Hello my friend, hello!

I often think of Neil Diamonds song with the line Hello my friend, hello. It comes back to me very often so that is my title today.

Hurray for remission! Somehow I feel different about this remission. The fact that there has been no tumor growth in three months has been very encouraging. However, there is some fear that continuing monthly immunotherapy is absolutely necessary for continued good health.

My oncologist, Dr Mansouri in Yellowknife, believes that my Nivolumab immunotherapy every month is more important than the COVID 19 risk of travel Inuvik to Yellowknife for treatment. And its interesting that we now have flights to and from Yellowknife only twice a week because of COVID 19, instead of the usual seven days a week! So I may have some difficulty arranging my treatments down the road. My next treatment, including a special appointment with an urologist to determine what is to be done about my bladder blockage and swollen prostate, will be in early to mid May.

Actually, living with the catheter and urine bags strapped to my leg has turned out to be completely manageable. And the fact that I only need to take a pain pill twice a day is just great. I certainly don't look forward to a prostate operation but if that keeps the pain away and returns normal urinary function it will be just fine in the end.

I have been frustrated that my brain doesn't work well at all for the first half of every day, but --- I have written three poems since April 10. Writing poetry again is my sign of improved cognitive function overall. 

My 2014 poetry book Pine Cones and Small Stones had 108 pages, and I have written at least another book's worth of poems since then. But instead of publishing them in book form I am thinking of submitting a few of them to poetry publishing sites and competitions. I have two poems published now, one air combat poem Fear is a Ghost in the Night Sky at the British war poetry site, http://www.poetsandwar.c om/fear-is-a-ghost-in-the-night-sky/ and my cancer poem A Journey in the League of Canadian Poets publication 

http://poets.ca/2020/01/13/fresh-voices-19/  

Falling into poetry - finding a new world

I have recently discovered Caroline Kaufman's new poetry book entitled when the world didn't end, and I can really relate to this girl who has suffered from depression. I feel that I truly fell into her words, like Alice falling down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland to find a strange new world. And through poetry, hers and my own included, I am finding a new world, where I can be happy and whole. 

On page 78 of Caroline's book I quote: I am surprised I am still alive, but I am grateful for it. That sums up my feelings exactly.

And I love this verse from Caroline's book on page 172:

every minute I have on this earth

is borrowed time.

I fought for it,

almost died for it,

and won it back

That describes my cancer experience exactly. I fought to stay alive in December 2015 when I was operated on, and it is true that I almost died but I did win my life back. Now going on 4 1/2 years later I am still living on borrowed time. But the cancer is in remission and with my bladder problems looked after, my pain is truly under control.

I want to emphasize that my recovery follows the path of Radical Remission as Kelly A Turner's book describes. Now, what is left to do is shrink the three tumors on my spine. And through Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief whereby through belief I can do healing wonders in my body, including shrinking of tumors. Lipton quotes Henry Ford's famous line on page 112 of his book: If you believe you can, or if you believe you can't -- you're right.

I recently purchased a neat book entitled Naturopathic Oncology: An Encyclopedic Guide for Patients & Physicians. In this book I find plenty of support for what I am doing to heal, particularly with regard to mistletoe subcutaneous injections which prime the immune system to work against cancer cells, and with regard to curcumin which reduces inflammation, and hence works against the impact of inflammation in encouraging cancer cells to thrive and grow. The book has two pages, 410 - 411, devoted to RCC, Renal clear Cell Carcinoma. It mentions that only 62% survive kidney cancer for five years. So it looks like I am in the 38% that go on living!

By the way, I should have said in my last post that one reason for my trip to Yellowknife last week was to take a CT scan of my sacrum area. That was done and the CT showed no growth of the sacrum tumor. So I am definitely still in remission, and looking forward to my new world of thriving in recovery by shrinking the tumors and getting on with life. I can then be considered as "cancer free"!!

The winter of my discontent

"The winter of our discontent" was made noteworthy and kind of famous, first by William Shakespeare and then by John Steinback. This is the winter of my discontent too. As I write I am down from Inuvik to Yellowknife for my monthly Nivo immunotherapy.

