CT showed left kidney is not functioning.
Options are place a stent or let the kidney die (is that really an option?)
Also shows micro nodule in lung that needs to be watched --
though it could be nothing as it did not show on the PET scan in Feb.
Stent needs to be placed - having scheduling issues through urologist office -
surgery center has nothing available when Dr. is available until July 15th :(
My integrative Dr says flatly that is too long to wait - particularly in view of the
Results of the heavy metals test - which shows toxicity due to prior chemo
Can't do anything about it til I get kidney functioning
(don't want to over work the existing kidney)
Interventions for diarrhea and gas not really working,
so removing more supplements and foods to try to isolate the cause.
Trying to not feel sorry for myself that this
messes up a lot of plans that we had a
costs a lot of money in the process and I have to miss the fun...
So -- Thankfulness is definitely what I need!
Thankful I got to go to Montana and be with them and not know this was looming over me!
Thankful that I felt really positive going into this morning
Thankful for stents - even if they are unpleasant. (They used to have to open you up... )
Thankful for family and my integrative Doc not letting me drag my feet on this -
Thankful for God opening an appointment with my integrative Doc just an hour after I left the
urologist! (coincidence? I think not! God? definitely!)
Thankful for his insight - for him running tests that Western medicine does not run.
for him asking questions that are seemingly random to try and figure things out.
Thankful for his advice to pray about things, and for closing our appointment in prayer.
Thankful that perhaps some of the pain I am having is from this kidney and not the hernia.
(which the CT scan did not show!!! oh brother!)
Thankful for Pauline, the scheduler, who is working so hard to get me in.
Thankful for prayer warriors who will lift us up!
While I was at the integrative Doc - a friend messaged me the above -- God timing, I would say!
Thankful for a God who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.....
As I ran around all afternoon to get medication, pick up the needed kits for lab tests, run to the grocery to get the food that I'm supposed to substitute in as I take other stuff out and tried to get on with what I had planned for today -- I was really frustrated and feeling sorry for myself. I'm trying so hard to not fight God's timing and trust in the story he is writing.
That is really hard to do. It involves a lot of self talk and kleenex!
Oh the joy of the lordIt will be my strengthWhen the pressure is onHe's making, he's making He's making diamonds, diamondsMaking us rise up from the dustHe is refining in his timing He's making diamonds out of dustMaking diamonds out of us
https://youtu.be/Yf1ARbpB0gA
Hawk Nelson's Diamonds is great! "Refining in his timing!"
God is never early - or late.... If I could just accept that!
Thank y'all for praying and for the nice messages and comments --I am profoundly thankful for you! Don't know how I'd do it without you!
Thanks for checkin in!
CT scan last Friday - appointment Tues to get results
Digestive issues for the last week :(
Blessed to spend time with family - the best kind of medicine
Continuing to battle demons of fear and negativity
Nothing like trying to maintain protocols when you are on the road! Fortunately, I was charmingly distracted by our grand-daughter!
After the CT scan, I got diarrhea that has lasted all week - even waking me up multiple times at night - every night -- and sleep is such an important protocol.......
To try and get that under control, I have systematically removed supplements....Not what I really want to do - but the best option under the circumstances. My holistic doc recommended which to remove first -- Thankful for his help. My nutritionist had added in a few things to help with some supplement side effects - and I stopped those also -- trying to get back to even. My cold laser therapist said that the CT could have knocked my adrenals out, triggering the diarrhea. Hopefully seeing him Monday will help!
In the spirit of transparency, and so perhaps someone else can gain insight into what cancer patients may struggle with, I will once again venture into total transparency.
When you take lots of supplements, some of which have the main goal of detoxing -- there are bound to be issues. One of the issues that nobody really talks about is bad gas. Well let me tell you -- it is life changing! As you may guess, not in a good way either!
We are talking about stomach rolling, gut strangling, growling, rolling, noisy gas that when it finally gets through my system is positively the worst smelling gas you could imagine. Imagine rotten eggs left for 3 days in a container on the deck in 105 degree heat... that is close to how bad it is. If I go outside, I have to be careful which way the wind is blowing (no pun intended!) lest the neighbors report a sewer leak! If I fart in a room with windows open on 2 sides and come back into the room 1/2 an hour later-- you can still smell it!
Now for some - this might be a matter of pride---
As one who never, ever heard her mom fart, and was trained strictly that gas is impolite - this is not easy for me to deal with!
This started about a month or so ago and made the tweaking of protocols more necessary as you can imagine, since I am going for quality of life and offending your friends is not good quality!
