Kris Carr (Kriscarr.com) is creating and emphasizing joy in January 2020. This is a great spiritual principle with which to start the first month of a new decade.
A prophet that I admire once said that all of the fruit trees are withered "because joy is withered away from the sons of men." He brought it into the present tense, which gives it some urgency for change. Pointing out how necessary joy is before there is anything to grow and harvest.
Joy encourages gratitude, and gratitude encourages tolerance and patience. Even in this cancer-riddled life that is my lot today I have a lot to be thankful for. If I concentrate on thankfulness I can be tolerant and patient, and I can face any difficult experience with true acceptance.
My greatest challenge in my cancer recovery journey is pain management. I have to take a plethora (my new word for today) of drugs for pain and side effects. Some of the drugs are needed to address the side effects of other drugs!!
I like my new thought (new to me anyway) that pain is necessary for new birth. I can always find new opportunities, new experiences to be joyful in and thankful for, if I am willing to feel pain without giving up the fight to manage it.
Maybe I am being too philosophical, but I really do believe that if I face pain with a positive attitude, then my cancer experience becomes helpful rather than hurtful. If I am successful in my cancer recovery efforts, then perhaps I can help other cancer sufferers who need encouragement.
Thursday, 30 January 2020
Sunday, 19 January 2020
Kris Carr and Inner Circle Wellness
Hello folks,
I have joined Kris Carr's Inner Circle Wellness Facebook group and I am truly working on being the most positive cancer survivor I can be. If you search out more about Kris you will find out more about her cancer recovery journey. She is an amazing storyteller and her natural healing journey is very similar to mine, especially as far at nutrition is concerned, eliminating refined sugar and simple carbs as much as possible, and increasing vegetable/fresh fruit intake by orders of magnitude. If you search for her on the Internet you will find that she is now a 27 year survivor of an incurable cancer. She still carries the tumors, but they are dormant. That is very similar to my story. I will always have the tumors on my spine. The key to survival is to stop their growth indefinitely.
Kris has not mentioned injecting mistletoe, in my case Iscador and Viscosan, another similar product, three times a week at fairly strong doses. Actually I attribute my survival to mistletoe, and to eliminating as much as possible both sugar and milk (casein feeds cancer cells too). For some reason, only understood by cancer microbiologists, cancer cells thrive on the energy from sugars, but cannot metabolize fats. So almost all of my energy food is derived from fats and oils.
The concussion from that traffic accident is still haunting me. I must get at least 10 hours of sleep a night to encourage healing, but I am constantly somewhat dizzy and nauseous. This is something new, not things caused by side effects of pain killer drugs. I am still wrestling with recording things for insurance purposes. My new hearing aid is on order so that's the main thing.
As far as pain killers is concerned what works for me is Butrans 20 patches and up to 8 extra strength Tylenol (acetaminophen) and only for the tumor on the left side of my sacrum. And I also have to take a drug to minimize the effects of shingles, which have exploded after the accident and the concussion. Stress really influences shingles.
Well, I am still happy to be alive today.
I have joined Kris Carr's Inner Circle Wellness Facebook group and I am truly working on being the most positive cancer survivor I can be. If you search out more about Kris you will find out more about her cancer recovery journey. She is an amazing storyteller and her natural healing journey is very similar to mine, especially as far at nutrition is concerned, eliminating refined sugar and simple carbs as much as possible, and increasing vegetable/fresh fruit intake by orders of magnitude. If you search for her on the Internet you will find that she is now a 27 year survivor of an incurable cancer. She still carries the tumors, but they are dormant. That is very similar to my story. I will always have the tumors on my spine. The key to survival is to stop their growth indefinitely.
Kris has not mentioned injecting mistletoe, in my case Iscador and Viscosan, another similar product, three times a week at fairly strong doses. Actually I attribute my survival to mistletoe, and to eliminating as much as possible both sugar and milk (casein feeds cancer cells too). For some reason, only understood by cancer microbiologists, cancer cells thrive on the energy from sugars, but cannot metabolize fats. So almost all of my energy food is derived from fats and oils.
