Crazy Cancer Recovery and Courage

Yes it is. Cancer is crazy. I never know one day to the next how I am going to feel.

General improvement all around, brain working fine. However dizziness and near fainting is still quite random. Today is one of those days. Early this afternoon I was quite dizzy so I measured my blood pressure resulting in 102/60. Now, that's low but shouldn't account for the dizziness.

I have been getting incredible inspiration from video talks by Kris Carr (see kriscarr.com) and her buddy Marie Forleo. As a result of these talks on all aspects of healthy living and cancer recovery with joy, and reading Kris's books with the catchy titles Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor and Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips written for young women cancer survivors in particular (as you can imagine putting the "S" word in the titles made them bestsellers very quickly) I have completely revised my approach to writing a book on my cancer recovery journey. I now realize that the book has to be hard hitting and easy to read - the stuff I have written so far is too dry and academic.

Oh by the way, here are a couple of photos. The first one is my writing nook tucked in at the back of the living room. 

The second photo tells the story of the Arctic in winter. Dark and bright snow, with the sun just below the horizon.

Just to give you an idea of the book I am writing, here is my intended pitch to possible literary agents that might be interested in representing me. I need to edit it with some new ideas in mind:

Pitch Slam – draft 3 Two paragraphs – 269 words, 100 seconds oral delivery.

My tag line: Cancer Survivor, Author, Speaker: Choose – Hope – Survive and thrive.

I am glad to be alive today. Twice in the past 4 years I was told I would die within 8 months from Stage 4 kidney cancer. My memoir’s purpose is to inspire cancer sufferers and their caregivers to seek longer life and find joy in recovery – to Choose – Hope – Survive. I use story-telling and poems to add to my writing style. I emphasize that you can combine cancer treatment with practical natural healing to survive terminal cancer and still reach your dreams. I know that’s true because I am here! I used the methods of this book in the face of aggressive Stage 4 Renal Cell Carcinoma and my two near-death experiences. Now for a short summary of the book.

Anyone who suffers from cancer can prolong life. If the prognosis is weeks or months to live, accept your feelings, challenge them and choose life – longer life. Don’t accept the mortality statistics for your cancer. You are an individual, not a statistic. Take charge of your own health. Choose Life. That very personal choice turns fear into excitement, enhances healing, and brings Hope. You will hear the birds and smell the buds of spring again! Then take the steps necessary to Survive. First, accept whatever the doctor prescribes – radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy. Then, find complementary alternative healing methods for your cancer – take ownership of your own health. There’s more. The power of belief is a clinical fact. If you believe you will recover, you probably will. If you accept the doctor’s prognosis of weeks to live – guess what – you will die within that time! So, remember: Choose – Hope – Survive and thrive!

And then, so long folks. Back soon.

Unhooked and ready to go!

Not unhinged I hope, but yes unhooked from the intravenous Nivolumab treatment at Stanton Territorial Hospital for another month. In March 2020, I will have to go through a routine CT scan administered by the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton as well to ensure that said sacrum tumor is not growing. I will also have to provide a detailed list of what vitamins I take and how much. 

They at Stanton Hospital know about the natural healing things that I do, including mistletoe injection three times a week, elk velvet to boost the immune system so it can attack cancer cells, and high potency Curcumin, the active ingredient of turmeric spice which has cancer healing and prevention properties. The doctors and pharmacists have no comment - their only concern is whether any of these things are likely to interact with their wonderful drugs in any negative way. That is a good thing to know of course.

It never fails to amaze me that the North American pharmaceutical and medical industry is TOTALLY uncaring about natural healing. They even don't care how much sugar I consume, even though there is a huge body of research knowledge supporting the "sugar feeds cancer cells" fact.

The total pain control regimen is working pretty good. I have two Butran 10 patches, changed every week, topped up by Hydromorphone 1mg every four hours as needed. And it is usually needed. Sometimes the pain flares up and feels like being stabbed with a knife. I can take up to 4000 mg of tylenol/acetaminophen in a 24 hour period for sickness or pain, but not more than two extra strength (500mg) tablets at any one time. I have been taking a lot more than two at a time, so I will slow that down a bit, for the sake of future liver function.