So there you go -- a new tidbit for you to think about. So if you are with a cancer patient and you can hear their stomach growl/roll from across the room - have pity on them! It is painful and embarassing!
In addition, it's really hard to know how to tweak the supplements because I am fighting for my life.....Everything I take out means I am not fighting the cancer as strongly -- even tho I may not smell as strongly.....(lol)
Domino effect - this makes the demons of fear attack super hard -- the devil sure knows where to strike! It is so easy to slip into the "what if I am really dying and just kidding myself that everything I've done is making a difference?"
Trying to keep the visualization of the supplement "pac-men" gobbling up the cancer cells is a struggle when you smell vaguely like a morgue.
Trying to remind myself that God is my healer - Jehovah Raphah-- that He is all- powerful and he can do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. At the same time, trying to be submissive to his will for my life - no matter what that road is......
It is very difficult to pray consistently - Your will Lord. It is even more difficult to pray that in the face of my lovely grand-daughter! I cannot help but wonder how much of her life I will see. Can you understand the difficulty balancing all of that and praising God in the storm at the same time? It takes all that I have--but when I am tired i wonder if it is the cancer winning or just weariness from the battle....
Praying for good results on my kidney CT scan
Thankful the weather is good so I can open windows!
Thankful for my wonderful family - for the words of life that they speak
"your gonna outlive us all with all this healthy eating" and "we'll just write you a long term
care policy in a few more years"
Thankful for God's words of life - My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness.
Thankful for all of you checkin' in!
CT scan last Friday - appointment Tues to get results
Digestive issues for the last week :(
Blessed to spend time with family - the best kind of medicine
Continuing to battle demons of fear and negativity
Nothing like trying to maintain protocols when you are on the road! Fortunately, I was charmingly distracted by our grand-daughter!
After the CT scan, I got diarrhea that has lasted all week - even waking me up multiple times at night - every night -- and sleep is such an important protocol.......
To try and get that under control, I have systematically removed supplements....Not what I really want to do - but the best option under the circumstances. My holistic doc recommended which to remove first -- Thankful for his help. My nutritionist had added in a few things to help with some supplement side effects - and I stopped those also -- trying to get back to even. My cold laser therapist said that the CT could have knocked my adrenals out, triggering the diarrhea. Hopefully seeing him Monday will help!
In the spirit of transparency, and so perhaps someone else can gain insight into what cancer patients may struggle with, I will once again venture into total transparency.
When you take lots of supplements, some of which have the main goal of detoxing -- there are bound to be issues. One of the issues that nobody really talks about is bad gas. Well let me tell you -- it is life changing! As you may guess, not in a good way either!
We are talking about stomach rolling, gut strangling, growling, rolling, noisy gas that when it finally gets through my system is positively the worst smelling gas you could imagine. Imagine rotten eggs left for 3 days in a container on the deck in 105 degree heat... that is close to how bad it is. If I go outside, I have to be careful which way the wind is blowing (no pun intended!) lest the neighbors report a sewer leak! If I fart in a room with windows open on 2 sides and come back into the room 1/2 an hour later-- you can still smell it!
Now for some - this might be a matter of pride---
As one who never, ever heard her mom fart, and was trained strictly that gas is impolite - this is not easy for me to deal with!
This started about a month or so ago and made the tweaking of protocols more necessary as you can imagine, since I am going for quality of life and offending your friends is not good quality!
So there you go -- a new tidbit for you to think about. So if you are with a cancer patient and you can hear their stomach growl/roll from across the room - have pity on them! It is painful and embarassing!
In addition, it's really hard to know how to tweak the supplements because I am fighting for my life.....Everything I take out means I am not fighting the cancer as strongly -- even tho I may not smell as strongly.....(lol)
Domino effect - this makes the demons of fear attack super hard -- the devil sure knows where to strike! It is so easy to slip into the "what if I am really dying and just kidding myself that everything I've done is making a difference?"
Trying to keep the visualization of the supplement "pac-men" gobbling up the cancer cells is a struggle when you smell vaguely like a morgue.
Trying to remind myself that God is my healer - Jehovah Raphah-- that He is all- powerful and he can do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. At the same time, trying to be submissive to his will for my life - no matter what that road is......
It is very difficult to pray consistently - Your will Lord. It is even more difficult to pray that in the face of my lovely grand-daughter! I cannot help but wonder how much of her life I will see. Can you understand the difficulty balancing all of that and praising God in the storm at the same time? It takes all that I have--but when I am tired i wonder if it is the cancer winning or just weariness from the battle....
