Wednesday, June 25, 2008

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.

Monday, June 16, 2008

More on hippy dippy eastern medicine and uncooked food (Part 2)

So, I've been a little slow in getting this second piece up here, but hopefully you all took that time to go and read some really interesting stuff on holistic medicine and raw foods :) j/k. Anyways, part 2 I think is pretty short and to the point.

After my diagnosis, I really thought that the best approach was a multi-faceted one and so I thought I would read a little into the world of immunotherapy and holistic medicine. I searched for a doc on my own for a couple of weeks, but really wanted to go to someone who I got a personal recommendation from, as I thought I'd feel more comfortable with someone like that. Luckily my Aunt recommended a guy who lives/works in central mass (actually only a few miles from where my brother and his family live). Dr. Jeff as we'll refer to him is a pretty kick ass guy. He started out as an M.D. working in a hospital in family practice I think for many years doing the whole western medicine thing. Then at some undisclosed point he decided that the western meds just weren't cutting it anymore and took a fervent interest in the world of eastern and holistic medicine. So really, for me, he is the best of both worlds -- a Dr. who understands everything my oncologists are saying and prescribing, yet at the same time one who knows that there are other underlying issues that factor into my immune system's deficiencies in dealing with mutating crazy cancer cells.

So I met with him shortly after I met Dr. Sato down in Philly and decided I'd add him to my arsenal. The first step was getting some background on my childhood and any exposure to different toxins. As it turns out there had been a pretty major thing in my past, though my mom and I forgot about it at the time we were with him, but there had been an EPA declared super-fund site (click if you're not sure what a superfund is) only a few blocks from where I grew up in W. Mass and I had played multiple sports on it, and also swam and played in the ground water that it has supposedly leaked into -- kinda creepy huh? Then we went ahead and I had a whole slew of blood tests done to check for any vitamin/mineral deficiencies that my body might be suffering from. Have I mentioned yet that I think it's completely ludicrous that you can have blood drawn for an oncologists purposes and everything can come back "normal" even though HELLO YOU HAVE CANCER -- that's not NORMAL! Anyways, these blood tests came back telling a different story, and one that quite frankly made a hell of a lot more sense to me.

Dr. Jeff and I went through the results and set up a system of vitamins/minerals and supplements that I should be taking to help even out, or rebalance my otherwise unbalanced body. For those of you who know a little bit about raw foods/optimal nutrition your body works best when it is in an alkaline state versus an acidic state, and my body was not very alkaline when I first started these changes.

Long story short, Dr. Jeff and I continue to work together trying to sort of decode the mystery of finding what missing link in my system allowed cancer to get through, it's an interesting journey. I find it very comforting and relaxing to have at least 1 doctor whose main goal is to help me feel good, energetic, healthy, and whole, and not to just attack the cancer cells, but to help rebuild a stronger body, stronger immune system, and overall stronger armor in my fight against cancer.

If anyone is interested in more details of my holistic experiences so far, or in raw foodism feel free to write/call/ or comment here :)