The answer is - no! The Stage 4 Renal Carcinoma is alive

Well, where to start, I got a rude awakening this time. The CT scan last week in Yellowknife showed for the first time that three small nodules in the lower left lobe of my lungs are slowly growing; one has grown from 6mm to 8mm. Lymph nodes in my chest have grown too, whereas they had been slowly shrinking for most of the past two years, showing that my immune system is working overtime fighting something, probably cancer. Of greater worry is that cancerous activity is apparentlty happening in the posterior region of the L1 vertebra in the lumbar region of my back and also something thought to be cancer going on at the base of the spine, where I have had some osteoarthritis in the past. No pain though. Anyway, these new developments are certainly scary.

I have a HELP request in to Dr Nicole Redvers about possibly increasing my Iscador (extract from mistletoe)strength. I am now on Series 2 whereas I could upgrade to Series 3 perhaps. Everything I read about Iscador indicates it helps to shrink tumours and make them disappear.

The good news is that the cancer is moving slowly at this point and hopefully more subject to treatment. The oncologists at Cross Cancer in Edmonton are talking about using a new immunotherapy that is not drug based to target cancer cells in tumours. This new treatment has been successful in other types of cancer. This treatment may start soon.

All this in the face of a planned trip leaving this coming Wednesday the 15^th for Munich, then by train to visit friends in Stuttgart, Germany, visit Dachau etc. Then to Budapest to start the Danube River cruise with 6 other Inuvikites for a week ending up at Nuremburg. Then back to Ottawa to visit Shauna and kids. We have one day in Edmonton on the way back, on December 05, where I could meet with Cross Cancer perhaps if required.

One of my books read this past summer was The Write Prescription: Telling Your Story to Live With and Beyond Illness, by Judith Hannon. She gave many writing exercises, including one where we were asked to write to describe the disease we were challenged with, give it a name, and talk to it like a living thing. So I did that with cancer, and here is the result, at least the part that is printable here!:

"Cancer, you are a sinister hide-and-seek now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t monster. You are evil incarnate. You are cold grey iron. Lurking. Hiding. In your face there is darkness and dismay. Your face has the cold grey eyes and pale bloodless skin of death. Your hair is the colour of cremation’s fire. You wear a long black cloak, perhaps to smother each victim. Neither male or female, you are outside of time and space in this universe."

I still believe that an attitude of gratitude with love and joy will help to defeat the thing. In the meantime I will continue to work on my cancer recovery book, which might help other cancer sufferers deal with their challenges.