Praying for good results on my kidney CT scan
Thankful the weather is good so I can open windows!
Thankful for my wonderful family - for the words of life that they speak
"your gonna outlive us all with all this healthy eating" and "we'll just write you a long term
care policy in a few more years"
Thankful for God's words of life - My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness.
Thankful for all of you checkin' in!
Feeling good - energy good
Good appointment with nutritionist -
Need CT for kidney - Ultrasound did not show enough for the Doc to see.
Low abdomen pain - hoping it is hernia pain...
Summer scheduling is challenging!
The nutritionist was really happy with how well I was doing with my supplements and protocols. Having my little check off chart helps keep me on track and shows her how faithful I am being (she still wants to see more meditation and yoga tho -lol!)
My antioxidants continue to climb - up to 70,000 up from 64,000! This is important because antioxidants are what turn the cancer genes off! Yay!!
She said that my blood was very clean and moving well! Plaque was down and there was just a tiny bit of candida. The supplement that supports my liver is working to process all the saturated fats that come in, which is what made my plaque go down! So thankful! She added some digestive enzymes to help with all this also. A shot of B 12 was recommended in addition to what I take to help with digestion, strengthen blood and against cancer. She suggested that I increase my omega 3's a bit also.
Very exciting news - my eating repertoir is broader now! Very very thankful for that!
I can have more fruits now - (it had just been berries for the antioxidants) Apples, strawberries, watermelon, mango, grapes, peaches, plums- oh my! I am so happy! She did give very specific amounts so I don't go nuts - but this will make my shakes so much better!!!
Even more exciting for this girl is that I can have very lean beef once in a while!! Happy dance!!! No porterhouse or rib eye - but sirloin or flank is ok!!! It's amazing how exciting that is!!
Not so great news - CT scan required - which means a blood draw before hand as well. This is not that bad - just was trying to stay away from excess radiation.... However - it does put off my appointment with the surgeon, which was to be tomorrow. I was hoping for an "It's all good" about my kidney and ureter. Have to wait for that now.
Have been having gut pain at the end of the day-- presuming that its pain from my hernia. Was given a gift of a lymphatic drainage massage at a clinic that works solely with cancer patients. What a great learning experience! She thought that perhaps the hernia belt was cutting into me more than I thought and causing the pain and suggested I not wear it -- Not sure about that - but trying to tweak it again to fit better. When I said it hurt at the end of the day, she really made me laugh by saying, " well get off your feet then!!" Why can we sometimes not see the forest for the trees? That sounds great to say, but it is really hard to accomplish all the domestic stuff before it hurts and still have a life!
She is putting me in contact with a program that hopefully my oncologist will sign off on and will be paid for by insurance. Through that I would be able to get training on how to move my lymph system that will not aggravate my hernia (jumping on the rebounder trampoline is probably not helping a lot) Praying that my oncologist approves that.
Realizing that scheduling follow up appointments can be challenging as doctors take vacations also :) Timing blood draws close enough, but not too close is an art form - lol. So is getting enough supplements but not turning into a warehouse! Guess God's forcing me to work on my logistics abilities (haha)
I am very thankful -
for technology that will tell me if the pain is my kidney
acting up or my hernia
that the detoxing is working
for dear friends that stay close despite geographic
and time zone challenges
for the beautiful weather that we have - not too hot -
not too cool -- just right! what a gift!!
to see how many people want bracelets! Thank you!
(Todd has bracelets on his desk if you are at Olu)
for all of you!
Thanks for checkin' in!
I probably will post about 1- 2 x week since things are kind of in a routine now.
Weight and energy holding!
Traveled, visited with friends and celebrated a wedding!
Continuing practicing protocols and tweaking them for traveling
Oasis of Hope interview complete - praying for wisdom
Getting referral for hernia
Doing test to see how much heavy metal I have in my body
If you did not get your bracelet, or you would like a bracelet please message me!
I did not have a peaceful feeling about Oasis of Hope. They cancelled one phone call and were almost 2 hours late when we finally did connect. They will require me to do a PET scan as a baseline to see if what they do works. Not a fan of the PET scan because of the sugar solution used to light up the screen. (Sugar feeds cancer) The big upside about them is that they will due multiple avenues of attack including but not limited to laetril, IV Vit C, and K and hypothermia. The broad spectrum of attack has great appeal. The price tag and the 3 week time commitment does not have great appeal. Praying for wisdom!
