an august sunny muggy day...

when i left trisha's this morning i decided to walk the annex, see how long i could manage on my feet... not only did i last six hours in the heat (!!), the two times i needed a rest a bench would magically appear or someone would get up on the bus. no suffering...! not only that, the tumour stopped growing three days ago and my pain is reduced... onwards!

current...

The tumour has been in steady state for two days now.

why hyperbaric oxygen?

Most people who die of cancer die from the metastatic process, rather than from the tumor itself. There's really no treatment or cure for metastatic cancer. Dr. D'Agostino's team has demonstrated that the ketogenic diet by itself can extend survival in animal models of metastatic cancer, but when it's combined with hyperbaric oxygen therapy three times per week, there is an additive effect².

"You get a significant reduction in tumor growth, decrease in tumor size, and significant extension of life when the therapeutic ketosis achieved through the ketogenic diet is combined with hyperbaric oxygen," he says.

"Tumors thrive in a low-oxygen environment. As a tumor grows, it exceeds its ability to supply oxygen to the center of the tumor. That low level of oxygen, called hypoxia, further activates the oncogenes; cancer promoting genes. It activates things like HIF-1-alpha and VEGF. IGF-1 signaling goes up. Hyperbaric oxygen can reverse tumor hypoxia intermittently. In doing that, it can actually turn off the oncogenes. There are published reports on this.

... [T]he tumor thrives in a low-oxygen environment, and it's adapted to that low-oxygen environment. When you saturate a tumor with oxygen, because the mitochondria are damaged, it overproduces oxygen free radicals in the form of superoxide anion. This oxygen-induced increase in free radicals can actually cause the tumor to kill itself."

Read more here... http://bit.ly/19R0TCA

Abstract

Introduction

Abnormal cancer metabolism creates a glycolytic-dependency which can be exploited by lowering glucose availability to the tumor. The ketogenic diet (KD) is a low carbohydrate, high fat diet which decreases blood glucose and elevates blood ketones and has been shown to slow cancer progression in animals and humans. Abnormal tumor vasculature creates hypoxic pockets which promote cancer progression and further increase the glycolytic-dependency of cancers. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO₂T) saturates tumors with oxygen, reversing the cancer promoting effects of tumor hypoxia. Since these non-toxic therapies exploit overlapping metabolic deficiencies of cancer, we tested their combined effects on cancer progression in a natural model of metastatic disease.

Methods

We used the firefly luciferase-tagged VM-M3 mouse model of metastatic cancer to compare tumor progression and survival in mice fed standard or KD ad libitum with or without HBO₂T (2.5 ATM absolute, 90 min, 3x/week). Tumor growth was monitored by in vivo bioluminescent imaging.

Results

KD alone significantly decreased blood glucose, slowed tumor growth, and increased mean survival time by 56.7% in mice with systemic metastatic cancer. While HBO₂T alone did not influence cancer progression, combining the KD with HBO₂T elicited a significant decrease in blood glucose, tumor growth rate, and 77.9% increase in mean survival time compared to controls.

Conclusions

KD and HBO₂T produce significant anti-cancer effects when combined in a natural model of systemic metastatic cancer. Our evidence suggests that these therapies should be further investigated as potential non-toxic treatments or adjuvant therapies to standard care for patients with systemic metastatic disease.

Read more... http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0065522

test results...

while i've written elsewhere why i don't subscribe to a gene-based view of cancer but prefer a metabolic/emotional one, i did consent to having my genes tested as part of a new program at the hospital. the result are in and i don't have the damaged BRCA1/2 genes, which means that even from a medical point of view, this cancer is not genetically driven (which they expected it to be), but a product of context... the perfect storm i contributed to these last twenty years which produced this singular, life-altering event.

this means, in short, i have no greater risk of developing a cancer than the average person and if i can beat this first effulgence of my frustrated body energies, there's no reason to think i'm at risk for subsequent cancers. they said it, not me.

onwards!

side effects...

first i must report the extent to which i seem to be in holy flow. i can't enter traffic without it turning into stressless courtesy everywhere i look. parking spots magically appear, i'm running into people in dramatic, synchronous ways, everything feels so soft, and open, and warm. information and tools find me right at the last minute every time.... and they keep finding me, even when i don't know enough to know i'm woefully misinformed, doing the wrong thing, or not doing what needs done. that's a big one.

but here is the second whammy thing. i knew going into the start of the oxygen treatment that one of the reasons clinics like this exist and can thrive even at current prohibitive prices is that they're rapidly gaining renown as a very effective treatment for autism spectrum disorders. i'm an aspy and i can report after just three sessions some very dramatic changes i would never have expected.

