surprisingly, this was not the case at all. But during the therapy it emerged that the man had a very close bond with his maternal grandfather, who was badly injured in the war. After the systemic therapy my patient told me the following: "You know, my remedy – Millefolium – is also called 'soldier’s herb'. The plant was often used to stop bleeding in war-wounded. My grandfather was a war correspondent and was in Russian captivity until 1955. He was one of the last to be released. A few months later he died from the effects of the deprivations he had suffered. The deputy of my grandfather said during the family constellation that he had only survived because an herb had stopped his bleeding. Could that have been millefolium?"
Patients who need a remedy from the Asteraceae family are often 'tough guys' who cannot react appropriately to an injury and endure a lot. They do not allow themselves to feel pain. On both physical and emotional levels they respond with numbness and insensitivity. The healing process gets under way when the blockage is released and the patient can allow the injury and the painful sensation, as happened with this patient. At a follow-up appointment the patient was able to cry and finally feel the pain he had suppressed for so long. He visited his grandfather’s grave several times and felt a great peace while doing so. Even on long walks in nature he now senses his grandfather beside him and experiences this as great comfort. "He is simply there and that’s a good thing."
He has been treated homeopathically with Millefolium for six years and is symptom-free.
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Note: Millefolium was assigned to the typhus miasm by Dr Willi Neuhold from Graz, Austria.
Photo: Shutterstock – Tough going; weedezign
Category: Cases
Keywords: kidney cancer, vulnerability, fearlessness, tough, numb, responds to pain with numbness, must protect the family.
Remedy: Millefolium
