Platinum in the Poison: Spiritual and Material Resources from a Year of Chemotherapy

It was early 2020, and the world was nearing quarantine for the COVID-19 pandemic. Hannah Kate Warner struggled in North Carolina -with motherhood, anxiety, and a sense of purposelessness. On her worst days, she called the experience smotherhood.

A week of sickness landed her in the emergency room coughing blood. First told that she was pregnant, then that she was not. No, not pregnant: it was actually cancer. The cancer was a rare, stage IV, aggressive form-but usually curable. It was caused by her second pregnancy, and she had no idea such a cancer existed.

Hannah invites us on her complex journey through a year of poison- of the multi-drug, weekly chemotherapy that saved her life. In a unique gift to readers, she weaves anecdotes on healing, parenting, religion, panic, and ancestors with a concise compilation of protocols, ideas, and meditations. Together these resources will help you navigate the world of cancer in a truly integrative fashion.

The spoiler is that Platinum, the shiny precious metal we may associate with glamour and wealth, was an ingredient in one of the chemo compounds. In this context, it functioned as a poison, carrying out the bizarre miracle of chemotherapy where death and life meet. Tracing through the paradoxical tensions of treatment, healing from treatment, succumbing to medicine and claiming autonomy, Hannah guides us through essential components of the journey. There are material resources that will support you-yet much of what is needed requires connecting with the fundamental elements of life. But even when directing us to these spiritual resources, she teaches us how to meet them practically. Light is an essential companion and numinous healer, an angel...so when you're staying in the hospital, bring a lamp!

The Platinum is not just an image or metaphor, and it is no mere atomic anomaly either. In the highest way, the key to surviving chemotherapy is finding the light in the poison. Hannah teaches us to do this. She shows us through her own story, through the sacred marriage of western and alternative medicine, and through specific literal materials, modalities, and exercises. Your journey is your own, but Hannah has arrived as a friend-a helper who has gone there and back again. She brings humor and joyfully readable prose. But don't be fooled: this work goes all the way down and cuts through the hardest packed soil. For only then, after succumbing to the lightless depths, might we emerge holding treasure.

Whether you are going through chemotherapy or not, if you dig into these pages you will surely find something to support you through the most challenging seasons of life.