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...

gratitude...

it would be remiss and unfortunate if i didn't express my appreciation for not only the staff at princess margaret, toronto general, and mount sinai, but mostly to armin, to my friend john board and his friend derek for sharing their time and experience with me... when you're critically ill it can be easy to fall into the trap of only seeing your needs and not being sensitive to others and what otherwise is so easy to take for granted. i'm also grateful to my uncle in calgary for helping me keep this diagnosis from my mother as she declines into dementia and alzheimers.

i'm also grateful to my mother for the escalating draw of her own needs which lends a certain perspective to mine, gets me out of my own headspace, and gives me every day an active theater in which to exercise forgiveness.

changed my mind again...

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.

a woman's prerogative...

Hi Dr. ***, Michelle Bellerose here.... I have some questions regarding the further imaging we agreed to that I'm hoping you can address...

To reframe here, I'm the patient pursuing alternative treatment strategies with an interest in diagnostic information and surgery, but not chemotherapy or radiation.

To review... we have some concern that this breast cancer is not a primary lesion, but in fact a secondary site of another cancer. To date we only have inconclusive biopsy results and are waiting for two more receptor tests. We are also still waiting on lab analysis of the lymph biopsy. The first question I have is, could this breast cancer be a Triple Negative Breast Cancer and not a metastatic tumour?

After doing some research on MRIs, CAT and bone scans.... I feel the two latter tests should really be reserved ONLY once a) the lymph node tests positive for malignancy AND b) an MRI shows indication of tumour activity somewhere else in the body. Until those conditions are met, these two tests, I believe, will expose me to unnecessary levels of radiation at a time when my body needs its best integrity and wholeness.

While we're certain of a malignancy in the breast that's been growing in size, we haven't yet been able to discern for certain how much of its recent growth might've been due to hormonal changes of my menstrual cycle affecting the cystic components... I got my period right after the initial biposy and consult with you, and cysts normally decrease in size after the start of menses.... I would like to be re-evaluated with another ultrasound in two weeks at the nadir of my cycle so that we can compare the measurements and get a better handle on how "aggressive" the growth of the tumour component really is.

I also wanted to ask, if its a foregone conclusion that surgery, either a lumpectomy or mastectomy, are in my best interests, is there anything to gain, waiting another month until my scheduled reassessment and consult with you on 11 July 2013? As I first mentioned, even if I am internally _riddled_ with cancer, I will under no circumstances take the course of chemo or radiation, so perhaps we can avoid unnecessary expenditure of tax dollars on tests and cut to the chase here...

So to summarize, I am requesting...

a) the scheduling of an MRI as quickly as possible (this has not yet happened because of some administrative glitch, I've been assured I should be getting notification of an appointment soon but I would appreciate it if you could make an enquiry as to what the hold up is....)

b) the scheduling of a mid-menstrual cycle ultrasound anytime July 1, 2, 3....

c) a consult with you right after this second ultrasound in the hopes of fast-tracking to surgery, should this be desirable

d) and the putting on the back burner for use only under exceptional circumstances, the bone and CAT scans....


Could you please give me a call back or drop me a line letting me know if you can help me modify our plans here...? I do appreciate your help in tailoring the usual procedures to reflect my wishes, and as I said at our first meeting, these are not choices I've undertaken lightly and I take full responsibility for my health, healing and any and all outcomes...

With my best respect...

to clarify...

in case my wording was at all vague, when i say i want to collate as much info as possible in order to make decisions best for me, i have not and will never reconsider chemotherapy or radiation as viable options for treatment. no doubt they might temporarily wipe away or reduce the prevalence of a cancer, but the long term and short term ill-effects are such that not only is quality of life an issue, recurrence of cancer is a guarantee no matter what. people who do absolutely _nothing_ about their cancer live on average twice as long as their compliant counterparts who do what conventional doctors tell them to. i'm not doing _nothing_ and i'm at least enjoying life in the process.

i'm continuing in my quest to employ everything i can get my hands on that has proven curative of cancers but also employing basic common sense about the body and how it typically can be supported in its natural healing powers. for example, particularly since the needle biopsy of my lymph node (which as a friend pointed out suddenly leaves a potentially cancerous node with an open wound within a closed system) i've been having more and more defined pain along lymph channels very akin to what i felt the one time in my life i had lymphangitis as a result of a cat scratch. it occurred to me today to start dosing on homeopathic ledum which completely reversed my lymphangitis symptoms (which incidentally are life-threatening... one develops a red line of inflammation along a lymph channel and it if reaches the heart it's morbific... the red line that developed from my wound was diagnosed by a walk-in clinic doctor and was halfway up my arm... he prescribed antibiotics only after i refused to go to hospital and be put on antibiotic drip... instead i filled the script in case, but i took the ledum first and the line was gone within 24 hours)...

