Re-Thinking

Hi There,

Looks like my body really does not like chemotherapy. Even if Gemzar and Cisplatin work in vitro, as the Nagourney assay showed, that combination does not work for me.

My PET scan sucked big time, lots of progression. While numbers and digital pictures help us gauge what is happening with our bodies in this crazy mixed up world, I refuse to let that get me down. I am taking several supplements to help halt the progression of the cancer, NAC and Quercitin, suggested by Dr. Anthony Bazzan. I need time detox from all the chemo, (which made me so sick I had to have a blood transfusion with platelets thrown in for good measure) and rethink what the hell I am going to do. I do know I am going to juice fast, then perhaps water fast while I decide what to do next. Fasting is a very powerful way to get the body to heal.

Heal!


Kiki

Waiting

Waiting for PET scan results. Have been at An Oasis of Healing clinic for almost a month. One of the best clinics I know to help guide cancer travelers to a more healthy lifestyle and healing. The staff there are phenomenal. I feel great! Still a PET scan can make one feel crazy.

A letter to my liver and painting trees

Hi Friends,

Goodness, what a month already. Remember I was sick of being sick, well I actually ended up in the hospital. Wow! The Xeloda is giving me trouble with breathing, my heart, and more (like they say in ads). Still my doctors want me to stay on it until they can work out what I can do to stave off those little bastards that are still in my liver.

Open letter to my liver.

Dear Liver,

Please, please be healthy, and mark those maverick cells to self destruct. I don't want to be unkind, but I need you to work harder at expelling them, and creating much more flexible and generous cells, ones who have a better work ethic. I don't mind the idea of going rogue, but not right now. We all need to work as a team-you know "all for one and all that".

I will give you more green juice and you can do your Japanese warrior thing okay.

With love

Kiki

That is it really. I want to get on with my art. I am painting these watercolors at present, I like them and think they have a potential for something in the future. Back in the tree business. How wonderful and amazing they are. Most are sleeping, at rest, and shut down like giant bears dotted all over. Buds closed tight, until spring when out will come their flower and berry secrets. Joy, just can't wait. It will help me identify them too.

What am I talking about you may wonder. Around where I live, is a literal cornucopia of timber. Amazing trees, some indigenous to pennsylvania others, brought in and exotic. Right on my doorstep are these giant plants. I have already started to research and document them. I look forward to painting them.

So, yes enough sickness. Bring on the paintbrushes for goodness sake. I need an art infusion now!

Kiki

New Year

Gosh, Happy New Year Everyone,

What a year! Do you know I am so sick of having cancer. I am so over having this disease. I have researched so much about it, ate the right food, done the diet, changed my thinking, life and so on. Still my "terrain" my personal environment is playing host.

I have been thinking about the hostess me. What I am giving this cancer to keep it at my party? The wine, the chocolate? I know I need to take this body out and get more exercise- this is on my list of new years intentions. To get myself out there.

It is sometimes so hard to "get out there", especially as I decided to take the chemotherapy drug, Xeloda. It makes one tired, gives me the most outrageous hot flashes. One minute of nausea and intense sadness, and two minutes of heat which as all you hot flashers out there know feels like an eternity.

Do I still have the stamina to keep moving forward in this crazy god given life I have- you becha! I have found another doctor (I know one more) who has a practice associated with the Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia. I think he some ideas and treatments which will help my liver. High dose vitamin C, and Milk thistle infusions. Thank goodness there are still some options.

Today

Today I was updating my "Crazy Sexy Cancer" profile page I thought I would share it with you all.


About Me:
I am an artist, and was a college professor. I believe in love, living passionately and looking at life as one big adventurous opportunity. I have walked the road less travelled by, and while It has been hard life is a treasure. Still walking after 12 years of C.

I have metastasized breast cancer in my lungs, (BC since 1998 ER and PR positive) my pelvis, L2 and now have some little suckers in my liver. I believe in loving and not being at war with myself is the answer, as I cannot hate my cancer, it is not the devil to be exorcised. My cancer is a result of something I am not looking at, something physical, emotional, environmental. I am not going to give up digging, delving, and researching. Cancer is the "call" the call to listen, to change, to make an action. Today I was thinking of the word "defiant". Defiant at what has been presented to me on my CT scan, defiant that my number is up, defiant that I will be pushing up daisies by next year! That is it right now anyway. Nope not gonna accept the pink slip.

At present, I am studying the history of the liver, and why I am so drawn to the color red. When I was diagnosed with mets in my lungs it was yellow, bones orange-am I working my way down the color chakras, isn't it supposed to be the other way around. Perhaps I can find my own Da Vinci Code!

There you have it today.

P.S. Has anyone see the Showtime series "The Big C" unless she has some cathartic turn-around, that show is a piece of giant poo! I don't know one person with cancer who acts that way. Who can be so glib when your life is on the line, maybe at first, but honestly. I think "The Big C" is a Hollywood "idea" of what one would do, and the general unknowing public (Sorry general unknowing public), a game one plays at a party "So what would you do if you had only a year to live?" I especially don't like the way they have written the support group people. Those people can sometimes be our only lifeline! Boo to Laura Linney who produces it. I hope you turn your character around!

