My Cancer Survival Saga

Introduction Although being handed a cancer diagnosis can be alarming, even terrifying, it does have a positive side. It’s a form of feedback from Life or from planet Earth. Feedback, whether positive or negative, is at least new information or a new point of view and all of us tend to get stuck in certain outlooks and lifestyles, forgetting that there are many others just as valid as ours. A cancer diagnosis is a wake-up call if you like. It’s Life tapping you on the shoulder and saying, “Careful, there’s a cliff up ahead”. The predominant treatment approach views cancer as an enemy and both taxpayer money and private donations have been funding the War on Cancer since 1971. In this long war, three weapons make up the arsenal: 1. Surgery; 2. Radiation; and 3. Chemotherapy; These weapons will often reduce or eliminate tumors and put a patient “in remission”. If they fail to help, the patient may hear: “I’m sorry, but we can do nothing more for you. I suggest you go home and make sure your affairs are in order.” For an anxious recipient of the Big C Diagnosis, it does not help to regard cancer as an enemy that must be fought to the bitter end; as an implacable foe that must be defeated; as something outside ourselves that attacked us. Living in fear and antagonism is counter to good health. Everyone has cancer cells. They form constantly and if your immune system is in good repair, it constantly disposes of them. There’s good balance there and good health is all about good balance. If cancer cells build up faster than immunity can vanquish them, Cancer develops until it becomes big enough to be detected by a medical test. By the time one receives the diagnosis, Cancer has likely been growing in the body for months or years, perhaps decades. It might have given you symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, obscure aches and pains, or digestive upsets, but nobody knew what caused those things so you just picked up something from the drug store and moved on. . . . Chapter 1: Diagnosis The anesthesiologist hurried in and as she leaned to place the anesthetic mask over my face, she glanced at the paperwork in her other hand. “Oh! No! No, we can’t do this!” The nurse was startled, as was I, but the anesthesiologist didn’t explain. “You need to see a doctor immediately, Ms. Kimberley. We’ll make an appointment for you tomorrow.” They gave me the name of a doctor and his whereabouts and the appointment time. I had moved to Colorado one year previously from California, the South Bay area. My husband of 11 years, Fred, had died of cancer just three months after his diagnosis. I was still mourning; but stumbling around in Denver, I got a job, got laid off, and was now unemployed. I had COBRA coverage, three months of government help with healthcare costs and I’d decided to take this opportunity to have my deviated septum corrected. It would be easier to breathe at night if the two nostrils were equal in width. I shuffled to the appointment next day like some manikin moved by remote control. I of course knew what the anesthesiologist had seen but wasn’t verbalizing it to myself. The doctor, I’ll call him Dr. Marconi, seemed to be a kindly man though he seemed in a perpetual hurry. He ordered a bone marrow biopsy for me to make sure that what I had was Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). The Complete Blood Count (CBC) that had startled the anesthesiologist had shown a white cell count of 169,000 (per cc of blood). The normal range is 4,000 to 11,000. This biopsy was done in Dr. Marconi’s office a day or two later by his nurse practitioner. It’s a procedure where a long hollow needle is pushed through a certain place on the hip bone into the marrow and a tiny piece of marrow is aspirated for testing. It was done with no anesthetic. The nurse was kind and meant well, but she had trouble getting the needle in correctly. So she had to try five times before the aspiration of marrow was successful. By that time, I was so shaky and weak from pain that I couldn’t sit up. They pulled me up and two nurses propped me up while another brought me a glass of water. When I could slide off the operating table, I got dressed and limped home for the several-week wait. Sure enough, the results showed the presence of Ph chromosomes – Philadelphia chromosomes, the defining mark of CML. “I’m prescribing Gleevec for you, Jennifer,” said Dr. Marconi on my follow-up appointment. It’s made by Novartis, a Swiss company. Take one each day.” “How much does Gleevec cost? I lost my job.” ‘I have no idea. Talk to my nurse and she’ll get you all the information you need. Or the social worker.” “How long might it take for Gleevec to cure the leukemia?” “Since CML is chronic rather than acute, we can keep it under good control with Gleevec. It does have an acute phase at some point. The longest anyone with CML has lived from diagnosis is nine-and-a-half years. Get a CBC monthly and make an appointment to see me every three months.” He raised his voice. “Next!” No, he didn’t actually call Next but his manner indicated that my time was up. . . . My New Patient Talk I don’t recall much about those first few days, but I do recall the New Patient Talk from Dr. Thomas Lodi, the founder and director. Dr. Lodi is an energetic man with a passion for teaching people how to stop creating their cancer. He spends about two hours with each new patient at Oasis giving them this talk. It was impressive and persuasive and took place in his office, door closed, Dmitri present, Dr. Lodi behind his desk. “Jenny, do you know that wild animals that never come in contact with humans or our poisons die from three causes only: starvation, trauma, or old age. Why is that?” I blinked, seeing a bony lion prowling around in search of some poor little deer. Dr. Lodi didn’t wait for any answer. “Why don’t they get heart attacks, cancer, ulcers, arthritis or strokes? How come hundreds of animals can drink from the same watering hole without getting sick and we drink bottled water and we’re all sick? Did Nature design us to be inferior to every other creature? Of course not! Our problem is that we’ve turned away from Nature, from God. They’re the same thing, God and Nature. We think we’re different from everything else living on this planet. We’re delusional and think that Nature’s rules don’t apply to us. . . . Full Body Hyperthermia This was a dramatic treatment indeed. On this first time, they made it a half hour shorter, down to one hour, as I was feeling nauseous and stressed from hurrying to breakfast and back for this treatment. My nurse was Hang (pronounced Haang), a very friendly and cheerful woman whose parents had escaped from Vietnam and she was born in Laos but mostly grew up in Germany. She was also fluent in English and Vietnamese. I have enormous admiration for multi-lingual people. She went about making me comfortable while securing all the necessary attachments to some part of me or other: • A device to the left earlobe to monitor my pulse rate; • A thermometer in the rectum to monitor body core temperature; • An oxygen cannula in my nostrils; • An IV line to a vein in my right arm that would deliver a high dose of vitamin C. I lay on my back and when everything was in place and I stopped wriggling, she closed the curved lid over me and clamped it onto the frame of the sling arrangement I lay on. That gave me a slight trapped feeling but I grounded it off and filled myself up with my best orange-gold healing energy. “Could you move that monitor to where I can see it, Hang?” She laughed. “No, there are no wheels. I take good care of you Jenny. I watch the monitor for you. It shows me your temperature rising.” She draped a shiny camping blanket over the top of the curved lid. “This will reflect lid heat back to you.” She tucked it close under my chin so I was cocooned inside this big device and totally in her care. I relaxed and decided to enjoy this treatment.