i'm no longer as scattered mentally as i usually am. i seem to have inherited a sudden dose of social intelligence. i don't interrupt people and talk a blue streak but rather give and take in conversation, in fact, i can really hear what people are saying to me. its as if inside my head there's a new space that wasn't there before that allows me to relax when people speak. i'm not shuttling between their words and my own inner ticker tape. in fact i can see myself and my circumstances from the outside looking in, in a way i never experienced before and its acting as a natural inhibitor of these problematic patterns of behaviour (which i never really recognized as such). i don't get as lost in circuitous overprocessed inner conversation. i can speak more simply and say what i really feel without any hangups.

what's more, i suddenly can't stand to do what i've done for almost twenty years. content to hide from life and either loose myself in my mind and its books or fritter away my talents at a desk out of the game's circulation, taunting life with what i _could_ do if only....

now that i have to leave base camp to head to the north of the city for my HBOT every day i have a launching pad that i've started using to return myself to social life, to effort to see the people who i love and appreciate and who love and support me and make me feel good, to do the things that put me in new situations around new people so that i can improve my ability to interact with others. i was always good at making friends, but i lost most of them to neglect and just always never coming when called. i suddenly can no longer keep doing this.

in this way and by these strange means, i'm just letting myself become a bumble bee, moving from honey pot to honey pot wherever i go.... like woody allen said, 70% of success in life is showing up. suddenly i'm showing up. people are getting phone calls from me. i'm actually answering the phone. people are getting visits from me and during them i'm not screwing things up so much by anxiously projecting myself forward or getting bogged down, endlessly reprocessing hurts from the past. stupid things that are true but not best to voice don't fly out my mouth. that is a HUGE one that has led to so much unnecessary social tension. what i don't understand is that these seem to all be judgment issues, so why would oxygen lend me better social awareness, listening skills, and judgement? its not. its resolving the aspy adaptive habits i built over the years that have come to represent the peanut gallery within me that has made finding happiness and healing such a challenge.

onwards!

HBOT update...

i didn't sleep at all after the first treatment, i was coasting on an astonishing energy for two days and well into last night as well. the tumour, however, keeps swelling.* after the second treatment i felt my first reduction in pain and actually slept without tossing and turning for the first time in weeks. when i woke up this morning it was softer and had been subtly reducing overnight (easily adduced as the tumour has only been in reduction phase twice and the feeling is unmistakable), but as soon as i got mobile it started increasing again. its almost taken the breast over and now encroaches the thorax in all directions. yes. aggressive is the word. but the key thing is, i'm overall feeling better, stronger, and more grounded. its interesting that i'm receiving a treatment for cancer that is used to treat autism spectrum disorders (i'm an aspy). i'm noting already some changes and profiting from them greatly.

so. i'm keeping to the parts of the program that seem to help and focused on my goal. when changes become necessary i'm doing my best, some of the changes are intimidating, yet i feel right now that anything is possible, that i'm completely equipped and capable of making something out of this that can honour what i've learned, and get it into play and distribution finally.

its always nice to add to a body of human culture, but i long to touch people's hearts somehow. man is a wolf to man, the roman catallus wrote. the things we do to each other are barbaric and persistently so, but we're only ever one spark leaping across a synapse away from more ennobled understandings and the ableness to embrace dynamic natural laws.

i'm walking a tightrope for the next few weeks. i know in my condition it only takes a couple bad turns to find oneself in a pickle so i'm motivated to get back to work. its important i keep two books, as they say. one that acknowledges the mortality play at work, and one that believes in magic.

onwards!

*its important to note, in presence of conditions leading to the neutralization of disease, symptoms will aggravate or appear to worsen before rapid improvement sets in. it's always darkest before the dawn.

correspondences...

interesting as HBOT comes into my world: part of the arrangement in tonight's blue moon finds the moon's north node on scorpio 11... the sabian symbol for which reads, 

"A Drowning Man Is Being Rescued...."
Keywords: Resuscitation. Regaining one’s breath. Finding life renewed. Asthma, bronchitis, breathing difficulties. Finding help in moments of crisis. Needing a hand. Being rescued. Salvation on any level. Ventilators. Breathing equipment. Oxygen. Dependence. Last minute reprieves. [Lynda Hill]

full moon contact high...

when i treat cancer like a foe, it defeats me, but when i work with it as coach, advisor, psychologist, and beloved, it helps me move in the direction of healing, at once unfurling and letting go, unfurling and letting go....

as far as i can tell it wants to tell me a story that will lead me out of the swampy wood and into the sunshine. i've recently taken up dictation.

lazarus moment...

it took some doing but i managed to put together the financing for hyberbaric oxygen and ozone treatment. i started the HBOT today and it really is no exaggeration to call it the kiss of life.

it would be too tedious _just_ at the moment to start detailing the many things i'm doing right now to neutralize this cancer, suffice it to say wherever i go and whomever i speak with, i'm getting straight As for the comprehensiveness of my protocol, my hustle, multi-tasking, and spunk. ironically, the two words i've heard most these last three days are, 'glowing,' 'radiant...' it seems cancer agrees with me! perhaps that's why the tumour is so reluctant to let me go.