there are some other avenues being explored that i can't discuss just yet and i've made a new acquaintance who is also walking the same road, and who knows many more individuals who've done the same, who has offered his experience, support and expertise.

so the mystery deepens...

it emerges that the tests so far are inconclusive and require more differentiation. the biopsy results of the lymph node won't be available until next week. the breast work so far suggests what i've been speculating... that this is not the primary site of the cancer. so far the results point to either bone, blood or skin cancer, but two of the 'receptor' tests are still to be processed... these will tell us if the biopsied tissue tests positive for estrogen or not... therefore the tumour may still clarify as a breast cancer, but this seems increasingly more unlikely given its aggressive growth and opportunistic composition.

it will take the next two weeks for me to get the MRIs, the bone and CAT scans that should tell the doctors more. i won't know whether surgery will still be an option until i meet again with my surgeon in two weeks... it may be that chemotherapy is the only thing they can offer me. i have been put on a priority list for the scheduling of all these things, i will be seeing a general oncologist soon, and i've been offered a chance to participate in genetic testing since i'm adopted and have no medical history which makes me a candidate for this new experimental program.

i'm as interested as i was from the start in acquiring all the information as i can so that i can make decisions that work best for me. increasingly it looks like regular medicine won't be able to do much anyway, which leaves me in not much of a different position than i was in at the start... i have to find the solution, within given means, and make the best of it. quality of life is more important to me than length of life and so as before, staying positive and bringing my best to this is my bottom line responsibility.

i know that a researcher in the US who uses the ketogenic diet to treat cancer spoke of non-toxic drugs that were used to amplify ketosis and when i consulted with the surgeon today she mentioned that i would have to bring these ideas to the oncologist, they won't go out and follow up on the information for me, which seems fair enough. so there's some homework to do over the next two weeks....

viva la vida!

of interest for my journaling here, forgot to note i did have a dream that i found a swollen lymph node on my chest but that on closer examination i found it was just a piece of grit stuck to my skin that i was able to flick away. i'll be curious to see what the tests say and if my dream has any literal correspondences...

and a merrily we go....

i'm home again after my morning at princess margaret where i had an awesome, top of the line experience. i was met first by a nurse practitioner who discussed with me the plan of action for the day. they wanted to do a mammogram first, then the ultrasound and biopsy. i voiced my preference to avoid the mammogram, but when i was presented with the argument that this would furnish my surgeon with the best possible imaging diagnostic of what was going on in my breast, i felt it prudent to reconsider. she told me that the level of radiation exposure is equivalent to an airplane trip from toronto to europe, something i'd heard before and have to take at face value. i've avoided them my whole life, so i can't really say i've been exposed unnecessarily, and of course i want the best outcome for this surgery. she examined me and i directed her to another little lump in the left breast and reported as well the tenderness in the lymph next to the right one. the nurse did try to persuade me to have a clip installed at the same time the biopsy was being performed... a clip would allow for a quick hookup to a chemo drip. she explained that when surgery is performed, they like to ensure a mop up of any remaining cancer with the chemo. i explained that i don't intend to consent to chemo or radiation and why. she suggested i might change my mind, and that if i did, having the clip installed now would spare me a separate procedure. i took a breath and thought about this and decided that i would prefer to make my decisions when all of my diagnostics are on the table and a course of action is offered to me by my surgeon. if i need a clip, i won't have a problem with the additional procedure. having it pre-installed before any decisions are made paves the way for a treatment option i'm not comfortable with.

