Tag: chemotherapy

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Healthy Cells Grow All By Themselves

March 24, 1997 – Healthy Cells Grow All By Themselves

I passed up an opportunity to play tennis today because I didn’t want to be too exhausted for my chemotherapy and radiation therapy tomorrow. We still need a fourth and I wasn’t about to play singles. So I spent most of the day working except for a two hour break to visit on of the members of Cancerport who hadn’t be showing up and who sent her husband as an emissary. The visit was something I felt I could do for the lady and I also wanted her to know about Aloe Vera and Cesium Chloride treatments.

Speaking of cesium chloride, I had a rather long conversation with Michael Broffman about the meeting with C. H. and especially about the strategy for what we were going to do after Thursday. Cesium chloride seems like a good possibility.

At night, I went to Anna Halprin’s class only to find that she wasn’t there. The class was taught very capably by two of her students, and I felt tremendous joy as I shared my experience with Leslie Davenport on Friday. I felt totally loved and supported. I danced and drew the experience. In the drawing, I wrote,

Lying still,
Breathing in, Breathing out,
Healthy cells grow all by themselves!
I am free of cancer

Naturally, this was based on the Zen poem previously mentioned.

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Tennis, Cancerport, and Feldenkrais

March 20, 1997 – Tennis, Cancerport, and Feldenkrais

Today was an up and down day, with the highs being much greater than the lows. In the morning, I was experiencing some of the side effects from radiation therapy resulting in diarrhea. Even so, I managed to play two sets of tennis with some of my favorite players. Naturally, I had no symptoms while I was on the court!

Later in the morning, I took my wife to Cancerport with me. It was really nice to have her there and experience the people I have become attached to, simply because we share similar life circumstance. I mainly shared my experience of the chemotherapy and radiation, and that I was feeling well enough to play tennis. All three of the leaders commented on how therapeutic tennis could be and I agreed with them by stating that I’d prefer to play tennis than attend a support group. So it is likely that I’ll miss Leslie Davenport’s group tomorrow because I’m scheduled to play tennis at 8:30 in the morning on the first day of spring!

From Cancerport, I went to get my new racket strung and then to Gail Teehan’s for a Feldenkrais lesson. It was truly amazing! She was so attuned to my body that she discovered my traditional places of where I hold tension. Not only that, but I experienced the transmission of energy through my skeletal system as she pressed and manipulated various areas. The climax was when she rolled me up to a sitting position! This was quite remarkable, as one moment I was lying on my side and the next moment I was sitting up, and the transition was made so seamlessly that I felt totally reassured, comfortable, and relaxed. I highly recommend stopping by to have a session with Gail!

When I finally got home, I picked up the mail and became stressed out even before I opened it! I had stressful items to deal with from the IRS, the State Board of Equalization, and Cigna Health Care. The stress I felt was in addition to being exhausted from all my activities. Nevertheless, I proceeded to do a mind story, and felt a little relieved. Then I realized that the best way to deal with the stressful items was simply to tackle them one at a time.

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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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A Walk by the Bay

March 18, 1997 – A Walk by the Bay

Today was the best day I had so far since the chemotherapy and radiation! I spent a lot of time working today, but at noon I took a long break. I took a walk in Sausalito by the San Francisco Bay, where all the tourists come. The walk was especially nice, since I felt well enough to do it! After walking all the way from the center of town to the Chart House restaurant, I stopped at a beautiful spot near the end of the walkway that is closest to the water. There is a place there where the concrete ends and a gravel path of about 25 feet begins. It has a lovely view of the Bay, Angel Island, and San Francisco. I stopped there to do some stretches and qi gong. The weather was magnificent and it really felt good to be out on my own again. Hopefully, I’ll do something similar to this tomorrow!

I found myself drinking much more today, as this helps to hydrate my system and eliminate the dead cancer cells. This was the first day that I could manage this. I am now in the process of preparing my system for the next phase of chemotherapy and radiation on Tuesday, March 25. I’ll keep you posted!

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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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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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“Humor Comes a Year Later”

March 4, 1997 – “Humor Comes a Year Later”

The above quote was Dr. Halberg’s comment as we left the radiation therapy simulation session. “You will laugh about everything that happened today in about a year!” she said. Everything that could have gone wrong did! In the first place I had to walk to Dr. Neuwirth’s office to have a catheter put in, since Dr. Halberg had difficulties on two attempts. I’m sure that my bladder was sensitive due to having the catheter in six days earlier, and she didn’t want to injure me. But, Harry had no problem! It must be his great experience at putting in catheters! However, he was willing to hurt me, but just a little. Secondly, the catheter tube did not match the syringe, so they had to send someone out to find a compatible syringe.