The concussion from that traffic accident is still haunting me. I must get at least 10 hours of sleep a night to encourage healing, but I am constantly somewhat dizzy and nauseous. This is something new, not things caused by side effects of pain killer drugs. I am still wrestling with recording things for insurance purposes. My new hearing aid is on order so that's the main thing.
As far as pain killers is concerned what works for me is Butrans 20 patches and up to 8 extra strength Tylenol (acetaminophen) and only for the tumor on the left side of my sacrum. And I also have to take a drug to minimize the effects of shingles, which have exploded after the accident and the concussion. Stress really influences shingles.
Well, I am still happy to be alive today.
Sunday, 12 January 2020
An accident in ice fog at 40 below
After last week in Yellowknife I am lucky to be alive. Car accidents can kill as well as cancer. I was the only occupant and driving our old 1986 Toyota Tercel in Yellowknife at -39C (we used to call it the YK Limo!). I was driving slowly near the hospital on Old Airport Road. There was a lot of ice fog but all northerners are used to that.
Anyway, I was rear-ended by a full-sized car at high speed. That was the loudest bang that I have ever heard. It pushed the back of my car forward a couple of feet, spun my vehicle around nearly 180 degrees, and mangled the front end of the larger car that hit me. I suffered severe whip-lash, and both the right side of my nose and my breast bone collided with the steering wheel on the rebound. My glasses flew off (I found them) and my right hearing aid launched forward and bounced somewhere off the windshield. The hearing aid is lost.
Lots of blood everywhere because of the impact on my nose. I am lucky it was not broken. I was taken to Emergency at the nearby Stanton Territorial Hospital by ambulance. I suffered some concussion, as evidenced by dizziness and vertigo that lasted about 42 hours. I was released about 6 1/2 hours later after X-rays and CT scans that revealed no fractures, just stretched muscles and ligaments. My nose is still very tender on the right side.
As I got out of my vehicle (I was able to stand, but barely) the other driver began shouting at me about why was I driving so slow, and all I could say over and over in response was "I am injured." At nearly 40 below everything freezes quickly. I phoned Sandra who was back at our quite nearby hotel to say I had an accident but was sitting in an ambulance so was OK. Then the battery in my phone went dead in the cold temperatures and I was unaware when she tried to phone me back. Momentarily two ambulances and an RCMP officer arrived on the scene and the interrogation began. The concussion really slowed my thinking and talking down and I could hardly answer their questions. But by that time Sandra had arrived, running down the road from our nearby Stanton Suites Hotel. She helped make my responses intelligible to the ambulance personnel and to the RCMP Constable.
Later on at the receiving station at the Emergency entrance of the hospital the police officer took my statement of the accident. He was very kind and considerate. I will be talking to him later this evening to find out where the old car was towed after the accident so that our Yellowknife friends can take everything out of what's left of the car that's of value before it is taken to the dump. That's where the YK Limo will end up after the insurance folks have done their investigation.
On the positive side, my immunotherapy session went well. A CT scan was scheduled for Thursday at 1:00PM to check on my very painful sacrum tumor. Then on Friday morning I found out that the CT scan showed that the tumor had grown about 1 cm in only one direction, and that the measurement was within the margin of measurement error. So they did not think the tumor was growing significantly, although it may now with a small enlargement be pressing on nerves causing pain.
I will be back to Yellowknife for the next oncology consult and immunotherapy shot February 6 - 7. So that's all for now.
Anyway, I was rear-ended by a full-sized car at high speed. That was the loudest bang that I have ever heard. It pushed the back of my car forward a couple of feet, spun my vehicle around nearly 180 degrees, and mangled the front end of the larger car that hit me. I suffered severe whip-lash, and both the right side of my nose and my breast bone collided with the steering wheel on the rebound. My glasses flew off (I found them) and my right hearing aid launched forward and bounced somewhere off the windshield. The hearing aid is lost.
