It's my last weekend before the next chemo treatment. This is as good as I'll feel for a while, I suppose, though I have some hope about that. I read that more than 40% of people with cancer die of malnutrition. Is that crazy or what? It makes more sense than it would seem at first when you consider that cancer makes you feel tired and not hungry, and that chemo makes you feel tired and positively nauseous. With that in mind I have been eating like a horse, packing it on for the lean times, so to speak.
They can't exactly cure cancer, though trillions of dollars have been spent in the name of the disease. Here's the big news: they can prevent it quite easily. More to the point, you and I can prevent it quite easily, by changing our diets. Many of the books I have read take it as common knowledge that cancer is a failure of the immune system, and that the immune system is failing because it can't tell good from bad any more. After a lifetime of "plastic" foods such as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, chemical preservatives, growth hormones, antibiotics, and hourly massive insulin shocks from sugar and white bread it's no wonder. There seems to be a very clear relationship between eating that kind of junk and the "big 3" problems of our time: cancer, diabetes and obesity.
If you are not outraged, you aren't paying attention! I wasn't, right up until that doctor looked me in the eye and said "You have cancer." Suddenly, it all meant a great deal to me. On this day more than any other in the year, Americans wallow in a refined sugar river that is killing us. Our culture, which we have worked so hard to spread to all the other countries of the world, is killing them as well. Everywhere in the world that you see a child eating a fistful of processed sugar candy you see the future of these diseases.
It's breaking my heart.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
What to do?
So what am I doing about it?
First off, let me say "Thanks!" to the people who actually read this thing. Your wishes and prayers and positive energy are helping. It is encouraging at a time when a little extra boost helps a lot.
So a common question is, "what are you going to do?" The answer is this: attack the problem on every front. Through dietary means, allopathically (conventional medicine), psychologically, spiritually and physically.
I've been living on fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and a little bit of organic lean meat. Pam bought a 10 hp juicer that is an engineering marvel. With it I've been eating a huge amount of fresh green veggies (kale, spinach, beet greens, wheat grass, dandilion leaves, and more), beets (#1 liver-cleansing food), apples, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, beans, lentils, peas, and on and on and on.
The local doctors seem to be pretty good at dealing with cancer, I'm sad to say. They were quite persuasive that the conventional medicine route would be effective, at least statistically. So, I'm doing an aggressive chemotherapy treatment to kill any stray cancer cells that might be growing but too small to see, and hopefully to shrink the existing tumors, too. Following that we have surgical and radiological tools on hand to deal with the current tumors and to ensure that no more come back.
My spirits are doing really well, all things considered. Like most difficult experiences, the fear of it is worse than the thing itself. My attitude of "one day at a time", combined with "so far, so good" is working very well for the minute-by-minute part of life. The experiences of my life so far have been a good preparation for this. Mountaineering is a long and difficult task, the end of which justifies all that goes in to it. So this illness is to me; I'm tucking my head down and putting one foot in front of the other when it gets hard. That got me to the North Pole, it will get me through this, too.
Ok, are you ready for this one? Pam and Jessica read that one of the biggest problems facing chemo patients is their compromised immune systems. One of the best things that helps to boost immune systems is what babies use to stay healthy during their first year: breast milk. You'll just have to do your own Google search on "breast milk chemo immune" to see what's going around about it. Here's the thing: Jessica had a baby 3 months ago and she's producing more than the baby can handle. She was talking about donating it to a place for mothers who can't nurse. So now (today, for the first time) I am drinking mother's milk smoothies. It's a little strange to think about, but at this point I really am game for anything I can do that will increase the odds.
First off, let me say "Thanks!" to the people who actually read this thing. Your wishes and prayers and positive energy are helping. It is encouraging at a time when a little extra boost helps a lot.
So a common question is, "what are you going to do?" The answer is this: attack the problem on every front. Through dietary means, allopathically (conventional medicine), psychologically, spiritually and physically.
I've been living on fresh, organic fruits and vegetables and a little bit of organic lean meat. Pam bought a 10 hp juicer that is an engineering marvel. With it I've been eating a huge amount of fresh green veggies (kale, spinach, beet greens, wheat grass, dandilion leaves, and more), beets (#1 liver-cleansing food), apples, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, beans, lentils, peas, and on and on and on.
The local doctors seem to be pretty good at dealing with cancer, I'm sad to say. They were quite persuasive that the conventional medicine route would be effective, at least statistically. So, I'm doing an aggressive chemotherapy treatment to kill any stray cancer cells that might be growing but too small to see, and hopefully to shrink the existing tumors, too. Following that we have surgical and radiological tools on hand to deal with the current tumors and to ensure that no more come back.
