 Hello, I'm James Randi. Today is the 12th of January 2010. This last New Year's Eve, I made a scheduled visit to Broward General Hospital just down the street here in Fort Lauderdale. Specifically, I went to their infusion ward, where 48 hours before I had the start of the last of 12 doses of chemotherapy chemicals I had been taking bi-weekly since last summer. This procedure involved the painless insertion of a tiny needle into a small port inserted just under the skin of my chest six months ago. Now the port has been simply forgotten, I'll keep it in place for a while just in case I might need it again, but I'm totally finished with the chemo as we patients refer to it. In two weeks, I'll be having a peck scan, which will determine whether the chemo was successful and the prognosis is excellent. Thank you. Now a lot of people are afraid of chemotherapy and no wonder, chemotherapy is famously unpleasant. When people share stories about it, those often involve hair falling out, a loss of strength, equilibrium and mobility, a feeling of constant nausea and fatigue, but that doesn't characterize my experience. You see, medical science has made great strides in this process and things have changed. I was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in June of last year. Near the end of that month, I underwent surgery, a laparoscopic minimal invasion procedure that left me with three navels and obviously introduced confusion to my regular navel contemplation sessions. They removed not only my tumor, but also a small portion of the gut to which it was attached. A week later, I attended the annual JREF conference, the amazing meeting in Las Vegas. Upon returning home, I immediately embarked upon the chemotherapy regimen and discovered to my delight, if I can call it that, that chemo isn't necessarily as awful as they say it is. Every other Tuesday, I visit Broward General Hospital down the street and check into the infusion lab. There, I would first be injected with all kinds of fluids to clear my system in preparation for the medication to come. Appropriately flushed, I was then hooked up by a very fine plastic tube to a small pressure pump bottle filled with a cocktail of chemotherapy agents which would deliver its contents to me over the next two days. I'd simply drop the bottle into my pocket, then I'd go back to the JREF or go home. During those two days, I'd feel just fine. I came in to work at the same time as always and went home at the same time too. I was told to drink more water than usual and this I did to keep up my hydration, you see. The tubing, taped down to my chest, came out after infusion and I then noticed that I began to tire. I was profoundly fatigued by Friday morning and that continued through the weekend. Sometimes I didn't want to get out of bed even, once or twice I didn't. My muscles felt very weak and my equilibrium was really shaky. Nevertheless, it was on one such weekend in the final term of my chemotherapy that I attended a banquet to celebrate the first annual Carl Sagan Day. The following night, I delivered a 45-minute address in Carl's honor. Even at my energy's lowest ebb, I still decided to come into work, perhaps because I was excited about something I was writing or perhaps because I just didn't feel like staying home. No matter how badly I felt during the weekends immediately after the infusion, I was always a great deal better by Monday and then I had about 10 days of good health to look forward to before my next chemotherapy infusion. Now I'm telling you this because a few cancer patients of my acquaintance have decided to ignore their doctor's advice and forego chemotherapy. I'm worried that these people are risking their lives needlessly. Yes, chemo does cause hair to fall out. As you can see, my beard is considerably thinner and less lustrous than it once was. But hair grows back, there's some of it, not this part. Yes, chemo does tire you out, but you can always take a nap. Yes, chemo isn't pleasant, but it's a damn sight more pleasant than cancer. None of the difficulties posed by chemotherapy are insurmountable. I can honestly tell you that I didn't have one instance of nausea. I never lost my faith in my oncologist and I kept busy every hour of the sixth month I was being treated. My most important item of this message is something I discovered during the ordeal. Attitude is of paramount importance. If you allow despair or fear to get hold of you, you'll not do as well as I did. During my visit to the Broward General Infusion ward, I went out of my way to be the Willy Wonka sort of without the candy and held a lot of hands, chatted, joked, and generally cheered up my fellow chemo partners. It worked and all of us felt better for it, I can assure you. So please do yourself a favor, friends. If your physician says you need chemo, get it. Don't risk your life and especially don't risk your life over the bogeyman of the ravages of chemo or the silly words of TV stars with no expertise whatsoever. I am an expert. I just went through it. Medical science improves by the month and the experience of a cancer patient in the hands of a good oncologist is very different from what it was 2010 or even five years ago. Don't be afraid of medicine. Medicine you can handle, be afraid of going without it. I'm James Randi. And the Educational Foundation, make sure you visit randy.org.