in the meantime it keeps playing its dramatic moves (they don't call TNBC 'aggressive' for no reason, i discovered...) and i keep countering with mine. i can't go into the details, but suffice to say i'm changing so completely, tuning in so exquisitely to the ecstatic channels of life, i barely recognize myself... and the more decisions i make guided by what is true for me (instead of contorting myself to comply to what is false for me)... by feeling in the dark for my womanness, by grounding in the limitless potential of each NEW moment, the more unpredictable and exciting life becomes. aho!

there are no ultimate securities, i've always known that. so why build a life around playacting a collective denial of this truth when there is such a more vital and beautiful world to uncover leaning into uncertainty and change.... and the impossible!

ONWARDS!

snake woman...

Horned Women series III: Snake Woman of the (women's) Motokiks ceremonial society, Kainai Nation ("Blood," a branch of the Siksika or Blackfeet), somewhere in Montana or Alberta. She is a pipeholder, wearing the Scabby Buffalo headdress.  [courtesy women's repressed histories]

lakulisha kundalini yoga...

i was discussing with my friends that i've been spending a lot of time in ecstatic movement, playing with gesture and posture as a conduit for generating and discharging energy, and the effect its having on me and i was gifted this information, for which i'm very grateful.

(fr Words Fr the Soul) According to the Pashupata Sutra and the Ganakarika Sutra (Collins, 1988, p. 137-38), the Lakulisha kundalini yoga sect practiced an ecstatic ritual including wild laughter, sacred singing, "dancing consisting of [all possible] motions of the hands and feet: upward, downward, inward, outward and shaking motion," a sacred "sound produced by the contact of the tongue-tip with the palate...after the dance when the devotee has again sat down and is still meditating on Siva" an "inner worship," and “prayer” (p. 137). 

I suggest that such dancing and singing were sahaja or charismatic manifestations and not ordinary volitional merriment that were later codified from shrutis (in-the- moment revelatory utterances) into smritis (remembered scripture), formalized from sahaja manifestations into standardized asanas and the myriad prescribed and detailed gestures of certain classicalized Indian dance forms. 

The Pashupata sect spread massively throughout Hindu, Buddhist and Jain India for some 600 years, producing one of the greatest outpourings of temple construction in human history. The sect was noteworthy in Indian history in its scorn of rigidification and other corruptions of the otherwise, moderately fluid caste (varna, “human variance”) system and its belief in a deity capable of bestowing redemptive grace beyond the causal dictates of karma. 

Lakulisha and his followers believed (as did the original Franciscan cult) that, as forest-dwelling (“counter-cultural?”) kundalini yogis, they transformed the strife of city-dwellers by absorbing social ridicule or by receiving homage and bestowing shaktipat blessings upon the populace. Indeed, the prejudices of caste and other animosities evaporated during their shaktipat rituals that were attended to a remarkable degree by all levels of society. As with the appearance of many other saints throughout history, heaven lived on earth, and those within its fold were, for a time, redeemed into fully dharmic life.

i have found a modest place to start holding this kind of space and sound open for others as i do my own exploration and practice.

timely lessons...

when you have roughly twelve days to shrink a tumour by your own powers, you secretly hope that you'll learn what can go wrong early on so that being caught unawares as to the rules of the game later won't handicapp you when to be handicapped would really hurt or even throw the game.

on the day that my tumour palpably shrank i was out in the world, being called into new and vital situations, and exercising my personality. i'd tweaked my dietary work and was feeling the way i always do when i have new understandings to incorporate, robustly improved... i had the chance to get out for a full day that began with a hot 90 minute moksha flow and ended in an evening of wild body shaking. it was through this shaking, something i'd never tried before, that i could experiment with letting myself surrender to sound and movement impulses, plus, understanding the unique opportunity being presented - a coming together of people who wanted to shake and not stand in the way of whatever experience arrived for the occasion - i let myself be transported from the moment they said go!

and go i went!

i didn't return home until quite late and i when i did i was in the genuine afterglow of a very powerful metaphysical physical experience.

that night and the next morning i could feel the tumour shrinking. i also was on the receiving end of a whole new set of communications from my body.

then it came time to travel to another city to celebrate my mother's 84th birthday. here i suddenly transited to a different world, one of strain and negativity. i know the routine with my mother very well. she will always begin any encounter in a soured mood. something is not to her liking, it becomes the circumference of her point of view, and she can't _not_ dwell on it or lead with it. in short, its the end of the world. she ate voraciously at lunch which relieved us all of the need for too much in the way of conversation but nontheless the usual soap opera dynamic fell like a shroud over our table. i knew there'd be not much there that i could eat, but i figured it would be safe if i ate some chilled cooked jumbo shrimp. in a result that was baffling to me, i overate, a fact i only realized after i had done it, and confirmed it when i had an attack of yawning which happens when i've eaten too much or the wrong thing.