Lots of blood everywhere because of the impact on my nose. I am lucky it was not broken. I was taken to Emergency at the nearby Stanton Territorial Hospital by ambulance. I suffered some concussion, as evidenced by dizziness and vertigo that lasted about 42 hours. I was released about 6 1/2 hours later after X-rays and CT scans that revealed no fractures, just stretched muscles and ligaments. My nose is still very tender on the right side.
As I got out of my vehicle (I was able to stand, but barely) the other driver began shouting at me about why was I driving so slow, and all I could say over and over in response was "I am injured." At nearly 40 below everything freezes quickly. I phoned Sandra who was back at our quite nearby hotel to say I had an accident but was sitting in an ambulance so was OK. Then the battery in my phone went dead in the cold temperatures and I was unaware when she tried to phone me back. Momentarily two ambulances and an RCMP officer arrived on the scene and the interrogation began. The concussion really slowed my thinking and talking down and I could hardly answer their questions. But by that time Sandra had arrived, running down the road from our nearby Stanton Suites Hotel. She helped make my responses intelligible to the ambulance personnel and to the RCMP Constable.
Later on at the receiving station at the Emergency entrance of the hospital the police officer took my statement of the accident. He was very kind and considerate. I will be talking to him later this evening to find out where the old car was towed after the accident so that our Yellowknife friends can take everything out of what's left of the car that's of value before it is taken to the dump. That's where the YK Limo will end up after the insurance folks have done their investigation.
On the positive side, my immunotherapy session went well. A CT scan was scheduled for Thursday at 1:00PM to check on my very painful sacrum tumor. Then on Friday morning I found out that the CT scan showed that the tumor had grown about 1 cm in only one direction, and that the measurement was within the margin of measurement error. So they did not think the tumor was growing significantly, although it may now with a small enlargement be pressing on nerves causing pain.
I will be back to Yellowknife for the next oncology consult and immunotherapy shot February 6 - 7. So that's all for now.
Monday, 6 January 2020
The sun is coming back
Today is a great day because the sun peeped above the horizon today January 6, 2020.
That is the sun peeping up across the roof of the Inuvik hospital. It is a joyful time for people of the Arctic when the sun returns from its travels below the horizon for a few weeks in mid-winter.
Well, I will be publishing a cancer poem in a Canadian poetry magazine called fresh voices. Here is my poem, after review and editing:
So there you have it. I hope that you can relate to it. I intend to write more poetry about the effects and feelings brought about by cancer.
That is the sun peeping up across the roof of the Inuvik hospital. It is a joyful time for people of the Arctic when the sun returns from its travels below the horizon for a few weeks in mid-winter.
Well, I will be publishing a cancer poem in a Canadian poetry magazine called fresh voices. Here is my poem, after review and editing:
A Journey
Diagnosis?
The words –
you have cancer,
put me on death row.
The cold grey iron foe
lurks
just behind the door,
a hide-and-seek monster
with a face of darkness
and dismay.
Waiting
for the ax to fall,
for the pale bloodless
skin of death
Cancer – evil incarnate,
trails a long black cloak,
smothers each victim.
Sexless – not man or
woman,
outside time and space.
Yet – wind and oak
whisper,
cherish the mistletoe,
a mystery healer.
Choose life, hope –
believe and thrive –
each day a blessing
So there you have it. I hope that you can relate to it. I intend to write more poetry about the effects and feelings brought about by cancer.
Sunday, 5 January 2020
Gratitude for life and cancer in 2020
I never know how to start a blog post. But this one is easy. I am grateful for life - I came close to losing it a few months ago. .
I am grateful for cancer, because cancer taught me gratitude for life, and convinced me to be joyful in each new day as it comes one day at a time. It taught me to savor the cold north wind, the bright hope of spring, the joy of a summer breeze, and the pungent bright autumn when many things prepare for a long winter's nap.