My spirits are doing really well, all things considered. Like most difficult experiences, the fear of it is worse than the thing itself. My attitude of "one day at a time", combined with "so far, so good" is working very well for the minute-by-minute part of life. The experiences of my life so far have been a good preparation for this. Mountaineering is a long and difficult task, the end of which justifies all that goes in to it. So this illness is to me; I'm tucking my head down and putting one foot in front of the other when it gets hard. That got me to the North Pole, it will get me through this, too.
Ok, are you ready for this one? Pam and Jessica read that one of the biggest problems facing chemo patients is their compromised immune systems. One of the best things that helps to boost immune systems is what babies use to stay healthy during their first year: breast milk. You'll just have to do your own Google search on "breast milk chemo immune" to see what's going around about it. Here's the thing: Jessica had a baby 3 months ago and she's producing more than the baby can handle. She was talking about donating it to a place for mothers who can't nurse. So now (today, for the first time) I am drinking mother's milk smoothies. It's a little strange to think about, but at this point I really am game for anything I can do that will increase the odds.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Quick Status Report
I'm one week into a 4-week chemotherapy program, designed to shrink the tumors. At the end of the 4th week we'll do another PET scan. That will show how effective the chemo treatment is. If the results are good, I'll continue chemotherapy for another two months or so. At that time we'll make the decision about surgery, in January or February, 2009. The most likely scenario calls for me to have surgery on the primary tumor first (colon), and then, after a bit of recovery, having the liver resection done second. Following that I can look forward to another round of chemotherapy, coupled with some radiation, to ensure that everything is really, really gone. All this is how they come up with a cure, rather than with just "backing it off" a bit to buy time. It will be hard, but we're going for the whole thing to be fixed and over with.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Meet the Surgeon
Met with a liver surgeon today. The word is that Dr. Portera is "the man" to have cutting on your liver. He's not only a surgeon but also he's familiar with oncology and the process of how they treat it. That's good for me, because it means the docs all work together and that they are familiar with what each other does.
The next step for me is yet another test. This one is a detailed CT scan, with the goal of building a 3-D model of my liver and how the tumor there is entangled with the other parts. It seems that there are two big blood vessels there, the vena cava and the portal vein. If the tumor has grown onto those, then the tumor is considered "not operable." (If they remove either of those I'll die.) My fingers are crossed, of course. That test will take place next Tuesday, so watch for an update then.
For more information on the parts of the liver, look here. On that page you can see the right and left lobes. The right side, maybe 70% by size, of my liver is almost completely taken over by the tumor. This may account for the symptom of fatigue that I've been having. The surgeon said that he'll have to remove that entire right lobe, but that since it's not doing me any good now anyway I shouldn't notice its absence. The liver is one of the most forgiving organs, in that it will grow back in a few months and I should be as good as new.
The next step for me is yet another test. This one is a detailed CT scan, with the goal of building a 3-D model of my liver and how the tumor there is entangled with the other parts. It seems that there are two big blood vessels there, the vena cava and the portal vein. If the tumor has grown onto those, then the tumor is considered "not operable." (If they remove either of those I'll die.) My fingers are crossed, of course. That test will take place next Tuesday, so watch for an update then.
For more information on the parts of the liver, look here. On that page you can see the right and left lobes. The right side, maybe 70% by size, of my liver is almost completely taken over by the tumor. This may account for the symptom of fatigue that I've been having. The surgeon said that he'll have to remove that entire right lobe, but that since it's not doing me any good now anyway I shouldn't notice its absence. The liver is one of the most forgiving organs, in that it will grow back in a few months and I should be as good as new.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Pump Off!
The pump is off. Though that wasn't all that bad, I'm glad to be free of hoses and pumps and worrying about getting any of that stuff snagged or dropped--ouch! Now let's sit back and watch the drugs work...
Monday, October 20, 2008
Chemo time!
It's chemo time! Today I get on with the business of getting this over with. Though I wasn't thrilled with the idea of chemotherapy (who is?) it seems to offer my best hope and so I am embracing it and going forward.
The chemo process wasn't too bad. They hooked a big needle to my port-a-cath, and then started dripping drugs down the pipe. First, they dripped a couple of bags of anti-nausea medicine, good for 5 days. Then, a sack of saline solution just to top me up, and finally a couple of bags of the "helper" drugs for the actual FolFox chemo. Then, a huge syringe of the 5-FU drug, watching me for reactions all the time, and I'm good to go. (Reactions range from itchy palms to sudden death of heart failure. I'm happy to report that I didn't experience any of them.)