i'd been moderating very successfully what i eat and when so as to maximize reduction of the cancer (eating later in the day and then only twice and during a 6-8 hour period so that i'm spending most of my day in fasting mode...) yet, to my dismay i realized as we were leaving that i really should only have had a very few shrimp, but that in fact i had three servings of them. i dressed them with lemon, sea salt flakes and cayenne, they looked and tasted extremely fresh and were well-cleaned, and i really got a lot of enjoyment from them.

when it was all over and we sang her happy birthday i brought out one of my paintings, the one of the old holy man, and told her i was giving her this painting of mine to look out for her, to protect her, to make sure she was always all right. it was pretty clear its wasn't exactly to her liking and she even tried a fast one that night when i came up to her room to hang it. i'd already figured on where to put it, above and behind her favorite chair... this way she would know it was there but not have to look it in the eye every time she sat down. just as we got to her door she stopped in the doorway and asked if i was going to take the painting back home? i said, 'of course not mum, i'm coming in to hang it on the wall for you, its my birthday present for you remember?' she said, 'oh." i know she would have preferred it to go away simply because she didn't understand it. i'm not sure why but i didn't take her up on her cue but hung it up anyway. why didn't i just roll with the punches and cheerfully take it back with me?

by the time we returned to toronto i could feel the tumour was big again and even slightly larger than when it was last at its largest. all of my testable values were far away from where i need them to be and they remained in this unhelpful zone through the next morning. it took me a few hours to piece together "what i'd done wrong" ... canceling out and even making worse the small achievement i'd worked so hard to create by lapsing as i did into an old identity and emotional state that empowers the cancer... i understand this stumble was an extremely fortunate one, one designed to show me my automatic behaviours, the behaviours that have to go to make space for a reborning self.

the moment i made that connection i was overjoyed. i'm at the point where i'm seriously ready to renegotiate my roles and how i show up in the world and what i'm aiming to accomplish, which means that i'm ready to transform before all else my family role. i need to put an end to anything that's brings me to harm.

i can't emphasize enough how getting such a gross result, one that clearly demonstrates the sharp contrast between worlds before me, those that are healing, those that are destroying, is an absolute gift of highest magnitude.

i was blessed with time on my own today. for the first time in months, i put on my music and started moving around and working with my way of chanting... i call it sonic yoga and it's intent is to stimulate and raise the energies just like shaking does, but through the ears and other places we perceive vibration.... as i started moving around and making sounds i understood in a flash i'd just stumbled up my salvation...! the thing that feels precisely like what i should be doing with my life and energies right now... moving, sound-making, letting the energy out.

ecstatic sound and ecstatic movement have a long lineage and are notoriously healing and transcendent for the human. i intend to create opportunities to lead groups in experiencing these therapeutic and healing sonic energies and their invitations to move....

today i'm getting my ship righted and my values back in the zone. it involves minimum input and maximum expression... i've been taking a few mouthfuls of turmeric slaw when my body asks for it, but otherwise i'm fasting, hydrating with the right teas, and i'm working with movement and the technique of getting myself into right mind for the work.

now that i know what works for me versus what doesn't, i will just be single-minded about following the right practices and paths... i can't afford a bad day that gives this cancer an edge. i have to really call on any resources of warriorship i have, and plan on filling in whatever missing pieces by sheer pluck alone...

medicinal raw slaw...

CANCER HATES THIS, I LOVE IT: raw turmeric slaw...  

why take pills and tinctures when you can go straight to the source? believe it or not, this slaw is super delish! the secret? shred raw turmeric, ginger and garlic and dress in liberal amounts of fresh lemon juice and hemp oil seasoned with sea salt and lots of smoked paprika. add cubed onion, or cucumber if desired... tonight i added some local garlic scapes cut on the bias and finished it with a shake of spirulina and a drizzle olive oil...

for more information about this fabulous tuber that everyone can benefit from... http://organicindia.mercola.com/herbal-supplements/turmeric.aspx

busy day...

i've made some tweaks to my own protocols and got further information from the hospital about time frame and it looks like i have until 12 july, which is when the first chemo treatment is scheduled for.

i continue to have grave reservations about the chemo and am still working to be able to decline it, but at the same time i must find out the causes behind the limited results i've had with my own approaches or be patient and have faith that what i'm doing will start reducing the tumour dramatically very soon.