I am grateful for my friends. Life gets pretty lonely without a few friends who stick with me through thick and thin. And I am especially grateful for my family, my daughters and my spouse and my extended family in recovery. I am also grateful for little Hagar the shih tzu pooch who never leaves my side during my illness. He simply will not let me get depressed, always insisting that he is too a part of my family!
I am not grateful for the present leadership of our great country to the south of us. I am distraught by the warmongering of Mr Trump, as he starts the new Year with an assassination of Iran's top military leader, but I see no way that it can be stopped. I tend to be quite conservative, but I cannot condone an act of violence of the kind that starts world wars.
Enough politics about war. But I do have a little war poem I would like to share with you. Here it is:
On Wednesday the 8th of January I leave for Yellowknife for my monthly shot of Nivolumab to keep the Stage 4 kidney cancer at bay. Sandra and I will do a bit of shopping too for things that we cannot get here. We have an old 1986 Toyota Tercel in YK that starts in all weather. It is parked at 3916 Ragged Ass Road, a house that we own that is rented out to a super good renter. So every time we go to Yellowknife we have transportation.
Sandra has just given me a quotable quote attributed to Isaac Asimov: "I write for the same reason I breathe. Because if I didn't, I would die." That applies to me too.
As I am sure you know, Isaac Asimov wrote the best science fiction in the last century. I am in awe of the breadth of his published writing, in many fiction genres as well as nonfiction works to make many aspects of science intelligible to the ordinary citizen. In keeping with his scifi prowess he has an asteroid and a crater on Mars named after him. I take Asimov as one of my writing heroes, because he was not afraid to write about absolutely anything that interested him.
I am grateful for cancer, because cancer taught me gratitude for life, and convinced me to be joyful in each new day as it comes one day at a time. It taught me to savor the cold north wind, the bright hope of spring, the joy of a summer breeze, and the pungent bright autumn when many things prepare for a long winter's nap.
I am grateful for my friends. Life gets pretty lonely without a few friends who stick with me through thick and thin. And I am especially grateful for my family, my daughters and my spouse and my extended family in recovery. I am also grateful for little Hagar the shih tzu pooch who never leaves my side during my illness. He simply will not let me get depressed, always insisting that he is too a part of my family!
I am not grateful for the present leadership of our great country to the south of us. I am distraught by the warmongering of Mr Trump, as he starts the new Year with an assassination of Iran's top military leader, but I see no way that it can be stopped. I tend to be quite conservative, but I cannot condone an act of violence of the kind that starts world wars.
Enough politics about war. But I do have a little war poem I would like to share with you. Here it is:
Futility
of War
Fire and blood
Signature of war and pain
Blood in the trenches
Fire in the sky
As warriors plummet to
earth
Wings broken, doomed
I have submitted a cancer poem for publication. I will give you some details in a later post, after I edit the poem tomorrow and have it accepted in final form. If I am going to be a writer this year, then I must be less afraid of rejection and submit my work as often as an opportunity is presented.
Sandra has just given me a quotable quote attributed to Isaac Asimov: "I write for the same reason I breathe. Because if I didn't, I would die." That applies to me too.
As I am sure you know, Isaac Asimov wrote the best science fiction in the last century. I am in awe of the breadth of his published writing, in many fiction genres as well as nonfiction works to make many aspects of science intelligible to the ordinary citizen. In keeping with his scifi prowess he has an asteroid and a crater on Mars named after him. I take Asimov as one of my writing heroes, because he was not afraid to write about absolutely anything that interested him.
Friday, 3 January 2020
Some revelations and a difficult start to 2020
I would like to start this January 3, 2020 blog with very best wishes to all my faithful readers of my writing efforts, and all the new readers that I hope for in the New Year. We have a new decade ahead of us and may you all thrive during 2020.
My only New Year's resolution is to write something every day! I hope that I can keep it.
The revelations in the title are that on the first day of the new 2020 decade Sandra and I very belatedly decided to look up all of the side effects for the many medications that I am taking for cancer recovery. I have been having many things change in my daily life, such as: drowsiness, very unsteady on my feet, dizziness, dry mouth, mild nausea, constipation, weight gain, variable appetite, headaches,etc. I have been worried that these things are indications of cancer progression.