Cheese and Wine, so Hard to Resist

Rhythms, rituals, and routines is the hallmark of my life it seems. I am sure we all share those to some degree. This past summer, which is nearly over, just lacked all of that. I just couldn't get a grip on it, and as a result felt just rudderless.

I have a wonderfully organized garden which has some great vegetables growing like mad in several patches and also I have a studio in an adjacent apartment to ours to work in. However getting out there, getting up there, was/is like pulling teeth. Of course it was so hot so soon this summer, as most would agree, who could do much but complain, wait and argue, (I felt bloated, fat, and tired most of the time) and mostly because I found myself eating the wrong food. Not wrong, but not "appropriate to my health issues".

I do have to pat myself on the back because even though it appeared and was sort of true I wasn't eating very well, I actually was getting in two raw salads a day, and several green smoothies. The problem was I was adding in several glasses of red wine, chocolate and cheese!

Gosh Cheese! Who can not live without wine and cheese, and moreover, who can not love wine and cheese? (except a lactose intolerant person or those few aliens from another planet who wince at the sight or smell of it) Further when you eat cheese you have to have a rich red multi-layered, berry-laced, slightly earthy cabernet or a fresh slightly grapefruit-y, tangy, gooseberry white. Certainly if one has the wine first, the cheese inevitably comes next as one is too happy to care. Life becomes a dream of tastes and delight, one feels a post orgasmic bliss of the soul, the vapors even.

What I love to do is have a mouthful of a nice full bodied red wine, swallow, pause for a minute to get fullness of the taste, then eat a cherry, enjoy that, then take another sip of the wine, and wow! The fruits in the wine go wild. Now to "up the ante" have a piece of a strong blue cheese and then buckle up your seatbelt because that will send you to the moon, and while you are flying you can hear the "hallelujah" chorus in your head. Another fun thing is to have some white wine, get a chunk of Jarlsberg, and do the same, ships ahoy! Seriously cheese makes the wine creamer, the wine makes the cheese nuttier. So wonderful. The more healthy way to do this is to get an organic wine, or better still Whole Foods sells a "no sulfates added" organic wine, and raw goats cheese. These are less acidic for your body which is more healthy. I mention that because if you do fall off the wagon, at the very least you can be somewhat careful.

Chocolate is another one of my pleasures; the reward giving, sinfully delicious, theobromine mind soother! which I have gobbled up like a naughty child hoping not to get caught. What is it about chocolate? It does have some amazing properties, but sadly not the kind we crave. The chocolate we love is heated, processed, has tons of sugar in it, and probably something the FDA and the AMA have also added to keep us addicted, so we don't ever uncover the truth, but that is another essay. Raw cocoa though, is very very good for us in moderation (is that ever possible with this exotic pod). Raw cocoa has many properties that have been enjoyed for hundreds of years- one can experience an almost fruity taste when eaten in its raw state. Please try it with some Lucuma (a low calorie sweetener) or tiny spoonful of honey. Stevia forget it. I have tried so many kinds, it either tastes bitter, or the leaf kind literally smells like poo. No thank you! I'll take a few grams of natural sugar.

Of course all of this is not allowed on the vegan diet, it is so sad. This summer I hope I got away with it, because as soon as my husband goes back to work to teach, it will be time to pull myself up by my boot straps and knock it off! Cancer just loves it when I get all gooey and cheesy, non selective and choosy. So once in Maine, for the last leg of this summer, it is back to the boot camp with occasional cheating (like on our wedding anniversary August 25th). I hope I can keep to it, as my life depends on it. It is so easy to fall of the wagon and stay off. Alas. Still I have my memories...

What's Next?

Hi Dear Friends,

What's next is the question I have been asking myself since I returned from the the wonderful "Oasis". I have taken a break for a while from tests, doctor visits and so on and just focused on walking the talk. It can be tough.

I finally, after some pelvic pain and some depression rearing it's naughty head, realized it was time again to up the ante and get pro-active again. "Will this ever end?" you and I ask, my reply "No, it is for life, to get more life really." So here I go again.

Last week I met with a new doctor whose name I won't mention but is was a disaster, such a shame as I had high hopes. I wrestled whether I should go back as they offered hi dose vitamin c, which I greatly need at present. After chatting with some other professionals I found out this is part the process too (and dropping 500 bucks! Whoa!) Finding people, surrounding oneself with healers, visionaries, and smart doctors is the way to get closer to healing. I noticed a pattern with the doctors I liked and ones that I did not; great visionary and learned doctors have a staff who are cut from the same cloth. All are positive with patients, are interesting to talk to, and have a holistic connection with the "process" of healing. Why would I want anything less than that. That said I talked with a second clinic and "voila" what a difference. The doctor called me back the same day, and was interested! How cool is that! I came off the phone knowing something new to do and an appointment. Pattern number 2: Cool doctors always can tell you something you didn't know. Pattern number 3: They also give you hope, and that is the best thing any doctor or person can do!