i then was quickly handed off to my sonographer who took me through all three procedures. the mammogram itself was a little uncomfortable but nothing to complain about. the ultrasound found that the left breast tissue is normal, but i do have two lymph nodes that are enlarged and of concern. the breast clinic doctor came in next to perform the biopsies, and she did four in total. to my relief, she first drained the cystic portions of the lesion. with the guidance of the ultrasound she was able to pinpoint those areas without routing around blindly as my GP had had to. then she gave me some freezing and took the samples, three from the lesion and one from the most concerning lymph node. the tissue samples as well as the fluid she drew will all be analyzed now and i will have my results tomorrow afternoon at 230p when i meet with my surgeon for the first time, a smiling young woman and mother with a very interesting twitter feed. whenever anyone today asked me who my surgeon would be they all said that i was very lucky, that she was very good and a kind person who works to create treatment plans in accord with what's important to the patient.

they told me there would be some pain and swelling after the freezing goes away, but i took a single dose of arnica 30C as soon as i got home and i have no pain whatsoever to speak of. unfortunately i can't do any yoga for a couple days, but i'll go for some walks instead. i've got a pot of miso soup with ginger and dulse seaweed on the stove to neutralize whatever my radiation exposure was today, and i'm feeling fit as a fiddle. i started to realize i was feeling so crappy and poorly on account of how aggressive i was being with my own program of care, and while this is not a bad indicator, for the next few days i'm going to ease off and focus on building up my strength and energy for the surgery so that i'll have all my powers at the ready for making the most of it and recovering without complications or delay.

good news, i now have an appointment at princess margaret on thursday morning for my imaging and biopsy. i forgot to report earlier, it could also be possible the increase in size in this lesion is due to the fact that its partly composed of cystic structures which are known to swell just before a menstrual period and reduce in size afterwards. in any event, i'll be relieved of having to speculate endlessly in a few days and i'm looking forward to the new playing field, que sera sera...

always be prepared to make room for inconvenient facts...

despite my efforts, the mass in my breast is growing at an alarming rate. i wanted to avoid neurotically checking on it everyday as it also makes it more difficult to assess changes, so i palpate every two or three days. yesterday i could clearly make out a dramatic change in its girth, and most alarming, its encroachment towards the chest wall, if its not contacted it already. i also could no longer deny that i've got some kind of inflammation going on in the lymph channels on the right side of the body, the pain becoming more and more persistent, sometimes going all the way into my neck and jaw or into my legs. i have no swellings or pain in the armpit. i've also noticed a heavy feeling sometimes in my chest and shortness of breath on the stairs that's unusual for me. my energy overall continues to have good stretches interspersed with times i feel utterly exhausted. to complicate matters, these last two days my body has shut down my bowels and i'm having a tough time figuring out what i've been doing wrong.

all this leads me to wonder if the cancer has been operant at another location in the body i would not easily detect and if the breast is a secondary site. whatever is going on, i'm short on information. having still not heard from the hospital, i decided to leave a message with the intake coordinator wishing to confirm she received my lab reports last week, to appraise her of the changes in my condition since my first assessment, and to request my file be fast-tracked for assessment.

i don't care how challenging or complex this ordeal becomes, i won't abandon my positive attitude. that doesn't mean i'll be deluding myself, au contraire. i've carefully considered the trials of this life that i've lived and know full well its entirely possible something in me has decided that its gone as far as it can go, that the frustrations and abuses have taken a toll, and that its time to chalk up the learning achieved and move on to a new cycle. last night i dreamt a team of astronauts took me beyond orbit on a tour farther and farther away from the earth, providing some kind of arcane tutorial on planetary energies that reminded me a great deal of something i'd come across elsewhere, where a spiritualist described the death experience as one where consciousness expands from its old binding to this surly earth to include greater and greater orbits in the cosmos until it becomes infinite. my point is, whatever the trajectory here, both possibilities are equally intriguing and of interest to me and i embrace them both as the eager student i am. whether i can metaphorically die and be reborn through the experience of resolving this cancer, or whether i'm due for the literal endgame, one thing is certain, i want to thoroughly learn from all that i've lived through and take complete responsibility for the choices i've made so that i can build on these consequences, rather than find myself (well, not this self) recast in the same house of horrors and frustrations on account of lack of wisdom development.

i believe it's also possible the cancer has a powerful maintaining cause in the emotional baggage i've not ever really been successful in dumping. it still perplexes me, how to accomplish this feat. i know its important i keep writing behind the scenes my account of the life i've lived. i stopped doing it for a while but i know its important to return to and finish. i also trust that if there's a chance for the emotional clearing i long for, the tools will find me as a result of my genuine readiness to do the work. the death experience might be the healer that teaches me how to let go, but then again, maybe some other resource will cross my path and for the first time i might actually be able to see it for truth and run with it.