Was blessed to visit St Louis briefly and see a few friends and celebrate a wedding! (Was really touched that the mother of the groom wore my bracelet even with her beautiful, formal dress! That was so sweet! ) The excursion did not wear me out too badly, though I could tell I had done more than usual! Recovering was fun in the company of an out of town friend :) -- again it was not too taxing for me and it was great girlfriend time!
When you spend time with old friends that have seen you through a lot, sometimes they see things that you cannot see. One friend gently and kindly poked and prodded a bit about why I was grumpy. The teary result of that conversation was the realization that I was sad -- and had been so busy with research and protocols that I had not really grieved the huge change in my life.....
Yes I had cried -- 3 times to be exact! I had numbed the pain by being busy. There is always more stuff to research (thanks for all the suggestions you send me!) Streamlining the long list of protocols that I do is an ongoing quest. It is much more comfortable to be busy than to feel the pain of loss....
She lovingly pointed out that we all need to grieve changes in our lives -- even good changes!
A new job is great and exciting, but sometimes there are things from the old job that you will miss. Same with a move - starting a new school year - getting married or divorced- switching from working days to working nights - having your child get married, divorced, move or get sick --getting a stage IV cancer diagnosis.
I never thought about it -- My mode of coping is "Put your head down and work hard. Do everything the doctors tell you as well as you can. Don't spend a lot of time on what was, because there's no point in dwelling there. You can't change it anyway!"
The walk down memory lane in St Louis was a perfect set up for this!
The flaw with this attitude is that I did not really grieve the enormity of this all. I was too busy figuring out what to do! My grumpy attitude was the Spirit nudging me saying -
"You have unfinished business here--part of your discontent, anger and frustration over your diet has to do with your sadness....This is part of your healing..."
"Who, me????"
"Yes my child - you - Queen of the "feel no pain by staying busy" approach to coping"
"But it hurts to think about"
"Yes - but I have sent you friends to help you in your pain"
"Thank you-------But God it's not fair! How come I have stage IV cancer and other people who've abused their bodies in every imaginable way are just fine??? It's not fair!!!"
"Perhaps - it is not your place to judge"
"We've worked so hard to get this far! We've been responsible - paid our bills - saved for retirement --- and all for what? Not to be together? How is that fair God?"
{Praying I do not get struck by lightening writing this}
"It sucks to think about not being together - about not getting to go see our kids and grandkids! and what about Todd going it alone? God-- are you listening???? I'm screaming at you! It's just not fair!"
"What do you know about heaven or ...... earth? "(Job 38:33)
"Nothing - but why should I have to give up my coffee, steak, hamburgers, wine, moritz muffins, home made bread, oatmeal cookies, and peanut butter cookies - when other people can be overweight, not exercise, eat and drink lots of whatever they want and they are just fine? Why God? Why me? They can just eat anything -- not me - no! I have to bring along my stupid little lunch box.....God?"
"If I want them to eat whatever they want until I return, what is that to you? " (John 21:22)"and besides that I gave you a very cute lunch box! It matches your outfit -- Don't you like it?"
"Yes I like it, but I don't like having to use it!!! It's hard! It takes so much planning just to go to diner! Look up the restaurant - check out the menu - fix a meal to take along ----
And flying is a real chore - there is nothing healthy at an airport! Yes I'm whining - but God it's just not fair -- I haven't drunk soda for like 30 years - and I ate really pretty well - maybe too many sweets and too much wine, but I stayed in fairly decent shape and by comparison to others, I was not that bad!! What's up with this?
This is not what I expected to be doing at just 55 years old! I loved my life the way it was - getting to travel with my husband - work in the book section at the thrift store -mentor young women - bible study - Mom's Life - God appointments with whomever you put in my path -- nothing is the same anymore! I am not happy about this God!!! It's just not fair!!!
"I understand..."
"I wanted to be able to still volunteer with Todd - for the kingdom! Why are you changing it on me??"
"It is not your place to judge! Don't you know that I love you and am working for your good. Don't miss the blessings I send you because you judge them to be curses! Don't miss the beauty in your situation- the ways I have provided for you! If you would look at all the blessings instead of whining, you would feel better!"
"I don't wanna! If you loved me - I'd be able to do all I wanted to! How come others get to do all their fun things and eat great food drink whatever they want and I can't? "
"Perhaps the pace of your life was not the way I designed you to live. Perhaps I know you will live more happily/effectively this way. Perhaps you will spend more time with me - I miss our time together! "
Tears are actually healing. They release toxins. Hoping I am less toxic now.
Romans 8:28 says "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose." I need to "Be still and know that He is God!" from Ps 46:10
Thankful for friends that speak truth into my life. Thankful for you!
Thanks for checkin in!
