No Options

As I stated in my previous blog, I have embarked on a journey of healing. Last week, I met with a Buddhist healer, Nestor, to discuss approach to life and health.

He said to me “Eve, you no longer have options. If you want to be healthy and remain cancer-free, you must cut out destructive foods, unhealthy thoughts and unnecessary stress. You must also meditate, slow down, exercise and sleep more. If you go back to your old, familiar ways, you will create an acidic environment in your body and you will be fighting cancer once again. You have no options.”

Wow. That’s a lot to absorb. He told me to start with creating a list of intentions and putting it on my bathroom mirror to look at daily – both in the morning and at night.

Perhaps the most important, but for me the most difficult activity on this list is meditation. It is hard to calm my mind. I actually like that I think about several things all at once. It makes me feel efficient and productive. However, after reflecting on this, I have realized that the most effective individuals are ones that are calm and focused. Nestor suggests that it’s like being in the middle of a tornado. There is calm inside while things swirl all around you. With calm comes clarity of mind and ability to conserve energy to direct at the important tasks at hand.

So – he suggested that I begin with 3 minutes of meditation twice a day. Eventually, I’ll work up to more time, but 3 minutes is a good place to start.

I also wanted to mention that I saw Dr. Fisher on Thursday. He declared me healthy once again. However, I didn’t feel that same sense of elation that I had last time. I will have my port removed in the next few weeks and I will have another CT scan and blood work in 3 months. He also gave me a lecture on eliminating unnecessary stress in order to heal. It seems like the western and eastern practitioners are in agreement when it comes to stress – it just isn’t good for your health.

I hope that you all are enjoying spring as new life and beauty abound (that’s another thing that I’m working on – literally stopping to smell the flowers!)

No Evidence of Recurrence of Metastatic Disease!

This past Wednesday, I had quite an ordeal at the radiology center at Stanford. I went in for my baseline CT scan following chemo. It took 4 different attempts to access a vein because I had what is referred to as “chemo veins.” Apparently, chemo does quite a number on your veins and mine were either hardened or collapsed. After 3 attempts, they finally called in the person who could always find a good vein – Arianna – a transsexual nurse. Only in the Bay Area. Needless to say, having her at my side gave me more to concentrate on then my painful veins and eventually we were successful.

So – the results? I received a call from Margreet telling me that there was no evidence of recurrence of metastatic disease. (Ok – I guess I tipped you off by the title of this blog.) I am incredibly relieved. However, it doesn’t feel the same as the last time that I received this news. Last time, when Dr. Fisher told me I was cancer free, and that I should hope for 5 years of no cancer – I scoffed at him. 5 years seemed like nothing. Now – I realize that it’s no easy feat.

It’s not over. I can’t just go back to the way I lived prior to the recurrence (which largely resembled life prior to my original diagnosis). That didn’t work. I need to make some profound changes and this time, I’ve already begun my journey. Over the next few blogs, I plan to write about this journey. I was just telling someone last night that only months ago I would have laughed if anyone had told me that I would be looking at some of the healing modalities that I am now exploring. But that’s what facing a life-threatening disease does – it forces you to consider everything that’s out there in order to stay alive. Every time that I feel my cynical side coming out – I just look at my daughters and refocus on my task at hand – living to see them grow up.

On Thursday, I will return to Stanford to see Dr. Fisher to talk about next steps. As the Passover holiday comes to an end, I feel blessed that the angel of death has once again passed over my home. I look forward to celebrating good health and happiness with all of you in the year ahead.

I’M DONE!!!

Well, today I wrapped up my last day of chemo. I am exhausted but incredibly relieved that I made it through. I was a little nervous that we weren’t going to get the chemo in today since I was quite bloated, but I went to my marvelous acupuncturist last night and walked on the treadmill both last night and this morning and that seemed to do the trick! I released enough fluid to enable me to get in the full treatment today. I was thrilled. But I am swimming in toxins right now.

I have so much that I want to write about my healing journey over the past several weeks, but for right now, I just need to go and rest. This has been a long road. I am now on my own to make sure that I keep my body in a condition where cancer does not want to reside. This will be done through my diet, my mind, my herbal supplements and my eastern medicine treatments.

The next step on the western medical front is to get a baseline CT scan on March 29 (they said that they want to see what the heck the chemo did to my insides over the past few months). I will then have an appointment with Dr. Fisher to go over my plan, which will most likely involve blood tests every few months with follow up CT scans every 6 months.

I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am proud to say that this time I have jumped into my healing in a much more profound way than I did two years ago. I believe that this effort will be the one that will give me the greatest likelihood to have a long life.