Then there is Pregabalin 50mg twice a day to keep the shingles nerve prickles and pain in check, Tamsulosin 0.4mg, two tablets per day at night before bed to help with the urinary necessities, and Synthroid 25mcg two tablets per day. And last but not least 4mg tablets of Ondansetron, 8mg at a time, for nausea that is sometimes cased by the whole cocktail of drugs. The nausea is minimum if I drink plenty of water, usually two to three litres per day of good non-tap water.

Oh, I have been reading the proceedings of a conference on cell functioning, including cancer cells, called The Mitochondrial Summit which included many physicians and medical research experts talking about their patients and their research results on very many aspects of cell function. Mitochondria are tiny organelles in our cells that generate energy and heat in the body, and they help tell our cells when and how to grow or die. Heavy duty stuff, but I like to get to the bottom of how life is sustained and how cancer cells live and die. So if my mitochondria are doing badly because of body toxicity I feel drained, sluggish and down.

It is very interesting that here too, I read of physicians working with their patients recommending joy (going beyond happiness but being truly joyful) through journaling and meditation. That is so SO much in support of what I believe and what Kris Carr talks about in her training modules in personal wellness.

Well I think I have rambled on long enough. Have a good weekend everyone.

A beautiful day in the Arctic

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in the Arctic. The temperature is still cold, at -34C right now, but the brightness of the sun is a promise of spring in the not too distant future. And each day lengthens a few minutes a day. It is now 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the sun is just past its maximum height, just above the trees.

Although the NWT follows mountain time for economic convenience, being so closely linked with Alberta, it should be noted that the Territory actually goes a long way west as well as north, as you follow down the Mackenzie River to reach Inuvik. So much so that if you follow a longitude line down from Inuvik to the latitude of Vancouver, the intersection of latitude and longitude ends up away west in the Pacific Ocean, as far west of Vancouver as Vancouver is west of Calgary. So the sun is highest in the sky here in Inuvik at about 2:30 PM Mountain Time.

It is good to finally have a normally cold winter, so the ice roads are safe for heavy truck traffic, crossing the Peel and Mackenzie Rivers to reach Inuvik on the Dempster highway, then on to Tuktoyaktuk or Aklavik.

Although it is sunny today, we have just had a cloudy week of almost constant snowfall with the temperature continuing in the -30's. And the snow is not light and fluffy at those temperatures but quite dense and heavy. Sandra has been doing a lot of shovelling, and a good contractor friend and neighbor by the name of Randy asked his man on the machine to clean out our driveway so that Sandra didn't have to shovel that out too. It was wonderful to have that done free of charge.

My health is so precarious with all the drugs that I am on that I have little strength in my legs and I am dizzy enough to often be in danger of falling. Some of the dizziness is still a remnant of the accident and subsequent concussion. So that is my reason/excuse for not being the snow shoveller in the family. 

So this has been just a rambling post talking about our winter experience in the Arctic. Our 2010 Volvo doesn't mind the cold at all and starts well without the block-heater being plugged in down to about -30. Actually, last winter when the battery was a year newer our V50 started at -39 one morning without being plugged in.

We plan to drive south to Edmonton in the last week of July to get the car maintained, new rear brake pads, and a new battery, and a few other important checks. Here in Inuvik we have Fred as a great mechanic for ordinary maintenance such as oil changes and pointing out what needs to be done of a more serious nature.

It is a 3 1/2 day and 3,500 km drive from Inuvik to Edmonton, west and south down through the Yukon, to Whitehorse and down through northeastern BC into northern Alberta. So it is a drive we make only once every year or two.

We are debating about changing to a newer model vehicle, probably a Toyota. However, money is tight so we might stick with the Volvo for another couple of years. It is interesting that Toyota is the only imported vehicle that has enough reliability for the Arctic. My guess is that nine out of ten taxis in the NWT are Toyotas. The taxi drivers we know swear by them regarding reliability and economy of operation and maintenance.