COVID 19 on the Rise

It has finally hit the NWT. There was a confirmed case in Yellowknife the second week of March - someone who had flown in from the south! Well guess what, that week of March 9 is when we were in Yellowknife for my treatment! So as soon as we were told about it yesterday we had to go into voluntary isolation for up to two weeks from the time we could have caught the COVID 19 in Yellowknife. So until next Friday the 27th, we have to remain in isolation. 

But no worries. Our friends here in Inuvik have already volunteered to do the delivery of groceries, bottled water, etc. Sandra and I are completely free of illness symptoms. In fact I have not even had one single cold since my cancer operation on December 6, 2015. So that is almost 4 1/2 years ago.

It feels strange to be in a high-risk segment of society, being in my 80th year, and suffering no coronavirus symptoms. I talked to my dear cousin Lillian who is just two years younger than me, living in the Vancouver area, and there have been five deaths to the virus so far. So she is quite concerned about staying at home, not going out and about any more than absolutely necessary. I am going to have to travel to Yellowknife every month for Nivo treatment as an absolutely essential travel. My next trip is scheduled for April 8 - 9, including a CT scan to make sure the tumors remain in remission.

Sandra is shifting us a bit further nutrition wise to a vegan diet. And it is not as hard or far out as I thought it would be. For example, I love pancakes, and yesterday I made wheat, oats and ground flax pancakes with avocado oil. Super delicious.

Sandra and all of her staff are now working from home. The work still has to be done. All of the counselling that her staff do will now be done by telephone. And no one knows how long this epidemic is going to last. It is not a good time to need counselling because nothing beats meeting face to face.
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This being isolated at home doesn't really bother me, since I love writing, and I have a library of books to read, with more on order. I give away as many as I order now, so our library remains pretty well  static with the size it is now. And we have a store of good DVD movies. Tonight before bed we are going to make our own popcorn and watch Casablanca, one of the best movies of all time I am told.

Hay House and Radical Remission

Hello again folks,

I love being in remission and I have been an avid listener/observer to the Hay House Publishing docuseries Radical Remission, which you too can view at https://www.discover.hayhouse.com/radicalremission/ but only until March 26 in this 2020 year.

Also, as you know, after taking responsibility for your own health, nutrition is a very important part of fighting cancer and getting it into remission. So I love a quote from Danielle DuBoise of Sakara Life which says: "JOY is a nutrient." As I look at the Radical Remission landscape and cancer recovery I so appreciate the aspect of JOY. A prophet of the Old Testament in the Bible named Joel had this to say about the importance of joy: "the vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: for joy is withered away from the sons of men."

Wow, that is so powerful. If there is no joy there can be no spiritual fruit. Joy must come first. Now, as I look at my life now, when I have gratitude, when I sit down and make a gratitude list, I find joy rising up inside my spirit. I become joyful. And that makes life so much more worthwhile.

Also, my cancer recovery has become a course of action. Knowing what to do to follow-up on the wonderful effective Nivolumab immunotherapy is one thing, but to do it with tenacity is another! And so I came across an action strategy called John Boyd's "OODA loop":

Observe, Orient (set yourself in place for action), Decide, Act! This flow chart is a picture of United States Airforce Colonel John Boyd's "viral strategy" for out gunning the enemy in the Korean war of the early 1950s. Using that strategy he and his pilots flying F86 Sabre Jets were able to outmaneuver much more powerful and faster Mig 15 fighter jets flown by the enemy. Note that at any point in the decision making loop your critical information provides feedback so that you can go back and repeat if necessary. 

I'm not sure how this centered typing thing got going so I don't know how to change it. Other than I will go for a new blog tomorrow. 

Bye for now.

Keep Calm and Carry On

I sit here with the soft snowflakes drifting down this cozy winter evening. A tremendous amount of snow this winter and my shoveling capacity physically is close to zero, so we have hired that work out a couple of times, and more to go, to keep our walk and driveway navigable.

I have always admired the British government for their attitude all through World War 2. Hence the title of my post as it relates both to the COVID 19 pandemic and my personal war to win the fight against cancer.