Thank you all for your incredible support over the last several months. Your love, prayers and positive thoughts, along with a ton of delicious meals, mean more to me and my family than I can put into words. This has been a long haul (and it’s not over!) but I made it through a very significant portion of my treatment. And I did it with your help.

As I said goodbye to the incredible nurses at Stanford today, I literally cried. They are truly some of the most amazing individuals that I’ve ever met. Their kindness paired with their exceptional competence has made this whole experience so much better than it could have been. I feel fortunate that I live in a country that enabled me to have such fine health care. I guess that I’m just feeling a lot of gratitude today and I wanted to share it with all of you.

I am planning to celebrate over the weekend my new lease on life. I will celebrate the many years I will have ahead with my wonderful daughters (who made cupcakes and cards for all of the nurses today – so precious) and fabulous friends and family.

I hope you all have a phenomenal weekend filled with joy and love.

It's Almost Dress in Blue Day - March 5th!

As many of you may recall from last year, Dress in Blue Day is held once a year to bring attention to Colorectal Cancer. This event is held on the first Friday of March – which is March 5th.

Why we need to bring attention to colorectal cancer (except for the obvious reason that I have it!):

. Colorectal cancer is the #2 cause of cancer death in the U.S.
. Over 150,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer each year.
. Colorectal cancer often has no symptom at all until it's at an advanced stage.
. Colorectal cancer is 80% preventable when detected early.
. You can reduce your risk through regular screening.
. Beginning at age 50 (or earlier if you have a family history), everyone should be screened for colorectal cancer.

Dress in Blue Day was started in March of 2006 by a Colon Cancer Alliance volunteer and survivor, Anita Mitchell. In an effort to raise awareness about the importance of screening, Anita worked with her children's local k-8 Catholic school and parents to coordinate a recognition day. On that day, students, who normally wore a uniform to school, were allowed to wear blue if they donated a dollar to colon cancer research. To promote the event, Anita sent a notice to each of the 500 families at the school, letting them know about the special day and included some simple screening guidelines for the parents. When the children came to school on Dress in Blue Day they were each given a blue ribbon, signifying their participation.

In 2007, Anita dedicated Dress in Blue Day to her friend, Carmen, who had passed away from colon cancer and to all others who had lost their fight against colorectal cancer. In addition, Anita received a proclamation from the Mayor declaring it Dress in Blue Day for the city of Seattle.

If you or your company is interested in finding out more about how to promote this day, please go to http://www.ccalliance.org/news_events_dress-in-blue.html.

As for me, I’ve now gone through 2 days of Round 3. We are hopeful that tomorrow I will be able to finish up this round with my 3rd day. I went to the gym both this morning for 45 minutes and after chemo this evening for 45 minutes, to try to encourage my body to release the fluid that it had gained over the past 2 days. I have a 6:45 am meeting with my acupuncturist for her to tell my body to release the fluid as well. Hopefully this will all work and I’ll be completely filled with chemo tomorrow – so that no cancer can escape the poison!

I’m feeling pretty good and confident that tomorrow will be successful, but please continue to send your prayers and good thoughts my way! And don’t forget to dress in blue on March 5th!

What a Day!

On Thursday, things did not go as planned. After 2 days of chemo (Tue & Wed), I woke up to a very distended stomach. I was panic-stricken because I couldn’t figure out where the heck they were going to be able to put two more liters of chemo. What would happen to my stomach? I didn’t think it could stretch that quickly to accommodate all of the new fluid.

With those concerns in mind, Pat and I drove back down to Stanford, figuring that they knew what they were doing and somehow this was going to all work out. I’m not going to go into the details here, since even recounting them makes me a little woozy, but let’s just say that after many hours of trying to access my port to get the chemo in, they were unable to do so because of the amount of fluid in my body. They attempted to get me in to see a surgeon to see if he/she could help, but the surgeons were slammed and so we waited. After 6 hours of waiting and trying multiple times to access the port (which involves some really large needles), Dr. Fisher finally told the nurses to send me home.

This was not a good day. I was mentally prepared to get chemo (although worried about where it was going to go) and to be turned away after 6 hours was not easy. I want to get as much chemo in me as possible to kill this darn cancer. But, I have to trust Dr. Fisher and if he says that it’s time to go home, then it’s time to go home.

So - I’m officially one-half way through (unless Dr. Fisher decides to extend my chemo due to Thursday’s failure). I’m sore and tired from a very long week. The one plus from not getting chemo on Thursday is that I felt well enough to volunteer at Ellie’s Valentine’s Day party yesterday. She couldn’t have been happier.

