Immunotherapy grinds on - making alternative therapies difficult

I am in Fort McPherson this week, keeping Sandra company as she and another trainer give a three day course in mental health first aid. I am also working on some low stress consulting work while I am here.

Immunotherapy grinds on. But I shouldn't complain. I don't have many side effects of the Sunitinib other than some easily-controlled flue symptoms and a general feeling of malaise. I am approaching 20 days of the first 28 day cycle at 50mg/da, which will be followed by a rest period of 14 days then another 28 day stint. In mid February I am to get another CT scan to see the progress the radiation and immunotherapy has made.

Back to the Aklavik experience last week. On Saturday last we, my project buddy Katie and I, tried to drive out of Aklavik on the Mackenzie River Ice Road right after lunch before the plows were out. In places the snow was drifted hard and 2ft deep and we nearly got the 4-wheel drive GMC truck stuck. So we had to  turn around and return to Aklavik. The photo below

shows the wide Mackenzie facing west where there was less snow and an opportunity to turn around. You can see the Mackenzie Mountains away on the horizon. Later on that day, at night when visibility in the vehicle lights is better, with the help of the plows we were able to cover the 120 km in just under 2 ½ hours. Then for 8 of the last 15 km we were following the plow at 16km/hr! In case you are wondering, the ice is likely about one metre thick by this time in the winter.

Another thing you may notice in the photo is the rather eerie light. That is because the photo was taken only about two weeks after the sun came up above the horizon again in early January. If the clouds were not there you would see a magnificent coloured glow in the sky from the sun so close to the horizon away in the southwest.

Thanks to my buddy Ray in Edmonton, who is making great strides in his healing from Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, I was referred to a wonderful book, Radical Remission: surviving cancer against all odds, by  Kelly A Turner, PhD, HarperCollins 2014. I contains so much of the help that I thought I was going to write about in my own book in preparation about my cancer recovery journey. It emphasizes the importance of working with all aspects of mind-body-spirit continuum. So now my book will concentrate on my own journey, with reference to the excellent references in Kelly Turner's book.

In my view we should consider the mind-emotion-body-spirit continuum perspective, because emotions arise from complex often subconscious sources that are distinct from just "mind". Our human experience is a complex interaction between these four factors. All that western medicine, such as the oncologists at Cross Cancer Institute professional as they are, can do is work with the body. When you consider that the body is only 1/4 of our complex continuum, you can begin to see that there are must be other healing factors for the 3/4 that conventional medicine does not address. 

First and foremost in Kelly Turner's book is attention to nutrition, and the foods that trigger cancer cell growth, sugar and milk casein being the biggest culprits. I will talk more about all this in future blog entries. The mind-emotion-body-spirit connections are well known in psychology by the way. For example, see: http://firstnationshealing.com/resources/McCabe.pdf

The delay tactics of radiation and immunotherapy

Radiation is very debilitating, complete with nausea and total loss of appetite. However the good news is that as the 2 1/2 weeks of radiation took place pain got less and less. However, according to the oncologists, radiation doesn't in any way cure cancer - it simply slows its growth.

Following the radiation immunotherapy was prescribed, through a drug called Sutent (Sunitinib) which prevents blood vessels from forming to nourish tumours. However, that too just delays the inevitable. Sometimes the metastasized kidney cancer simply takes off and grows with renewed vigour after being held back.

Another strange thing is that the renal cell carcinoma preferentially attacks bone when it metastasizes. So that is why the three tumours that I am fighting are attacking the base of my skull, and the vertebrae in the lumbar and sacrum areas. Fortunately the cancer doesn't prefer to attack the spinal cord, so I don't need to worry about being wheelchair-bound.

The conclusion is that through the natural healing processes I have talked about in previous posts must be brought forward immediately with renewed vigour. I did meet with our naturopathic doctor in Yellowknife during the first week of January, and she is waiting to see what the next CT scan at the end of my first 28 day Sutent regime shows regarding where the tumours are at. The Sutent immunotherapy treatment is 50mg per day for 28 days, then 14 days off, then 28 days again, with a CT scan at the end of the first cycle.

I have had an interesting time working on a small project in Aklavik this week. But I will be stopping that work to reduce stress when I return to Inuvik at the end of the week. I must now concentrate on exercising all of the natural healing protocols that kept me alive for the first two years.

After all, folks who have a cancer-ridden kidney removed when the cancer has already spread to Stage 4 (as mine was) usually only have a few months to live, whereas I have survived more than two years to this date. So I must have been doing something right, and I intend to beat this thing with all the tools at my disposal. Of course I must depend upon the guidance of my loving Creator as I move forward.