Tag: 5FU

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Free of Cancer!

My first appointment this morning was with Dr. Gullion.  He was rather pleased that the induction phase of the Shipley protocol worked so well.  He was also a little concerned about the 3 mm growth that was cut out of the surface of my bladder. He basically said that that was the nature of my bladder, and I would have to be watched. Nonetheless, we are still on the Shipley protocol and we begin chemotherapy and radiation next week. The basic protocol is the same, with chemo on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with 5FU and cis-platin, and radiation twice a day on Tuesday and Thursday. The whole process repeats itself after a week off. Then I am finished with the protocol. I plan to call Shipley today to discuss the situation with him.

My next appointment was with Leslie Davenport. My major concern in speaking with her was about the 3 mm tumor that was removed. I am still confused about how it could be there, with treatments I’ve had so far, but now it is removed and my bladder is free of cancer. We worked on the sadness I felt as a result of having some cancer removed, and I connected it with a desire for intimacy, especially with my wife. I apparently still need to work out some personal problems having to do with asserting myself, while maintaining a close and intimate relationship with my wife.

To celebrate my recovery, T. R. took me lunch at Insalata in San Anselmo. We had a very nice lunch, followed by a stroll by Gelato and a chat in the park. T. is very grateful for my recovery and very inspired by it.

All afternoon I felt extremely tired. I suppose it was from too much running around on Monday and Tuesday. Therefore, I’ve decided to try to take it easy today.

I went to the Center for Attitudinal healing last night and shared my happy news. Everyone was happy for me, and I continued to express my mission of presenting alternative methods as something to be done in conjunction with convention medical practice. I shared the T-Up information with one of the patients who seems to be reaching the point of no return. This patient has a choice for surgery for which the recovery period could be as long as the remaining of his life if he doesn’t have the surgery. The poor patient really has some tough decisions to make, and perhaps I can help him.

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Easter Sunday

March 30, 1997 – Easter Sunday

I wasn’t able to write anything yesterday because I was feeling quite badly. I felt like sleeping most of the day, which I did, even though D. and S. came from Arizona. They’ll be here next weekend, though, and I will be better by then. I’m already better today, but the raw feeling inside my body persists. I still feel a lot like sleeping. Perhaps this is quite a normal response to 5FU and cisplatin. I haven’t had too much nausea, and it has been quite controlled with Ativan.

About the best thing that I can recall about yesterday is that I was able to return to my belly breath quite frequently, in spite of feeling awful. I still remembered, “breathing in I’m healing myself, breathing out, I’m clear of cancer” or simply, “healing… clear”, with each breath. This practice removes me from the remorse of having cancer and controls my discursive thinking quite a bit.

We had a pot luck at our house today. Our best friends showed up with the best food! I was still feeling like my insides were raw, so I tried to soothe my insides with Aloe Vera and Rescue Remedy. They worked a little, but not 100%. I was nervous about the Aloe Vera that was bought because of its potency and purity. I’m still wondering if T-Up is worth buying.

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Massage and Tennis

March 19, 1997 – Massage and Tennis

Today was another wonderful day! I had a massage at the Marin Oncology Center from Nora O’Toole, a Certified Massage Therapist who donates her time and energy to work with patients. This is also a part of the Marin General Hospital Humanities Program, along with the guided imagery sessions I’ve been having with Leslie Davenport.

After the massage, I couldn’t help but drive by Boyle Park to see whether I could play some tennis. I sat for a while, amazed at the empty courts, and rubbed sun block over the exposed parts of my body just in case the 5FU was still active. I was feeling so normal that when the opportunity to hit with someone came along, I took the opportunity! Man, was it fun! I found myself hitting the ball with the out breath, just as planned, but not consciously thought of. I played only for about forty-five minutes, but it felt great!

On the way home, I bought a new tennis racket to celebrate my recovery. After trying out several rackets, I settled on a Prince because it felt intuitively correct for me. This was a direct experience from my study of Practical Intuition.