The chemo process wasn't too bad. They hooked a big needle to my port-a-cath, and then started dripping drugs down the pipe. First, they dripped a couple of bags of anti-nausea medicine, good for 5 days. Then, a sack of saline solution just to top me up, and finally a couple of bags of the "helper" drugs for the actual FolFox chemo. Then, a huge syringe of the 5-FU drug, watching me for reactions all the time, and I'm good to go. (Reactions range from itchy palms to sudden death of heart failure. I'm happy to report that I didn't experience any of them.)
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Surgery #1
My first surgical procedure. Though they kind of knocked me out for the endoscopy procedures, this one involved a real trip through the prep room and into my first genuine Operating Room. They installed a
port-a-cath. From what they tell me, this is a very good thing to have when you're going to have as many needles stuck in you as I am. Works for me!
port-a-cath. From what they tell me, this is a very good thing to have when you're going to have as many needles stuck in you as I am. Works for me!
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Beginning
I have to draw the line somewhere, so for now I'll start from here. After about a year of recurring, bothersome gastro-intestinal troubles I got to the point where it was time to see a doctor. We thought it was just a bug that I'd picked up in Mexico. My local doctor here thought it was H. pylori, which turned out to be true. He also suspected more, and scheduled me for an appointment with a GI specialist and his colon-scope.
Before I got in to see the GI guy, Pam went to Mexico and discussed the possibility that I still had some kind of Mexican bug with the locals. They thought my symptoms were very much suggestive of such a bug, and suggested that they would be better able to treat it there than here, and quicker, too. Since I was working in Texas at the time, it was a simple matter to change my flight to go to Los Cabos. Sure enough, a quick test at the Mexican GI doctor confirmed that I had a massive amoebic infection. As part of his "due diligence" insisted on performing a colonoscopy as well. The purging process was pretty horrible, and not even totally successful, but during the actual 'scoping I didn't feel a thing. Sadly, it confirmed a large colorectal tumor, from which he snipped a couple of pieces of tissue for testing.
He suggested that we would get a better insurance deal, and probably more options for better surgery, in the US, so we took the tissue samples to Chattanooga for a pathological anaylsis. Sure enough, it was cancer, and further tests were scheduled to see how far it had gotten.
The CT scan, PET scan, X-rays and ultrasounds all confirmed that the cancer had spread to my liver, but not visibly to any other part of my body. That was pretty good news, as the next place it likes to go is to the lungs, and then on to everywhere. Liver and rectum are bad enough, but so far the prognosis was good enough to talk about "cure" and not merely buying time.
So the summary is this: I have Stage IV malignant colon cancer that has metasticized to my liver. The placement of the colon tumor is high enough that we hope to be able to remove it and then re-connect the intestine, resuming normal bowel function. The liver tumor is huge but looks operable, though it will mean removing 70% of the liver, which should grow back and also resume its normal function.
Before I got in to see the GI guy, Pam went to Mexico and discussed the possibility that I still had some kind of Mexican bug with the locals. They thought my symptoms were very much suggestive of such a bug, and suggested that they would be better able to treat it there than here, and quicker, too. Since I was working in Texas at the time, it was a simple matter to change my flight to go to Los Cabos. Sure enough, a quick test at the Mexican GI doctor confirmed that I had a massive amoebic infection. As part of his "due diligence" insisted on performing a colonoscopy as well. The purging process was pretty horrible, and not even totally successful, but during the actual 'scoping I didn't feel a thing. Sadly, it confirmed a large colorectal tumor, from which he snipped a couple of pieces of tissue for testing.
He suggested that we would get a better insurance deal, and probably more options for better surgery, in the US, so we took the tissue samples to Chattanooga for a pathological anaylsis. Sure enough, it was cancer, and further tests were scheduled to see how far it had gotten.
The CT scan, PET scan, X-rays and ultrasounds all confirmed that the cancer had spread to my liver, but not visibly to any other part of my body. That was pretty good news, as the next place it likes to go is to the lungs, and then on to everywhere. Liver and rectum are bad enough, but so far the prognosis was good enough to talk about "cure" and not merely buying time.
So the summary is this: I have Stage IV malignant colon cancer that has metasticized to my liver. The placement of the colon tumor is high enough that we hope to be able to remove it and then re-connect the intestine, resuming normal bowel function. The liver tumor is huge but looks operable, though it will mean removing 70% of the liver, which should grow back and also resume its normal function.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