if the hospital doesn't get a hold of me today, i might just go and admit myself. in the meantime, i'm not afraid, i'm alive and still fronting this singularity that be me for as long as i can get away with it, just like everyone else, unique snowflakes and perishable all. aho!

the power of song...

i had the lovely fortune yesterday to take a yin yoga class, a style i find extremely challenging, not because it's slower and requires surrender instead of striving, but because of the effective and immediate way it releases what bodyworkers call, 'issues in the tissues...' 

as a person at ease with ideas and abstractions but less fluidly graceful with emotions, its like swimming without knowing how... you feel overwhelmed and inclined to struggle until you decide to have faith and float. the teacher had invited a guitarist who was noodling quietly in the background until the very last pose when he broke out into cohen's hallelujah... i don't believe in angels, but, for me, it was like an angel had come into the room through this young boy's voice. i instantly unraveled, not out of sadness, no. i was moved to tears by the sheer power of the singing voice, the way it reaches inside people to touch them in a way other medias can't.

there's little need for me to point out the obvious, that contemporary music has so very much lost touch with this fact but moved headlong into the other extreme of mostly pointless escapism, adding its bit to a new social norm that prefers to see us cynical except for our thrill to consume, hard-hearted except for our own wants and wishes, and immune to responsiveness except those that keep us lubricated cogs in the machine.

i feel so grateful to've been at the right place yesterday to get touched by human song like that, who doesn't appreciate such gentle, synchronous reminders? its so damn easy to forget the simple things, like why we first started singing to each other in the first place... 

insincerity kills...

in keeping with the symbolic overlay of this cancer, which appeared to be harmless but in fact is hiding an adversarial, deadly core, i've started clearing house in terms of my social relationships. people who have consistently behaved in a two-faced, hypocritical, and undermining manner; people who misrepresent themselves for the purpose of game-playing or mischief; people who could be relied upon to twist accounts to suit their narrative outlook in order to feed their love of slanderous gossip, this primitive practice the only one capable of sating their need to feel superior and in control while hiding the truth of their own duplicitous, poisoned behaviour; people, particularly those who aspire to artist status, who choose not to do the work of reflecting on their evident insecurity, competitiveness and resentments of other creatives; people who abhor intelligent women and prefer them to either keep silent or speak only in dulcet, approbating terms; people i have tolerated for the sake of some social obligation or for the sake of not making waves... day by day, one by one, i've been making the necessary adjustments...

i have no animosity towards these people, in fact i see very plain how they're controlled by their own pains and inner conflicts and i recognize they're just doing the best they can, but such an understanding is no longer grounds for me to force myself into an exposure to their unrecognized capacity to do harm, to emit negative energy, and sometimes, to do downright reprehensible things to people they feel threatened by. the conflicted feelings that forced interaction with such types produces certainly takes a toll, and right now more than ever i feel a need to say no, nevermore. i'd rather make space for fresh energy and new faces.

the marvelous thing about this whole process is that by merely stating for the first time in neutral, unprovocative terms, the truth of my experience and the warp and woof of my new needs, toxic folk do the rest for me.... pulling aside the curtain on my previously accommodating and ultimately insincere behaviour (having been unwilling in the moment to call out people when they've been snarky, sarcastic, saying one thing and emoting another, or being downright cruel) so as to newly come forward with an easy self-respect and calm governance was enough to set them off, and like infected boils, they burst forth with the foul pus that my instinct had told me all along they were leading with but withholding from view.

each time i adjust my reality to reflect the new orientation and conditions i wish to live by, i'm rewarded with a return of energy and a tremendous sense of relief and freedom. yes, i used to think it was a virtue to keep my tongue and be accommodating, wanting to refuse no one nor dare speak my truth in front of the wrong audience. this was a toxic policy in and of itself and the dissonant feelings i was masking were just as perceptible to my antagonists as theirs was to me, which leads to all sorts of complications and unnecessary drama. i can't emphasize enough the delight one can experience, rather than the grief, of bringing these conflicts out from under the table into the open where decisions can be made. some friendships, i've discovered, thrive in the outing... they become more robust for the opportunity to clear the air and eagerly embrace new agreements and understandings for the benefit of both of us, but the one's that were supported for the wrong reasons and of no benefit to anyone who seeks self-development versus self-deceit, they turn to dust and are easily and fortuitously blown away.