Next is Round 3 – set to begin on February 23. In the meantime, my family is going to rest, regroup and try to enjoy every moment together. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Round 2 - Day 1 Update

So today I traveled down to Stanford to begin the three day regimen of "Round 2 protocol." I started off by meeting with my amazing Dr. Fisher. Have I mentioned that he is not only the smartest oncologist on the planet, but also the kindest?! Anyway, he informed me that my blood work looked great and that he was pleased with how my body was weathering the chemo. At that point I was expecting for him to inform me that he’d want to add another chemo drug that would be administered intravenously.

But that’s not what he said. Apparently, there are three potential chemo drugs that he was considering adding: Erbitux, Irinotecan and Avastin. Unfortunately, these drugs have not shown to be effective on individuals who do not have tumors. This has shocked scientists, since the natural assumption was that if the drugs work on tumors, that they should work on cancer at the microscopic level. However, that has not proven to be the case. Thus, since I don’t have any tumors, it really doesn’t make sense to add any of them to my chemo regimen.

Therefore, the plan is to continue to blast my abdomen cavity where he believes there is the greatest likelihood of recurrence with a dose of chemo that is 100x the amount that he would have put through my bloodstream (yes – 100 x!) and watch me carefully. So this is my basic plan: After I go through two more days of chemo this week, I will have one week off, go back for three more days, have one week off and then the last three days and I’ll be done. We will then monitor my blood, get regular CT scans and pray. If a tumor does reemerge, than Dr. Fisher said that we will have a host of chemo options to use.

After hearing that news, both Pat and I experienced mixed emotions. Although I am thrilled that I will keep my hair, not get overwhelmingly ill or have a horrendous rash, it now means that I alone will be responsible for ensuring that the cancer does not come back in organs outside of my abdomen. I won’t have a partner in poison. This requires an active effort on my part. As many of you know, this time around, I truly have begun making significant changes in the way I approach my life: I have changed my diet; started taking a LOT of herbal supplements; begun iyengar yoga; started qi gong; continue to see my acupuncturist regularly; see a holistic healer; have my reiki healing neighbor work on me and I’m now looking into pranic healing. Six months ago I would have laughed if anyone would have told me that I would be engaging in all of these activities. It’s amazing how inspired you can become to change your entire outlook on different healing options when your life is at stake.

As for tonight – I’m actually feeling pretty good. I feel a little bloated from all of the chemo and saline in my belly (and I’m trying to figure out how big my abdomen will become over the next two days). However, I feel very very blessed. If this is what my chemo program will be like over the next two months – I am one lucky gal. When you go into the transfusion center there are so many people who are going through so much more. I am a little tired though and have a big day tomorrow (before chemo, I’m working at the Valentine’s Day party in Ari’s classroom) – so I think I’ll head to bed now.

Thank you all for your wonderful notes, prayers and words of encouragement. It means more to me than I can ever express.

Round 1 (Take 2)

Well – I made it through Round 1. It was actually a lot easier than I was expecting. I went to Stanford on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (the 25th, 26th and 27th of January) and was amazed by how well I felt afterwards. I was tired, bloated and a bit nauseated, but those were really the main impacts during that week. In fact, on the Friday following the 3 days of chemo, I went to my acupuncturist at 6:30 am, worked a full day at the Port, went to yoga and then out to dinner and a movie with my girlfriends.

I have also begun my herbal supplements. I take approximately 50 pills a day. I’m hopeful that this insanity will only last throughout my treatment and that my herbalist will significantly reduce my dosages following this chemo regimen. However, something must be working because for those of you who have seen me, I do not look like a person going through chemo. I look and feel very strong and vibrant. Of course, I’ve only gone through one round and I have a lot further to go – but so far, so good.

So, on Tuesday, I head back to Stanford for another 3 days of fun. I will be meeting with Dr. Fisher to discuss the potential of adding another chemo drug to my regimen. He wanted to see how my body handled the FUDR (the chemo that I’m taking now) before he added something else. The problem is that the 2 drugs that he’s looking at promise to be very rough for me. Both drugs would be given intravenously (rather than directly into the cavity like my current drug). The side effects from one would be an extreme rash that would cover my face, chest and arms for weeks (apparently it’s worse than a bad case of teenage acne). He tells his patients to avoid looking in a mirror for several weeks. The side effects from the other would be a low white blood cell count, hair loss and extreme nausea. Let’s just say that should I move forward with either one of these drugs, I do not have a good time ahead of me.

But I’m not going to worry about that today. Today, I’m going to find joy in the little things. Today I will focus on playing with my children and being grateful for all of the blessings in my life. Today, I will be glad to just be. My kids are calling so off I go….