Later on in the day, I received a call from Jeff Barber, a Reiki practitioner. He was given my name by a friend of ours who utilized his healing abilities for serious burns suffered by their daughter as a result of an automobile accident. They reported wonderful things about Reiki and I wanted to find out how it could help me. Since Jeff also has a home in Lake Tahoe, I wasn’t able to speak with him until today. I have a feeling that the Reiki method is not to different from many of the healing techniques I use with my children.

In addition to telling me about his Zen practice and his exposure to the teachings of some wonderful Tibetan Buddhists, he told me about a medical doctor who had people write about the reasons for their illness in pencil. Specifically, he suggested writing a letter to “Dear Cancer in My Body.” In the letter, you write emotionally about all the things that are bothering you about your illness, especially your anger, irritation, concerns, broken dreams and promises. You are to release all of these things thorough this writing. It should be done in pencil with your own hand writing and later burned with or without ceremony.

The theory behind this lies in the three carbon factors involved: the human body, the pencil (graphite), and the paper, which turns into carbon when burned. He has seen and heard about people walking away from all kinds of physical and emotional distress. Through the process of writing, the incident you’re writing about becomes complete, and you are not holding on to it anymore physically, emotionally, or spiritually. This transmutation of emotion that led to the illness seems to work wonders.

When writing, release all the anger, irritation, broken dreams, promises, and other negative emotions that you have ever felt, as the illness could have be caused by factors in your childhood, and taken decades to develop physically. Release all of this through the writing and burning. The process lets you come more into the present because you are not bringing any of the past into the present. Write about every hard moment in your life and release the emotional charge so that it no longer has a hold on physical body. When writing to the cancer in your body, state that you’re releasing the cancer from your body and there’s no place for it and there is no longer any benefit from it. State that you don’t need the cancer to bring you in to the present moment. Write about anything that bugs you. Write to the fact that you are taking chemotherapy and radiation and they’re not going to have effects that the body doesn’t want. Remind yourself that you don’t have to buy into the results of the allopathic medical doctors.

In the end, he recommended the book, Reclaiming Our Health – Breaking the Medical Myth by John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, which he gave up because he didn’t believe that ice cream (as good as it is!) is good for your health!

I am definitely looking forward to meeting Jeff Barber!

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Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing

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Chopped Liver

March 12, 1997 – Chopped Liver

The night before last I couldn’t sleep because of the anxiety over the unknown effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Last night I couldn’t sleep because I was waiting for side effects, which didn’t come! So today, I really exhausted. I hope to get my energy up by the time we leave.

I spent the time listening to guided imagery tapes, Deepak Chopra, and surfing the news groups on the web. I had an interesting query from a reader of the news group, alt.support.cancer.

The second day of 5FU and cisplatin was similar to the first. This time I had a chopped chicken liver sandwich for lunch from Max’s! It went well again, although I fell a little exhausted.

After the chemotherapy, I had another guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport. The session was interrupted by an extremely urgent need to pee. Before then, I was visualizing how the chemotherapy and radiation were helping me either revert the cancer cells back to normal cells, or at their choice, bubble up and degenerate into something that could be easily eliminated by the blood stream, urine, and feces. I got some really good images to work with in the future.

We stopped by M. C.’s house to see the girls before the fly off to Palm Springs for the weekend while I recover from my three doses of chemotherapy and four doses of radiation.

I spent a lot of time trying to fix a bug (work for money), so there’s not much more to say. The fact that I feel like fixing is actually saying a lot.

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Jewish Penicillin

March 11, 1997 – Jewish Penicillin

We arrived at the Marin Oncology center at 8:10. Here it is now 9:03 and we’ve just been sitting around. Naturally, they had us down for 9:00, not 8:00. So now I’m really getting restless. I’m not comfortable starting a mind story, not knowing how far I’ll get or if I’ll be able to even begin. I tried working on Practical Intuition, but the same considerations play. The man next to me is getting his i. v. already. I guess that he’s been here before.