one bit of good advice i got was to get some blood work done ASAP so that i will have the results before any question of carrying thru with chemo arises. these basic blood tests will tell us the condition of my liver and kidneys, WBCs, RBCs, and Tcells.... i couldn't reach my GP so decided to contact the very helpful receptionist who talked me through latest arrangements this morning. i was surprised that she was not only on the ball and helpful with my sense of urgency on all this, but i even got the impression that it seemed common sense to her that i would be asking for these kinds of tests. it looked for a while that she was going to get the breast clinic nurse to just write up the requisition for me so that i could get the blood work done early next week, but the oncologist stepped in and said no, that i have to come on the 11th as scheduled and that blood work would be done then and be available for us to discuss on the first day of chemo. this is not to my liking as its consistent with control and pressure tactics designed not to give me any time in advance to consider my options, so i will have to be resourceful next week and see what i can come up with.

i'm sure when an oncologist consults with a patient presenting a stage three aggressive cancer, peripheral considerations are cast aside and focus is limited to the area of their specialization. i understand that. but if there are any problems or weaknesses hiding in my liver or kidney, their chemotherapy could kill me as much as the cancer could.

i'm also going to be asking next week for a second MRI to be scheduled for me just prior to the chemo on the outside chance it might show a decrease in the tumour which could give me a leg to stand on.

i have to provisionally report that not only do i continue to feel good everyday with what i'm doing, by the end of my day yesterday which involved a 90minute hot yoga class followed by an evening experience with shaking medicine, for the first time i felt that the tumour was ever so slightly smaller! and mark this was no on account of sweat loss, the change is in the dimensionalities of the mass, including its distance from my chest wall.

i'm willing to keep two books here... to keep complying with the hospital just in case i have no choice, but in the meantime i'm working to usurp those plans at the last minute with clear evidence that what i'm doing is working... i WILL gamble with my life if i see the slightest indication that even against this most aggressive form of cancer, metabolic controls, holistic adjuvants and emotional/spiritual/energetic work can be successfully employed to cure....!

in keeping with this, i felt last night at the shaking, which was a revelatory event and one i took to like a duck to water, that another community and another road in life is opening up to me... i intend to be just as fearless walking towards it as i am in facing this cancer.........!

test results...

i was called into the hospital today for my test results. i have a very aggressive stage 3 ductal carcinoma called triple negative breast cancer.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), which lacks expression of the estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2/EGFR2), is an aggressive breast cancer phenotype with a poor prognosis.

the surgeon and oncologist both tell me i have very little time, perhaps 2-4 weeks, before it spreads to either lung, liver, brain or bone. they also tell me this cancer is one of the few cancers that is very responsive to chemotherapy. they want me to begin a course a week from monday, and tell me that i would be on chemo for perhaps up to 3 months. there's a 40% chance the chemo will reduce the tumour enough to permit surgery and lead to what they call a complete cure. if i can wipe out the cancer now and get through the next five years my prognosis is very good to excellent, unlike the slower acting cancers where there's high risk of recurrence. they emphasized the fact, however, that i have a very small window for treatment here and that once it's gone and it spreads as aggressively as its reputation, i'm, in short, a goner. there's of course a chance that the chemo won't work or that it's already spreading at a level these tests can't register yet, but there's no point dwelling on that.

i've been doing more research and am redoubling my own treatment efforts between now and the scheduled first chemo session with the hope that i can demonstrate results that in turn would permit me to decline their treatment recommendations. i never thought in my life i would ever even _consider_ getting chemotherapy, but given the rare type of cancer i have and the risks involved, i'm not sure how lucky i feel.... would you give a natural treatment a couple more weeks to work if those couple more weeks could kill you?

all parties agree that what i'm doing certainly can't hurt and that with this kind of adversary a multi-dimensional approach should really work for me... starving it metabolically as i am, inducing apoptosis through natural means and possibly chemo, and resection of the affected parts to prevent metastasis.

mindful of recent research that has proven curcumin's ability to kill TNBC cells, i'm increasing how much raw tumeric i'm ingesting... i peel the raw tuber and shred it into my food and got some advice as to how much i can get away with eating this way. i also picked up some bee propolis tincture at the organic farmers market which also has reputed anti-TNBC effects. an herbalist i talked to today suggested i try adding suma root to my medicinal teas so i bought a small bag to try, and while i was in the apothecary i noticed he had a jar of rose petals. i know they have no medicinal value to me at the moment but i really felt a longing for them and the idea of having some rose petal tea and so asked for a small amount. he gave them to me at no charge. i was really moved by his kindness and could hardly contain my delight when telling him that coincidentally there is a rose in my name...

witch hunts...

i've been reflecting these last few days on the strange and unusual confluence of events that birthed us science and its allied white coat medicine, "the printing press, steeply rising literacy rates, religious wars, and the witch craze..."

might not the vestiges of these be observed to present day in women's diseases of prominence and their treatments? for these are not so distant in tactic or spirit from the tortures meted out to wise and innocent women during the period in which science "came into its own..."