Lo and behold, these are all expected side effects of the two main medications I am on, namely Pregabalin for the shingles nerve pain and Butrans 20 (Buprenorphine) for the cancer-generated pain in my lower left sacrum area. The other drugs I am on have similar side effects. So the worry about all of these effects being cancer increasing, cancer spreading, etc are not right at all. All of my present ailments (but one that I will mention below) are not caused by cancer, but by the drugs that I am on.
The one nagging thing NOT caused by the drugs is increasing pain in my lower left sacrum tumor. Not a fun way to start the New Year. Twice over the past three days the pain has increased very close to 10/10 intensity, lasting for hours at a time. Now, that could just be a natural progression of the tumor's presence, or, the tumor may be growing. I will be going to Yellowknife next week for oncology consult on Thursday Jan 9 and nivo (Nivolumab) treatment on Friday the 10th. I have asked the Cancer Coordinator to request another CT scan sometime during those days to see if that tumor is growing.
Today marks the first day of Inuvik's 3-day Sunrise Festival, celebrating the return of the sun, with huge bonfires down on the ice of the Mackenzie River, with lots of food, and singing and dancing. We have had one full month from December 5 through to January 6 when the Sun does not come up at all. Of course we have the sun just below the horizon during the day so we have a beautiful twilight, sunrise/sunset that drifts across the sky from about 11 am to 3 pm (if the sky isn't cloud covered, that is, and we do have a lot of cloud cover).
This lower photo shows how the sky looks when the sun first peaks above the horizon in the first week of January. In this case it was January sunrise in 2015.
Right now, as I write, it is 4pm and the dark of night has returned.
My only New Year's resolution is to write something every day! I hope that I can keep it.
The revelations in the title are that on the first day of the new 2020 decade Sandra and I very belatedly decided to look up all of the side effects for the many medications that I am taking for cancer recovery. I have been having many things change in my daily life, such as: drowsiness, very unsteady on my feet, dizziness, dry mouth, mild nausea, constipation, weight gain, variable appetite, headaches,etc. I have been worried that these things are indications of cancer progression.
Lo and behold, these are all expected side effects of the two main medications I am on, namely Pregabalin for the shingles nerve pain and Butrans 20 (Buprenorphine) for the cancer-generated pain in my lower left sacrum area. The other drugs I am on have similar side effects. So the worry about all of these effects being cancer increasing, cancer spreading, etc are not right at all. All of my present ailments (but one that I will mention below) are not caused by cancer, but by the drugs that I am on.
The one nagging thing NOT caused by the drugs is increasing pain in my lower left sacrum tumor. Not a fun way to start the New Year. Twice over the past three days the pain has increased very close to 10/10 intensity, lasting for hours at a time. Now, that could just be a natural progression of the tumor's presence, or, the tumor may be growing. I will be going to Yellowknife next week for oncology consult on Thursday Jan 9 and nivo (Nivolumab) treatment on Friday the 10th. I have asked the Cancer Coordinator to request another CT scan sometime during those days to see if that tumor is growing.
Today marks the first day of Inuvik's 3-day Sunrise Festival, celebrating the return of the sun, with huge bonfires down on the ice of the Mackenzie River, with lots of food, and singing and dancing. We have had one full month from December 5 through to January 6 when the Sun does not come up at all. Of course we have the sun just below the horizon during the day so we have a beautiful twilight, sunrise/sunset that drifts across the sky from about 11 am to 3 pm (if the sky isn't cloud covered, that is, and we do have a lot of cloud cover).
This is a photo taken from our deck on December 7, 2019 at about 12:30 pm showing that we have twilight, not darkness.
This lower photo shows how the sky looks when the sun first peaks above the horizon in the first week of January. In this case it was January sunrise in 2015.
Right now, as I write, it is 4pm and the dark of night has returned.
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