Sunny days

So, I thought I would do some positive posting for a change and that way maybe inject a little bit more happiness into my otherwise somewhat saddening blog (though I swear I was being upbeat while writing it!).

Things up here in Beantown have actually been pretty good for the last month or so. I am still working on sticking to my raw and living foods diet -- though I admit that I am not always 100% or even 80% with it for that matter (what kind of person would I be if I turned down smores while camping? that's just wrong...). But otherwise I'm sticking to it pretty well. I still need to spend more time prepping food for myself instead of relying on Whole Foods to be my own personal chef -- it's way too expensive to always be doing that!! I know some of you are interested in hearing more about the raw food stuff so I think soon I will try and include some recipes and/or little snipets of information that helped convince me it was a worthy thing to try.

As for the sunny days let me explain a bit. To start, I'm now in my 7th week of chemo and feeling fantttasssttiiic! (knocking wood as I say that). I went for my 1 month follow up with Dr. Sato in Philly a couple of weeks ago and he just cracks me up. While doing my physical he kept asking "do you have nausea/headache/fatigue/any other syptoms of taking a drug that is killing your body from the inside out?" my answer: NOPE! Now I'm not one to attribute anything 100% to anything else, but I definitely am thinking that the diet and the holistic vits/treatments are what's helping me through these times. For those of you who are wondering, no white hair yet, though I am on this until November, so there's still a chance. :) When Dr. Sato finished the exam after me telling him I felt good he said "Well....awesome" I feel as though it's a very chilly day in hell when oncologists get the chance to say "awesome" to their cancer patients -- so that was pretty cool. He did however give me a bit of a scare when while palpitating my liver (in english = knocking on my stomach to see if my internal organs seem to be full of tumors..i think?) he said "OH BOY" and I was thinking - uh-oh, then he proceeded to comment "Didn't that hurt?" while he pointed at my belly button ring - I love him but almost had a heart attack when he first commented! His other extremely amusing moment was when he commented that the Sutent trial he's been looking to do as adjuvant treatment was approved by the drug co. and he's now trying to get the protocol written for the FDA...and he turned to me and said "You are like the front runner for this (while by the way doing the running man!!) hehe..definitely made me crack up.

To date the only down side to the chemo is that my blood levels had started to drop a bit. My platelets (the blood parts that help you clot so you don't bleed profusely) are a little low so I'm bruising kind of easily and also if I get cut bleed a little bit more than normal. The more concerning bit though is that my white blood cells were dropping as well (and more importantly the neutrophils -- the subsection of white blood cells that are specifically designed to fight infection). These are both typical reactions for chemo patients, but ones I was hoping to avoid. In any case when they started dropping I rang up my holistic guy and said "What the hell? And what can we do?". He suggested I try a "detox sauna" saying that it would help release some of the toxins that could be supressing my immune system. I headed over to his office Thursday and sat in a small box sweating my ass off in 160 degree temps for almost an hour (it actually was pretty enjoyable though), and then crossed my fingers that when I went to my appt. w/ Dr. Friedlander on Monday that my blood levels would have stabilized or gone up a bit. Monday came and while chatting with my doc's assistant about my awesome and huge white purse she casually says "oh look you're blood results are in"...and.... (pause for dramatic music).... they were good! Not great, but good! The neutrophils had stopped their excessive plummeting and my white blood cells even recovered a little bit. I'm hoping to hit the sauna up again before I go back for my next blood tests after the 4th of July. Monday was a nice sunny day for me. I'm glad to not have had to stop the chemo, even if it would be for only a few days. So I'm hoping that my WBC are on the rebound and will continue to slowly creep their way back towards the normal range :)

In non-cancer news, Steve and I broke up. I think it's been a long time coming for us, though I am forever grateful for the amazing support he's provided me through these first few months after being diagnosed. I will never forget that. I don't care to go into too many details, but we are on pretty good terms for now, neither of us wants the other one out of their life, but at the same time we are not right together as a couple. I'm hopeful that we will somehow make the difficult transition from relationship to friendship with very few bumps.

On another positive note, mid-week last week I noticed that I had regained a smidgen of vision in the bottom part of my left eye -- now don't get all excited, I still can't see for shit, but I have noticed that I can now (in that area) distinguish color and shapes a bit more distinctly, and also I seem to have a bit more perception in my peripheral vision. I'm crossing my fingers that this continues to get better as the weeks pass, and that hopefully it means that the inflammation inside my eye is decreasing little by little.

I know this post is a little disjointed, but I had a lot of random points to share with everyone, so heres another one...

I am planning on running in a 5k in Philly the weekend of August 22rd (the run is on Sunday, August 24th). It is through the Lance Armstrong Foundation and is one of their nationwide Livestrong Challenge days (click here for more information). I'm attempting to put a team together (and for those of you who don't like to run, you can also walk the 5K) and will post here once I get a team name and register myself. I'd really love it if anyone who is able would come and participate. Their is no fundraising necessary, though I was thinking of independently raising money to donate to the Eye Tumour Research Foundation, started at the Wills Eye Institute in Philly by Dr.s Carol and Jerry Shields. The registration is $50, but includes a t-shirt and a waterbottle, and fun activities the day before the race and the day of. I was also thinking of possibly making eye cancer related t-shirts to give to everyone who wants to be on the team. Like I said it's still a work in progress, but I will keep you all posted.

K, I've got to run for now, off to my weekly support group, but I hope everyone is happy and well, I'm doing a.o.k. for now :)

love you all, I will post again soon.