breasts were the frequent target of inquisitors who used hot pincers to tear them apart or knives to cut them away, and burning at the stake brings to mind radiation treatments and chemotherapies that literally burn you from the inside out.

breast cancers have been around since recorded history but never afflicting such a high percentage of women as in the current era. the physical world of which we now partake has been exclusively defined by thousands of years of patriarchical folly that now returns us to its root creation myth... having excluded the feminine to its detriment, and under the illusion of contemporary women's rights which conditions women to become modified men more than fully emancipated women, we're increasingly invaded by the cancerous miasm of a world out of balance and expected to submit to a contra naturam monopoly not unlike the witch hunts of old...

a radical statement yes, but i feel a delicious quickening when i let myself consider this possibility since it promises a kind of new emancipation, and since it's hardly represented or explored in the culture, i find it irresistible to explore and consider further.

"In earlier times, men and women alike acknowledged the skills of female shamans. The wise woman had tucked in her bag of tricks both ergot root for inducing abortion, and belladonna for preventing miscarriage. Many men readily acknowledged the superiority of the medicine practiced by women healers. Paracelsus (1493-1541), the greatest physician of his age, acknowledged that he 'had learned from the Sorceress all that he knew.' The male chauvinist philosopher Thomas Hobbes admitted that, personally, he would rather take 'the advice or physic from an experienced old woman' than see a Harley Street physician..."

"Science provided people with an alternative explanation to the one espoused by religion. The world is governed by natural laws, scientists proclaimed, and God gave humans the gift of intelligence to discover what they are. With each new mathematically proven revelation, science chipped away at the power of the ecclesiastics. The volume of discord between credos (ie. Protestant vs Catholic) diminished as literacy gained its proper context.

"Unfortunately, science, the prim, non-excitable child of the left brain, did not like women. Evolving from the all-male priesthood that had preceded it, the early scientific community allowed no women within its hallowed halls. Science did not have much use for beauty, either, and it treated nature as an enemy. Francis Bacon, author of the scientific masterpiece Novum Organum, consistently used metaphors derived from the witch hunt torture chambers to describe how scientists should force nature to relinquish her secrets. In the most powerful demonstration of the new scientific paradigm, Nicolaus Copernicus displaced Mother Earth from the center of the universe and replaced her with Father Sun. Copernicus consigned the planet that was once the hub of wheeling constellations to a lonely orbit with only her barren lunar satellite to pay her homage. Science dismissed spirituality, disdained discussions of ethics and philosophy, and demonstrated a disturbing tendency to ally itself with contemporary hunter-killers - the military." 

[Leonard Shlain: The Alphabet versus the Goddess]

psychic surgery...

as i was going to sleep last night i invited my invisible allies to tuck in and perform any energetic surgery that would help me at this time. i had the following dream...

there is a woman lying on the floor to my left beside the bed but in opposite orientation (head where my feet are) and her cranium is exposed, she is having surgery done to her brain and i can see hands working and the wiring pulled up and out of the corpus callosum like spaghetti. she sits up and announces that they're killing her and then lies back down again.

i was talking with a couple friends yesterday about death/rebirth cycles, both subtle and gross, ie. how some must be undertaken literally while some can be experienced in metaphor or by analogy. traditions the world over speak of the dark night of the soul and near death experiences that transform a person irrevocably, just as a literal death sheds the form we've established in this round and integrates the learning acquired. my aim is to surf this cancer into a metaphoric death/rebirth from the deepest level of my cells outward in all my forms of manifestation and this has been much on my mind.

i feel incredibly blessed that allies responded to my call and came to me in dreamtime to tell me that indeed, the old shell is being put to rest as new connections are being developed between the two hemispheres that currently operate in an imbalanced, distorted fashion.

cross-check...

i had a dream the other night that gave me a very clear caution. it told me that putting so much energy into being a poster child goodytwoshoes, modeling what i consider the best attitudinal approach to dealing with this cancer or any adversity for that matter, will only serve to antagonize and strengthen the cancer. yes, i do genuinely have an optimistic attitude but yes, i can see how i've been wasting a certain amount of my precious and now critical energy on pride of appearance and showing off just how resilient and cheerful i am.

clearly my deeper wisdoms wanted to make plain to me that i can't afford to put my time and effort into creating beautiful impressions of just what a great trouper i'm being. why is it so important for me to try and impress people with my attitude? what do i have invested in this process that doesn't serve me or might lead me astray? what am i avoiding that might not allow me to maintain this cheerful demeanour? how have i allowed myself to turn this diagnosis into a public theater that casts me into a role in order to avoid unpleasant, less glamourous aspects of the task at hand? have i fallen prey to slurping up attention for yet another 'misfortune' in a long line of collected woe i've built my sense of self on? what's up with the bullshit?

