i decided to go ahead with the genetics testing (the blood was drawn yesterday) and to have the bone and CAT scans... and lucky for me a cancelation made an MRI available for me this evening.
my strategies are focusing on getting as alkaline as i can get. i'm using pH strips to get my ground levels today and starting tomorrow i'll be dosing on baking soda water through the day. i've been using ketosis strips to check my urine and i've been in strong ketosis for the last two weeks. unfortunately it hasn't yet had any effect on the tumour which continues to grow very aggressively and to the point where i can't see how i can save the breast. the smaller benign cyst in my L breast that was discovered last week has been paining me and not behaving in tandem with my menstrual cycle, for if it did, just after a menses i would feel the least discomfort... instead the pain has been increasing. these facts, added to the unfortunate reality that i'm experiencing continuous and wandering pangs (in the cranium, jaw, neck, chest, lymphatic channels, groin, hip...) leads me to have to consider that perhaps this cancer has had such a headstart on me as to preclude the interventions i've started out here with.
that might sound like a negative, depressive, or moribund thing to say, but i have to think in all directions here.
when i consulted with the genetics department i was a bit shocked when they suggested that their aim, should i test positive for BRCA1/2, would be to recommend that i have both breasts removed plus my ovaries and fallopian tubes... for the scant reason that their statistics show a 40% risk increase for ovarian cancer. the artist side of my brain flipped on, and i started seeing these body parts in georgia o'keefe-style schematics which in turn led me to thinking back to my mother, herself without a uterus and having never experienced a menses in her life, who wanted to adopt a boy but got me, and therefore raised me without any consciousness of femaleness, save the caricature of a coquette that she played. our home was marked not just by violence and aggression, but by the absence of physical intimacy. no snuggling, no cuddling, no hugs and kisses. when i began to blossom into puberty an incident forced my mother to at last abandon the rod and the lash, but in their place she had father put locks on all the fridges, cabinets, cool rooms and freezers. she equated my body changes to a lax in discipline around food and sought to put me on a regime to keep me slim, and i guess boy-like. its not hard to understand that i grew up severely afflicted in my sense of self-worth and without any appreciation, understanding or pleasure in being a woman.
this all came to mind again (tho i admit these days the past is never far from mind) in a chilling realization of just to what extent this drama i was cast into is playing itself out.... my long-maligned womanhood is being threatened with a macabre endgame, a carving-out of my very being at the behest of my own cellular revolt. unsurprisingly, i cannot accept this.
i firmly believe that life can be experienced as something that happens to us or something that we co-create through our responses to various things. on average, we vacillate between the two extremes before we choose where we're most comfortable. as children we can't do much to intermediate between our delicate and vulnerable selves and the god-like proportions of those who parent us, but we can't honestly say the same for the dynamic in adulthood. the extent to which we feel at a disadvantage lies in direct proportion to how much the selves of the past companion and pollute the present moment. certainly, these last twenty years i've done nothing but struggle to free myself of the acquired habits my early experiences, and for the most part i've failed repeatedly.
i know in my bones that this cancer only appears to be a materially-based phenomenon. i believe it's ultimate source lies nested in my (understandable) resentment... and not so much for the things that have happened to me, but over the intractable nature of the hold the past still has over me and how poorly i feel i've met the challenge to throw off the traumas of old. why am i so attached to being at a disadvantage or getting the short end of the stick?
nothing will stop me from doing everything in my power and means to starve this damn cancer physiologically, but i can no longer also deny that i have to find a way to engage myself in a psychological/emotional process to get to the tap roots where the 'demon' of the thing lives. this part, unfortunately, comes with no instruction manual.
i must admit in the last 24 hours i had my first encounter since this diagnosis with a little self-pity. since life tends to tweak and exaggerate the things that need address rather than encouraging our escape from them, someone well meaning sent me a link to the website and video linked below which did trigger me briefly... i heard the wahwah convo inside my head about how much easier it must be to address a cancer when you have the financial resources to cross the country to get counsel from the best of the best, to buy all the food and supplements you want, and are surrounded by a loving family who supports you unquestionably.
but that little spot of self-pity only lasted less than half an hour. i quickly rebounded with the trickle of an insight that pointed out the positive... that i've been given my particular challenges and limitations because they're the means by which i will find MY strength... yes, there's a way to look at life like a chart and calibrate the pros and cons of people's situations and compare them, but that's NOT the point. i have to believe the pitch of the incline i'm traveling here has been grafted into this life to suit the inner resources i'm bringing to the table. what i keep hearing is not dissimilar from what kris carr herself heard at various points... that i'm not really sick. but also, that i haven't really unpacked all of who i am and that this is what this cancer is about. without the cancer i would be continuing in my struggle to get the self-made barriers and armourings out of the way of my potential and probably still doing a two-step up one down dance. with this cancer, i have a chance with my ass singeing in the fires as it is, to do battle, not with the disease, but with the agents within me that have sought to keep me small and wrong as a protective mechanism. i learned not to do as well as i might've to avoid getting too much attention or to be singled out too often for challenge or abuse. i learned not to speak my mind or follow my heart to avoid altercation with my controllers. its not rocket science.
all i can think of this hour is that i _can_ unlearn. i must. when there's no help on the horizon, it's not more punishment, its that you're fated to become your own solution. in truth, i really don't desire the experience of being able to dump my problems in the lap of some expert and have them direct and produce my healing. i absolutely believe this is not even in the realm of possible because all evidence heuristically assessed tells me it must be that i'm meant to find my own strength and wisdom. what's more, if i can find that wilder courage, that extra strength, that deeper wisdom, right aids and right community, i believe, will come to me when i can receive them in the right frame of mind. i can no longer afford to let myself be passive or submissive or subordinate to larger forces. this is my test. and it's a test i can't keep skipping.
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