Last night was fairly difficult. I seemed to sleep fairly well in stages, but due to all of the hydration, I was up many times. Finally, at 3:00, I went downstairs and did a little writing. Next came a tape, and by the time it was time to wake up, I was ready to sleep.

I haven’t been that preoccupied with today’s treatment plan, but I still felt unable to concentrate on my breath. No one can tell what kind of response I’m going to have to the chemo, and I’m a little worried. To top it off, I have two rounds of radiation also today.

I had expected to be able to listen to guided imagery tapes, but with all the commotion going around here, I preferred to listen to the classical CD’s I brought. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy brought on a lot of emotion. I also listened to Dvorak’s Piano Quintet and Shubert’s Trout Quintet. These pieces of music are so calming and beautiful. I use my computer as my portable CD player.

Once the 5FU and cisplatin where into my blood stream, I felt a few minor discomforts, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad – just like Shipley predicted. I can probably have a decent afternoon. As soon as the cisplatin was finished, I got an urge for matzoth ball soup from Max’s! When I was growing up, this was called, “Jewish penicillin!”

I started having pains in my stomach and needed to pee again! The pains didn’t last long and I continued to pee frequently. At around 1:15 P. M., an hour and a half after the cisplatin was totally in, I went down for my first radiation treatment. Although I was a little nervous, I came through it OK. Within the next half-hour, we were back upstairs, getting the i. v. out and on our way home. Although I felt very tired, there were no other side effects. I was advised to take a sedative tonight to get some sleep, but now that the unknown is known, will I need it?

The second radiation treatment went really well. I was able to be relaxed and visualize the radiation helping the cancer cells to mutate back to healthy cells normal cells, or, if they choose, to self-destruct. This seemed to be really effective. The radiologist placed tattoos for the spots for focusing the beam and then explained the computerized care that I was getting.

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Practical Intuition

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La Boheme

March 7, 1997 – La Boheme

Today I have a busy schedule. I see Dr. Gullion in the morning, meet with co-workers in the early afternoon, and travel to Capitola for my son’s performance in La Boheme in the evening. We have planned to spend the night in Capitola. I have prepared a list of questions for Dr. Gullion.

Once again, Dr. Gullion showed up with a heart pin on his shirt pocket. I believe that he is quite open to what Andy Weil calls integrative medicine. We spoke about all the issues on the list and the thing that struck me the most was his willingness to allow guided imagery and massage along with chemotherapy. He said that this is what they were trying to do at the Marin Cancer Institute.

As far as Keith Block is concerned, Dr. Gullion thought that with Michael Broffman and all that I was doing, it amounts to the same thing. He said that he had always had difficulty getting Dr. Block to be specific about what he is doing, and that he had proprietary supplement preparations that no one else had. I felt confident that I was on the right path because of Michael Broffman, Marty Rossman, Van Vu, Elyse, and the combination of all the other things I am doing.

As far as the chemotherapy is concerned, he was no more worried about my response than Dr. Shipley. He had given cisplatin and 5FU together before, but not combined with radiation and not in the doses that I will be getting.

After our visit with Dr.Gullion, we headed down to Network General and then to Santa Cruz. We checked in to the Apple Lane Inn and took a nap before meeting M. and G. for dinner in Capitola before the opera. M. seemed quite relaxed in spite of having one of the leading roles in the production. I was feeling quite proud of him and also felt excited to be able to be there. You may recall that on my first visit to Dr. Neuwirth’s office when he described my illness, I wanted to be able to see La Boheme.

La Bohem, SF Opera

The performance was rather good for the first performance of a new opera company. Of course my son had the best male performance as Marcello, Rudolpho’s friend! The woman who played Mussetta was also excellent. But the orchestra and chorus left something to be desired. All in all, it was very enjoyable and I recommend it to anyone living near Santa Cruz.

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Copyright © 2004-2018, Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.