CTscan...

i completed the final of the three tests on friday afternoon, the only time last week that i encountered a significant wait time or less than inspired intake staff. i arrived at 1330 and it was after 1600 that i was finally put on an IV, injected and taken into the room with the tube, and that was after someone who i knew had a 1530 appointment was ushered in before me. i'm amazed this sort of thing doesn't happen more often actually, but when it does i just take it as an opportunity to put things in context. its easy to feel like your needs are important but in fact there's always a whole room of other people who feel exactly the same way, so there's nothing to be gained from leaning into that feeling like a puffer fish. there are always other things to notice. when i'm delayed i pay attention to the conversation around me, the inputs like the TV or radio or some other noise i can't prohibit from my present because i'm stuck there, aren't i? when i look at things in an open way like that always something emerges which makes sense of the timing... a phone call that i suddenly have time and the right mood to receive and undertake; a nearby conversation i can't not listen to that brings something relevant to my ears, and so on.

the test itself was uneventful though i felt more wary of this injection than the others and i later understood why. i was okay at the premier of my friend's film, but as the evening drew to an end the vague headache i had became quite unpleasant, so in addition to drinking a lot of water like the technicians told me i must (which i would do anyway) i took a homeopathic and tried to sleep it off. i had a few hours of intermittent flashing lights under my eyelids that prevented sleep but by the morning i was right as rain (and yes, it was raining!).

i tested my blood glucose and am incredibly pleased that its scoring really low, like 4.8! i'm still showing high ketones in my urine, so the two indicators suggest that i've arrived into this new metabolic state and so now its just a question of time and persistence. i felt really well-rested and strong today and frankly a little fantastic since i was able to add some E3 Live to my routine (oh phenylethylamine how i LOVE you!!!), plus i'm not feeling hungry, hard done or weakened by reducing my caloric intake. i did a hot pilates class, which i adore. the hot yoga is purgative and builds inner fire and strength, but the pilates builds new mind-body connections in the brain and with its subtle, small movements, targets the deep muscles which we often have scant awareness or acquaintance with. they're only offered a couple times a week where i practice so i always do my best to make them.

in a great stroke of fortune, armin has some appliances i've been able to use, the zapper being the principal one, but i've started using this magnetic pulser he also had in his kit... according to the manufacturer, it cleans lymphatic tissue... "The Bioplasmic Magnetic Pulser acts as a body cellular "washing machine" which resonates the lymph nodes and tissue of the organs including the liver, kidney, and spleen, while at the same time boosting the immune system. You are stimulating the body's ability to detox correctly and efficiently.... it increases blood flow, oxygen-carrying capacity, improves circulation, reducing calcium and cholesterol deposits in the blood vessels, it stabilizes enzyme activities and hormone production, it maintains the ideal acidic base balance level of all body fluids, regains proper function of the autonomic nerve function and internal organs, and enhances resistance to disease by invigorating the immune system with magnetic waves..."

WOOHOO!!!

cancer as a metabolic disease...

"Emerging evidence indicates that impaired cellular energy metabolism is the defining characteristic of nearly all cancers regardless of cellular or tissue origin. In contrast to normal cells, which derive most of their usable energy from oxidative phosphorylation, most cancer cells become heavily dependent on substrate level phosphorylation to meet energy demands. Evidence is reviewed supporting a general hypothesis that genomic instability and essentially all hallmarks of cancer, including aerobic glycolysis (Warburg effect), can be linked to impaired mitochondrial function and energy metabolism. A view of cancer as primarily a metabolic disease will impact approaches to cancer management and prevention."

[Thomas Seyfried, Laura Shelton] read the full article here.

bone scan...

i had the bone scan yesterday and it was really uneventful... all the medical staff i encounter are just very lovely and kind and the only consequence i noted after being injected with another radioactive marker was a throbbing pain in the L lymph above the breast near the armpit that wasn't there before. while i was waiting i got a call from my surgeon who told me that more of the original biopsy results have come in. the breast lesion came back positive for ductal carcinoma which is more consistent with a primary breast cancer, but the lymph node was malignant, which indicates metastasis. we were just about to begin a conversation about the next step when i got called away for my bone scan. i enjoy to look at these kinds of little intercessions and don't view anything as random or chance.

i was thinking yesterday about christopher hitchens, with whom i had a brief connection towards the end of his life. i was reflecting on the irony that while on the one hand he did such a good job eviscerating the worst of religious dogmatism, he nursed a stubborn and indulgent blindness toward the secular priests we've appointed in the form of doctors and scientists. i found it strange that he so unquestionably turned himself over to their rites and incantations and poignant in the extreme that one of the last hospital rooms he was ushered into had the crucifix embedded in the tiling around the door. no one will ever know how someone in his extreme condition would have fared with radical lifestyle changes, ketogenic diet and other alternative adjuvants, all we know is how quickly he was tortured in the extreme and reduced to a shell of a man by the corrosive treatments he was given. my point is, the irony might have been lost on him, i don't want the ironies to be lost on me.

