Ramblings and Update

8/13/17

Today I was surprisingly anxious about a follow up visit to find out the results of blood tests measuring cancer markers. A key one, the CTC (circulating tumor cell) count did go down from 6.4 - 6.0. What does that mean, you ask? Great question. There is a +- 3 sway in the results so it is essentially (probably) not much of a change. 

It isn't the dramatic turn around I would have loved to have seen. It's going in the right direction but it isn't dramatic and, well, my life has changed dramatically. And I'm weepy. I'm trying to remember that City of Hope said the cancer was doubling every 34 days so this is actually great news. But I am tired and...weapy. 

I'm surrounded by people that are so very much sicker than I. They have experienced so much more pain. Many are ravaged by treatments they've had before coming here. The woman next to me needs new hip sockets because of the chemo they used to get her bladder cancer into remission but, - it's back somewhere else. Most people here will tell you that their biggest health complaints are from treatments their doctor told them they needed or they wouldn't make it, not the cancer.  And most have said they would NEVER do conventional treatment again, even if it means the end of their life. 

We all have like 75 million cancer cells in our bodies at any one time. Stress, trauma, viruses, funguses, radiation, and other stressors to the immune system can cause the cancer cells to start taking over. Many think there is some event that starts this "cancer cascade" 8 - 12 years before it is detected. For me, that was probably when my endocrinologist advised me to ablate (kill) my thyroid gland with radiation because it had gone crazy with goiters. Do you know how important your thyroid is? Did she check for iodine deficiency? Gosh I wish I had known about that possibility, Although healing naturally takes longer, there are usually options besides just cutting out or killing body parts, or dousing them with chemicals,which break down the body in other ways. 

I am not against conventional medicine. And I absolutely love the scientific method. But I am convinced there are many options that are never even considered in today's medical community. I read about treatments that actually are studied and found to work in universities, but there is a disconnect and the discoveries often never make it to the clinical practice. There is no funding for research and development unless there is big money in it for someone. Interesting, for example, that synthetic cannabis is coming onto the market and being studied (and controlled and patented) while we could grow the natural stuff ourselves that would probably work even better. I would bet on that. But now, people will start believing in the drug because we are all told the FDA is there to keep  us safe by controlling what is available to us. The chemicals will have side effects too. Guaranteed.

Please look at prevention. Read The Cancer Revolution. I don't necessarily buy everything in it but she puts so much together that I wish I had known before. Prevention is so much cheaper, if nothing else. This is costing us a fortune. I am constantly thinking about those who just cannot do it and are forced to the conventional road because insurance pays for it. 

A woman just gave me a cookbook with family momentos scattered throughout and I opened it up to the words to the song, "Bridge Over Troubled Water." I needed those words. God is here. I'm not alone. He dries my tears. 

One more thing I've got to say. We all know people who have died from cancer after extensive conventional treatment. Many of us know people who have gone through treatment and gotten well and moved on with their lives. I now know people who have probably died or had to go into hospice (when they are just so sick and they just disappear from the center). It would be easy to give up on this cutting edge, sometimes labeled 'alternative,' stuff. Funny, I just read about vaccines for cancer in Woman's Day; we already use that (but they don't work at this point for lymphoma). My point is, we all need to be very careful with our opinions and snap judgements. I have one person in my life who just seems disgusted and disappointed when he hears what I am doing. I know it's concern and fear but I know that, if what I am doing doesn't take care of this, he will be using it as further evidence that the only way is the mainstream oncologists' way. Another person told me about her friend who went to Mexico for treatment, "only to come home to die." What about all those who have had multiple rounds of chemo, experimental drugs, radiation, surgery...and died? Of course, I hear those stories too - but I am fascinated by the double standard.

OK. Enough rambling. I am continuing Salicinium and Mistletoe IV's and then I will go to an oral form of Salicinium and will probably give myself Mistletoe shots. The doctor wants me to move toward low dose chemo therapy that testing shows is effective on my particular cancer so I have an appointment with the vascular surgeon next friday to set up the surgery for a portecath for the following week.

Pray with me, would you? That God would show me clearly - as he did before when I was going to schedule standard chemo - that I don't need to go that direction. I have 1-2 lymph nodes in front of my left ear that do not go away whereas all others I can feel seem to come and go. I am praying those lymph nodes will be undetectable by next Friday and that will be my clear sign for no chemo - right now at least. I am so grateful for the prayers of so many - some of whom I don't even know - and the answers I am seeing to those prayers. So grateful.