The rest of the procedure went fairly smoothly including the Barium enema, setting up the x-ray device according to the Shipley protocol, tagging my body for future radiation sessions, taking the necessary x-rays, and finally removing the tubing.

I was exhausted from this hour and one half procedure that lasted almost four hours! I have nothing else to say at this time!

Oh, by the way, the treatment begins on Monday, March 10 with a dry run on the radiation equipment. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy begins on March 11.

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Healing the Body – Healing the Mind

March 3, 1997 – Healing the Body – Healing the Mind

The morning started out with a Feldenkrais class incorporating arm movements. I couldn’t believe how exhausted I was when returned home! I found it necessary to settle into another guided imagery tape after lunch to even have a chance of making my day.

Next came a very revealing guided imagery session with Leslie Davenport at Marin General. I began talking about my fears of the upcoming chemotherapy and radiation and traced the fears down many, many levels to my fears of abandonment and treatment with indifference that experienced as a child. While there wasn’t time for a complete resolution of the situation, I think that there is much more work to do in this area. I feel rather pressured to perform because I have expectations of completing the Shipley protocol with a complete response and not have remaining cancer at the end of April or the beginning of May when my next TURBT will be.

After this session, I took a thirty minute walk on the pathway near the hospital to absorb what I had learned from my meditation and to allow the images to integrate into my life. As I was walking back to my car, I had this wonderful feeling of making myself lovable, not only to myself, but to everyone I saw and came in contact with. I took this feeling into Anna Halprin’s group and it turned into one of the most healing events of my life. I was open to receiving and giving love and there was plenty to go around! We had a large discussion on alternative healing prior to our movement program.

The movement program focused on prayer, and I don’t know if Anna picked up this idea from me, or I got it several minutes before she said anything, but it was the exact word I would have chosen! This intuitive flash led to an immensely moving dance, which brought the whole group together in one circle, filled with healing energy and love.

I drew a picture of myself kneeling in the prayer position with my hands drawn together in the traditional prayer position. The hands were way out of proportion, but as the drawing developed, I began to realize that I was also drawing the healing space around my hand and the healing energy radiating from them. I wrote,

all hands
healing hands
kneeling hands
a Buddha is a rose is a giver of qi
a 1000 petal lotus

Something remarkable is taking place as I focus on healing my cancer. I find that I can’t but help heal my whole self. Without healing my whole self, there can be no healing of my cancer. They are strongly interconnected as all phenomena of the universe are. And, I believe, this is the essence of holistic health – healing the body and healing the mind. This is what I’m striving for and what I want to achieve.

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A Day with Friends and Family

March 1, 1997 – A Day with Friends and Family

Today was spent almost entirely with friends and family. In the morning, we were visited by Dr. John Anderson and family, who had spent the previous night. They are from Nashville, TN, but love to drop in on us in Sausalito. We had a nice leisurely walk by the bay and talked of many things. Later, my cousins came over from Oakland.

All of this made me fairly exhausted, so I listened to a guided imagery tape preparing me for chemotherapy. I found the tape to be confusing because the speaker offered too many choices. I find that following specific directions is much more useful than something like, “Pick a relaxing spot – maybe a beach, or a meadow, or a mountain top, or…” I seem to pick all of the places as they are mentioned and wind up picking none. However, once I adjusted to the changing scenery, I relaxed quite nicely and utilized the tape to develop a sense of what good the chemotherapy would do for me.

At night, we visited our friends who had been on a trip to Africa and viewed their collection of slides. I was impressed with the quality of their photographs and their caring support. Besides, the food was great.

All in all, it was a pleasant day almost entirely removed from thoughts of my illness. Sometimes it’s good to allow your illness to float to the background and have a normal life. This gives you a hint of what life will be like when the disease goes into remission.

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Home Again!

February 20, 1997 – Home Again!

The morning in the hospital was fairly uneventful. I continued to read and listen to tapes until Dr. Neuwirth showed up. When he did, he explained that he took more tissue out of the bladder wall and left me with a very thin membrane. To help the healing, he wanted me to keep the catheter in until Tuesday. However, he didn’t seem to find any more gross cancer during the TURBT. Although the catheter is rather uncomfortable, I was very excited that there was no more visible tumor in my bladder! He was even telling me to “fatten up” for the chemotherapy that was going to happen in three weeks. I got the impression that he was satisfied with my decision to go with the Shipley method.

I spent the afternoon completing the “mind story” on the practice pages and submitting my URL to the various search engines. Somehow, time seems to flow so much faster now. My guess is that once you are confronted with a life-threatening illness, you value each minute a lot more. For example, when I played tennis on Monday, I thought it was very precious time, as I don’t know when the next time I’ll be able to play. Another example: Mala’s cooking today seemed to be extra special.

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