Today, April 09, it is snowing in Yellowknife, and I am wearing a urine bag and a catheter. So, in fact, I would call this the winter of my soul. Life has become cold and listless. Perhaps by writing here I can get my mind and emotions back on track. The catheterization came about because I guess for years I have not been able to empty my bladder and the pressure of the full bladder all the time was in fact causing the severe pain in the tumor on my sacrum. Now I only have to take a pain pill once or twice a day. Sandra is hoping, by us switching to a totally non-inflammatory diet, essentially a vegan diet, I can shrink the three tumors on my spine. So, fewer hydromorthine pain pills and I bet my brain will clear and I will be more like my old self.

Well, now the next day April 10, the sun is shining in a bright blue sky here in Yellowknife, and my optimism is certainly coming back. And it was so good to get a good night's sleep now that the bladder problems have disappeared.

I hope I am not repeating myself here. I am in a highest risk category for COVID 19, being Stage 4 cancer with a compromised immune system and 79+ years of age, and so Sandra and I stay completely at home these days. Our friend Chris in Inuvik gets our groceries, mail, and drug store stuff. One scary thing is that there are only 3 ventilators at Inuvik hospital and I am not top priority to receive one because of my Stage 4 cancer and age. So I have to really take personal care to stay alive.

Back to Inuvik tomorrow. I will send my next post from home.

The COVID 19 epidemic continues to rise - FAST

Happy Thursday. Our self isolation ended last Sunday. We tried to take a drive to Tuk on Sunday, but the road was closed to normal traffic when we wanted to go.

Well, we now have one COVID 19 case in Inuvik, but that person is self-isolating so no spread here. However, I am taking much more precautions. I am not going to go out, except in car. At 79 and counting, with a compromised immune system due to cancer, chemo, and pain drugs, I am a prime candidate for testing positive to the virus and dying of pneumonia.

Country-wide, according to today's New York Times, Canada has only 109 deaths, doubling every 4 days. the US on the other hand has 5,708 deaths, doubling every 3 days. We intend to tell our Illinois friends to be more careful because the state of Illinois already has 152 deaths, doubling every 2 days! Note that Illinois has almost 50% more deaths than the country of Canada. People in the US really don't want to stay home. I think it was California that hasn't even closed it's public beaches. The NY Times showed a beach really quite well populated.

I have great news! Great for me anyway. I have been on the board of a high tech company in the nuclear industry for the past about 15 years. The day before yesterday my phone rang late morning and it was the board Chair of that company. He offered me a contract (accepted of course) to tackle an engineering problem related to his company's power plant design. Why me? Because we have developed considerable trust over the years. And he hired me knowing that my short-term memory and some cognitive ability has suffered because of chemo and pain drugs. So I am quite delighted.

My required engineering texts are in a rented storage unit in Yellowknife, and they are all 40 or more years out of date. So I bought 2 books through Indigo-Chapters on line. One of them has already shipped, on Engineering Mathematics, but it is not the one I need the most, on Thermodynamics and Fluid Flow Dynamics as applied to power systems. My specialties in engineering have always been thermodynamics (the study of thermal energy in all its forms) and fluid mechanics (looking at how fluids, liquids or gases, flow in systems we use every day or in power plants).

I would like to think that this pandemic will bring people together in a helpful community-oriented way in the western world. However I was disappointed to learn, again from today's NY Times online that last month, March 2020, resulted in the second-highest month every for personal gun sales in the US. That doesn't bode for being helpful and community-oriented! Also, Dr Anthony Fauci, President Trump's medical adviser is getting death-threats. It is amazing that there are folks in the US, the fastest growing country for COVID 19 cases, who simply want everyone back to work to kick-start the economic engine, regardless of the threat to human health.

A good friend of mine is of the opinion that this pandemic will bring about a reset to society in the western world. It seems to me that it is really a boon for communication industries, since whole conferences are now planned using Zoom-related technology.