yesterday i had the great fortune of another timing... dr. mercola published a more expansive article on the ketogenic diet than i'd been able to resource before and in reviewing it carefully i realized i'd been making some small but important mistakes and had overlooked entirely the importance of intermittent water fasting. i haven't been limiting my caloric intake and certainly i've been eating too much protein. i didn't realize that the aim isn't just to radically limit carbohydrates.... you can eat low to no carbs and still have high blood glucose levels on account of the way the liver stores the results of the protein you consume. today armin's generously agreed to get me a simple blood glucose meter, like the kind used for diabetics, which will help me more accurately assess how well i'm managing to get into the new metabolic zone i'm aiming for. this re-education yesterday delighted me as it perhaps explains why i haven't had the results i was expecting. i also have started drinking the baking soda which oddly is neither repellant or upsetting to my system, on the contrary, something in me quite likes it and i'm feeling even better than before. its kickstarted my eliminations which is _fabulous_ and i feel more perky than ever.

the reason i was thinking about christopher was that i've had a nagging feeling that i might really regret giving myself over to surgery before making time and space and effort available to what i'm doing. at this point i have no idea how far the cancer may have already metastasized internally and won't know until next week. the idea keeps repeating in my head that whatever is done can be undone, and sometimes you have to risk being accused of great folly to achieve great things.

tonight i'll be out to support the premier screening of my friend john board's film, "me, the bees, and cancer" at the royal cinema on college in little italy at 7p... the screening's proceeds will go towards the actor's fund of canada... john and i are plotting a series we'd like to produce about our experiences with cancer.

MRI...

last night was a lovely experience of flow... i left the studio in time to hit the corner just as a streetcar was pulling up and there was a seat waiting for me by an open window. i arrived down the street from the hospital with enough time to walk the rest of the way and get to reception and be informed i'd been directed to the wrong hospital and still have exactly enough time to get to where i was going so as to arrive on the dot of my appointment... a stranger held an elevator for me and sparkled friendliness at me, and on the floor where the imaging department was located another stranger like an angel approached me as i scoped around for directions and asked, MRI? i smiled and said yes and he pointed the circuitous way sparing me any stress.

they hooked me up to a drip and took me into the room where they had me lay on my belly. they warned me the machine is very loud and rumbles and shakes. they put headphones on you and give you a ball to squeeze if there's any problems. the procedure takes 30 minutes and you have to stay still. they pump you full of a contrasting fluid which i asked my body to receive with positive intentions. i was shocked at how loud it was but i quickly treated it like an instrument and in my head started singing with it, chanting sometimes things like, 'this machine is going to help me, this machine is killing cancer, this machine is good for me..' etc. those statements may not be exactly factual but in the moment i believed them and felt that way and that's what was important.

when it was over i was a little woozy on getting up but only for a couple of seconds. then i was back on the subway without any delays or inconveniences, and arrived just in time to take a hot yoga class where i imagined i was doing extra good for myself by giving the injected fluid a means of leaving the body through my sweat. i felt good after the class and feel good today.

the last two or three days i've had a lot of itchiness where the lesion is and i feel like something is definitely happening. in spite of the cancer, every day that i'm on the ketogenic diet and zapping and supplementing i feel and look better and better.

a friend sent me some very good advice that i'm chewing on this morning as i head out next for my bone scan..."I thought about it all and came to the conclusion that you are impatient and fearful and aggressive toward your cancer. It is an enemy. When an army is advancing first you must stop its advance and this takes time and then you must begin to erode its front ranks and so on until it is defeated and flees. Thus patience is needed and panic is an invitation for the enemy to continue to advance. Take an Aconite #2 3 times a day for the fear of death and for the big emotional shift you are going through. Take Coffea #4 whenever as you state in your blog there are so many things to do and to stop some of your mind chatter. Take an Arnica for strength morning noon and night. That is #3. Last take #5 for your feelings of being overwhelmed. Your aggressive mind set is not working for you right now and to reduce this aggression the remedies in the Pocket Pack will definitely help and best to remember the stress formula all the time. Those are my thoughts. Too much analysis of past girding your loins for battle. Let the past be and meditate in the morning on that and when it comes up put it aside as best you can to deal with it in the morning. Many people I am sure care for you as I do and know you can succeed with patience and love. You are a loving person in the present so stay in the present. You are not avoiding your task as you worry but rushing at it will not make it go away faster. Everything has a life of its own."

yes...

whatever mistakes I've made, I have the power to correct them...

hmmm...

i had the experience just a short while ago of an outside intelligence i could not identify conveying to me that the source of my current illness is a lie i keep telling myself, and that far from being a mystery, i know perfectly well what that lie is...