Thanks to all my dear friends for their comments at the end of my blog posts. you all mean a huge lot to me. Writing this blog certainly helps keep up my spirits for the health battle ahead. Although I am so fortunate to find myself very healthy in all other non-cancerous respects, and although I am in remission, the specter of Cancer, the big C, continues to dog me day and night. The drugs still make me very tired, but that is mitigated to some extent on days that I can get 10 hours of sleep or more. So I am not allowed to forget that although I have won a major battle, the cancer war is still on!

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in all professional things I had hoped to be involved in as related to permafrost engineering and talks at conferences, etc have been cancelled. Fortunately I only had one air travel booked and paid for, Air North return flight to Whitehorse in mid April. Air North would not give me a refund but rather simply put me payment amount into an account that I can use next time I book.

What do you think about this idea? The world is full of anger and misunderstanding and cultural battles, etc etc. This COVID 19 pandemic might just bring people together to fight a common enemy, an enemy that threatens to destroy the health of thousands all over the world. It will hopefully make us all more caring, more sharing, more neighborly.

At my ripe old age of 79 1/2 I am in one high risk segment, so I am being encouraged to stay home, and not to wander around town unless it is absolutely necessary. Sandra's boss Cynthia saw me in the hospital cafeteria yesterday and mentioned to Sandra that I should not come to the hospital unless absolutely necessary. Which is good advice especially considering that to some extent the hospital is a disease collecting facility as well as a disease treatment facility.

It is strange, waiting for the corornavirus storm to hit. It makes me feel like it did at home on the farm with a hailstorm and dark clouds on the horizon. Waiting and wondering when and where it would hit. Not if but when. 

That's all for now folks. I hope you all stay healthy. I guess we can't all stay one metre away from each other, or we will get pretty lonely at times!!

Partners in recovery

Cancer recovery is a lonely process. Most of family and friends want to help, but don't really understand. I am happy that right here at home I have a recovery buddy, our not so little (14 lb in weight) five-year old shih tzu named Hagar, named after a Viking warrior cartoon character of 20 years ago. Here he is in living color:

Although he is a small dog he has a bark that would frighten any intruder, so he makes a good guard dog. We don't have a door bell, and with Hagar we don't need one. He gives me an immediate alert when anyone comes to the door.

It is income tax season and my writing time has been shut down until I get all of 2019 financial stuff straightened away. I have some consulting work each year to account for besides my pension and Sandra's employment income.

I have probably said that I am doing some permafrost engineering for a wind turbine project about 10 km north of the Inuvik Airport. I am also planning to submit an Abstract and presentation to the Canadian Nuclear Society annual meeting and conference in May 2020 concerning the challenges of installing Small Nuclear Reactors, SMRs or nuclear batteries, in remote communities in permafrost areas. It is always necessary to keep the permafrost frozen when constructing buildings and other infrastructure in or on permafrost (permanently frozen soils with significant ice content). When permafrost melts it becomes very unstable and foundations collapse, so warm building foundations on permafrost must be avoided.

I was delighted several times over the past couple of weeks when close friends tell me that they enjoying reading this blog. I will keep it up.

You may remember how Winnie the Pooh was so concerned about his appetite and the size of his tummy because he didn't want to get stuck in Rabbit's hole - he talked about being concerned pound-wise which encouraged him to do his well-rhyming exercise. Well cancer-wise I don't need to worry about Pooh's problem, because my appetite is fairly low and steady and the fat problem has gone away (definitely not recommended as a weight-loss program). I am staying at 165 lb weight, constant now for the past two full months. That is the weight I was in high school!! 

And I am off the hook as far as exercise is concerned. I am still quite unsteady and in danger of falling when I am walking outside on snow and ice - problem is if I fall in the snow I may not be able to get up again, which is an uncomfortable problem today March 05 2020 when the temperatures are hovering around -30C! I look forward to summer when I can walk better and strengthen my legs, and increase my stamina. I get tired very easily these days and must have at least 10 hours of sleep each night to keep going.

My cancer is in permanent remission now it appears. I must go to Yellowknife or Edmonton every month for Nivo immunotherapy for the rest of my life to make sure that my spine tumors do not every grow again. I have a CT scan at the end of March as a check on recovery.

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.