Michael Douglas revealed Tuesday that he had stage 4 throat cancer.  Stage 4 means that the cancer has spread far beyond the original tumor and is usually very difficult to cure. Douglas said he has at least an 80 percent chance of recovery. “And with certain hospitals and everything, it does improve.”

News sources quoted his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, as being upset because they had been to several doctors over the last year about his sore throat and the cancer had not been found sooner.  It is difficult to be understanding when a professional lets you down, and you are hurt by their negligence.

As my over 100,000 students know, I have also had a serious bout with cancer.  Mine put me in the hospital in an isolation room for over 5 months straight, and I was out of work for three years.  It changed the course of my life.  I wasn’t supposed to be a tax and asset protection lawyer.  I was supposed to be a patent attorney.

While I was sick, the legal system took us to the cleaners, and I was an attorney.  My wife became infuriated.  She said, “I will never trust them again.”  (She overreacted.  She became an attorney also.)  You don’t have to be an attorney, but you can’t afford to walk in off the street and blindly trust your doctor, CPA, attorney, or anyone else.

We learned that lesson – that you don’t blindly trust anyone – the hard way, in the streets of hard knocks.  By the way, if you are learning your lessons in the streets of hard knocks, you are paying too much for your education.  The price I paid to learn the lesson that you don’t blindly trust anyone was a big change in my life.

You see, I knew I had cancer.  I knew I had cancer a year and a half before the cancer was actually discovered for me.  I had been to the family doctor and said, “Hey man look, there’s a lump.”  The family doctor had looked at it and said it was cancer.  He sent me to the specialist.

The specialist hardly even looked at me.  He said, “Phillips, you’re an idiot and so is your family doctor.  If he was sure you had cancer he would have sent you to the hospital.  He wouldn’t have sent you to me for a second opinion.  You just have an infection.”

The specialist treated me for a year and a half for an infection.  By the time the cancer was discovered by a cardiologist, because I had heart failure, it was final stage four cancer and involved all the organs in my body.

What I didn’t know was all the specialist had to do was poke my finger and give me a blood test.  He would have found the cancer.  But, I just blindly trusted him.  You can’t blindly trust anyone.

One of the reasons I’ve created my legal home study courses is so you will have the information you need so you don’t have to blindly trust your lawyers and CPAs.  You can use the courses to do your own legal work better than most attorneys can do it for you, or you can use the courses as your education, so you can direct what you want your professionals to do for you.

You don’t have to do your own legal work (you can, if you want), but you do have to have the information to know what has to be done.  You can’t just blindly trust.

Start with the new addition of my book, Protecting Your Financial Future, and listen to my DVD, Using the Law to Make Money and Protect Assets.  This is a limited time offer so do it now, and take control of your financial future.

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